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I always thought that he specifically targeted the train to create a distraction. All police attention would be diverted to this emergency and not looking for him. Also, they would be farther away from M. As far as Bond's impeccable timing of showing up at that exact moment, it was just icing on the cake for Silva. I wouldn't hope that it was supposed to be part of the master plan.
I always thought so too way after I had seen the movie, but it is an answer that the fans had to come up with as Mendes & co failed to deliver us a reason with perhaps the idea that it looked cool so perhaps people would overlook the reasoning behind it.
In Die Hard with a vengeance the attack on the tube train served a clear purpose which we find out in due time. With SF they left to much to the imagination of the viewer and while the average 007 fan is smart enough I found it lazy scripting by the makers. One simple line mentioning something would make some sense and throughout SF they seemed to refuse that. For me to many things made no sense and adding them up took me straight out of me zone of enjoyment which is the first time in 007 movie I had that.
Pretty much what I was going to say. If a terrorist atrocity is a diversion, that's a pretty big plot point, but watching SF you wouldn't get that impression. For that scene to have some kind of dramatic impact beyond it being a mere set-piece, I'd preferably want to see that the tube train was in use, not an empty shell and some genuine cross-cutting between, the inquiry, Bond running and the site of the atrocity, people spilling out of the station etc. It would also have made sense to have people filtering out of the inquiry and at least some whispered mention within it that such an attack had taken place. As it is, we just see the train crash, some cops in the back of shot as Silva drives away and then that's it. I just think the whole thing could be more coherently told.
Just a few of these from my favorite Bond films:
TB: The master plan is to get a guy a complete facelift so he can fly a plane? It's preposterous. The better way to do it is simply blackmail the pilot into doing what they want. And it's just a coincidence that Bond is at the same health clinic?
GF: What would have happened if there were a major storm or front or windy day when Goldfinger was launching his attack? Did he plan for this? I mean, leaving it up to a gas drop to knock out every living thing within a mile radius of Fort Knox is a pretty stupid plan. As is the idea that he can corner the gold market...from federal prison, which is where he'd end up. And Pussy telling the authorities of Goldfinger's plan is a twist and we didn't see any evidence that she would turn. Where/how did Goldfinger hire all those men to help him at Fort Knox? (Likewise in nearly every Bond film, there are legions of men somehow devoted to the cause who will sacrifice life and limb simply because a man tells them to. They'd better be getting paid handsomely. Even if they were, what kind of life do they have? They live in volcanoes and on ships.)
And it should be mentioned: crushing a sedan into a 24-inch cube, that can just be placed in the back of an El Dorado, simply can't be done. And good luck removing a bar of gold from it. So why didn't Odd Job simply take the gold ahead of time?
A laser beam to the crotch? Really?
YOLT: SPECTRE manages to carve out a volcano (a major excavation) without the Japanese government noticing?
CR: Vesper's role is never fully explained. If she was working on behalf of the organization (to be known as Quantum), did LeChiffre know this? If he did, then why the hell was he sweating losing the card game if he knew he'd get the money anyway with the help of Vesper? If not, why not? When LeChiffre says to Mr. White "I'll get you the money," it would seem everyone KNOWS Quantum is going to get the money.
FRWL: Grant is a hired assassin, given explicit instructions to kill Bond. So, upon the moment he has Bond, he decides instead to have a conversation? Much of the franchise has now been lampooned for this (see above comment on GF). And it was lampooned in the Austin Powers films, especially when Scott Evil screams with frustration to just shoot Austin dead instead of coming up with an elaborate plan.
AVTAK: The plot is a rip-off from Superman: The Movie. Zorin's plan is basically the same as Lex Luther's.
And this is just stuff off the top of my head.
SF is no different. We are asked to accept things on faith. If you aren't willing to do so in SF, then how did you make it through the previous 22 films without losing your mind? ;)
But to get back on topic, "Is Skyfall suddenly losing its gloss and appeal?": yes, apparently it does, or at least on this forum it seems to be the case. We can go on until doomsday discussing the DB5, twists or plot holes, but that doesn't change the way people seem to think about SF.
The thing is: since DC took over, the reboot was supposed to portray a more realistic/plausible Bond and universe. It's in that area that Skyfall seems to disappoint. Next, SF doesn't hold up as "The best Bond ever" among the people who post here. More importantly: while Skyfall was meant as a "Bond with a capital B"(DC), some folks around here think the movie fails to deliver that ('forced appearance' of the '64 DB5, lack of Bond theme, absence of gunbarrel).
A lot of people did like SF and I guess the movie was a nice tie-in with 50 years 007. Unfortunately, I think Skyfall was more a movie for the larger audience than it was for die hard fans. That being said, I don't mean you can't be a die hard fan if you do like Skyfall.
That being said, I'm not impressed with the amount of time these movies take to get made and such errors aren't thwarted. Mendes spoke about so many things he wished he could have changed and rectified for SF which is fair enough but wuth a 3 year gap and mere months to overhaul the script it addresses a few points; one, 3+ year gaps aren't essential and in no way guarantees anything to perfect the script and two, with the script being somewhat finalised at the 11th hour what potential leaps in logic than can be avoided may end up I'm SP?
I appreciate people do get infuriated with some of the silliness and it's more than understandable but for myself at least, I try not to let it bother me too much if it's not that painfully jarring to me. These are Bond films; they're absolutely ridiculous but we love them and I hope we never lose sight of that. I hope with Mendes getting his toe wet with SF I hope SP makes up for all of SF shortcomings.
True, the facelift is a stretch, but Bond being at the same clinic - now that's not a stretch.
Actually, I don't have a problem with anything you wrote there about GF. It still doesn't stray as far as Bond being shot twice and falling at a height that would kill anyone outright, forgetting the bulk of the plot mistakes that followed later in SF.
I'm not a huge fan of YOLT, but nope. I don't have a problem with this one either.
Both of these examples are adapted from the Fleming books, and if you read these plots within the context of the books, they make absolute 100% perfect sense, so no problems there either.
Again, I'm not a massive fan of this film either, but with regards your Lex Luthor fault-finding, I actually have no problems there either. I can't really see the comparison with SF.
Two main reasons -
1) Partly because the context of certain previous Bond films (particularly Moore and Brosnan eras) were often more a fun, OTT romp, rather than a supposed serious, dark, espionage-style thriller, so you take the films for what they are, and don't read too much into them. Even then, the plots were fairly watertight, even with Bond in space, or volcanoes in japan. When you start attaching a certain level of realism into Bond's world, suddenly the parameters have changed, as do our attitudes towards it.
2) The plot holes in SF are fairly major, even against the light-hearted Moore and Brosnan films, with too many moments that are really questionable, and totally baffle the audience.
This is a good point, as they decided against a foot chase between Bond and Silva on the island at the last minute.
Silva's escape, that is another matter entirely. That he escapes, I can buy it. That he messes up the computer systems again, I can buy it. It is far fetched, but in character. That he overpowers the guards, I can even buy it: they were off guard (excuse the bad pun) and, while Silva was not an elite 00 operative, he must have had some basic training, coupled with the energy and drive of madness. It is that everything so easily falls into pieces, as he intended, that I find difficult to buy. Too many variables that he couldn't have foreseen just works the way he wanted. It could have been explained, the problem is that it wasn't. I still love SF, but the last act is too contrived. Like many stories written by Logan, the plot gets muddled up and plausibility is thrown in favour of dramatic impact.
You are so right! Ultimately those of us who enjoy the film in spite of it's flaws are going to keep on enjoying it. I can't see it moving out of my top 10 anytime soon. I think a lot of this criticism stems from a frustration that some feel for the admiration SF received upon release. If you happened to not like the film, months of 'best bond ever' hype must have been very tiresome, so now there is a hardened group who hold a stringently negative view. Personally I think that the film is neither the best of the series or a overrated piece of trash. It's just a very impressive outing with great artistic merit. A fab watch.
mmm, I think you meant "neither the best of the series," etc. But we are in agreement beyond that small point. Thanks for the kind words, @Mendes4Lyfe!
It was indeed an error and has been fixed, cheers ;)
Once again, this is using the "double standards" rhetorics, which is totally inappropriate IMO. If you start to compare any artwork to another to judge, then you're in trouble, because in the end, with the effect of transitivity, probably you can prove there is not a single movie that is worth being watched, or that all the music creators are thiefs who steal from XVIIIth century music, etc, etc.
I must note though, that many SF defenders often feel the need to criticize all the past Bond movies... Maybe we'll see the rise of "Skyfall fans" who are not Bond fans :)
About the "double standards" : Yes, this is ridiculous to imagine you could kill Bond with an hockey team, and even more ridiculous that he manages to dispatch them, and even weirder that what follows is a scene in which Bond discovers his dead collegue, we go from silly kids movie to drama in one second. It's hard to explain, and there's probably no explanation anyway, but FYEO is just that kind of movie where you don't really care about the deep logic of the plot. The parrot giving Bond the name of the lair is even pure Hitchcock : ridiculous on the paper, and it works on screen, you can't tell why.
On the other hand, SF is not the same kind of movie as FYEO. Let's say it looks, hm, more pretentious. And I'm a specialist in things that are pretentious :) So somehow it can't get away easily with big plotholes and inconsistent behavior of the characters. Although Logan/Mendes changed the motivation of several characters of SF in the first drafts of SP, so SP should have acted a bit like a plothole filler of SF, but now it's all forgotten...
[And I should add that the big plotholes of SF are not the reason #1 why for me it's a mid-range, low-range Bond movie, but of course it doesn't help much]
Because the Craig era does such a brilliant job of packing in pathos, dimensional characterization and thematic content, these films become more than entertainment and quickly resemble a character study of Bond and his world. Many of the reasons why those like myself can forgive this era's flaws is because we respect and appreciate just how much work EON and co. have put into making these films true pieces of art. Don't get me wrong, I love watching the other, more over the top Bond films too, but they don't fulfill the same desire the Craig era films do. When I get done watching TSWLM for example, my adrenaline quota may be met, but intellectually, I'm empty. It might've been a great way to waste a few hours, but afterwards I'm not going to be mulling over what I saw with any kind of passion, contemplating the motives of Bond or the villain and other complex issues until I become sleepless. However, it's after I watch CR, QoS and Skyfall that I get both the adrenaline and meaty intellectual contemplation, especially the latter. These films afford me so much to examine and analyze long after I've seen them, including why Bond did what he did at one moment, and what the look on his face meant emotionally in that one scene and what that tells us about him and his motivations. Dan is so skilled with character acting and subtlety that these little moments full of subtle expression changes and flickers in the eye become real parts of analysis. He gives Bond so many layers that he feels more human than ever before, as do the many performers who've made up the rest of the brilliant casts that've called his era home.
In conclusion...
Is Skyfall perfect? No, and neither is any other film out there, especially some of the films that make up this franchise. But the reason I keep returning to the films of the Craig era and the reason why I am so forgiving of each of them is because they make my mind spark alive like no other Bond films out there. They fulfill for me drives that no other Bond films before them have, which makes them very special for me.
And that seems to be the underlying issue for SF's naysayers. You let the cat out of the bag right there.
Craig is admittingly a great actor but after CR, which is a great popcorn movie that mishandled Vesper death imho, we got a Bourne copy and then a movie whose content and visual aspect did not match each other at all. The only intellectual exercise one gets from the last two 007 movies is trying to work out what the heck is going on with the internal logic of the movies, the actionscenes in Quantum of Bourne are wee bit off and as for the internal logic in the script of SF it has been discussed before but is easily ignored by the Craigfans because he is such an awesome Bond. that last bit is beyond any discussion for me. But like Brosnan before the movies since his first have not become any better while his version of 007 does go from strength to strength.
The complaint about the weakness in SF is the internal logic in the script, in that sense the other Bondmovies are much better because TSWLM has a story that works even if it is fantastic. the same applies to MR. YOLT or even DAD. All of them make internal more sense than the story of SF. And that the movie is not beautifully shot has never been in discussion either it is however one of the first Bonds that has really got a poor script and as such is a huge disappointment for me as fan of the franchise.
No need to be condescending. We were all having a great back and forth, but you just had to send out a jab.
It's certainly a watershed moment. The choice they made to delve into Bond's past was not something you'd expect from a Bond film. It seems like SP will continue that trend. How they go about that could ultimately redefine how people look at and make Bond movies in the future. Whether that's a good thing is up for debate.
Casino Royale was the real game changer imho SF just had a big BO going for it and it frankly still baffles me why. Do not take me wrong I am happy that my favorite franchise is doing well but if Mendes will not be able to deliver with SP, the next director will have an easy job if he does do a FYEO kind of movie which puts 007 back were he belongs. A spy in a spy action movie.
I am sorry but you were condescending first about the people that do not necessarily enjoy the Craig movies and on the promise of CR feel shortchanged with the last two movies. So you feel intellectually better than the SC, GL, RM, TD & PB movies have ever offered you.
SO no it it is not a jab but a serious criticism on you being a JB fan, brought in a nice way I though. You Sir, are Craig fan which is a different beastie than the 007 fan. And I do not say that it is a wrong thing but do not be condescending about people that do give serious attempts to make you SF fans see why we are disappointed. All we get back is you miss the underlying themes, it is a beautiful shot movie, and you do not understand it [as in intellectual =)) ]. People like me have genuine and correct critism on the course of the franchise and its last two directors and what they delivered but none of it is taken serious and if somebody criticizes you for being a wee bit blind we get the hurt and haters speech.
I do miss the Brosnan era were even the defenders of Brosnan did not take such an offense to the nay-sayers, it seemed to be more relaxed and people could see that the discussion was about an Spy action series. Today the schism seems to be more like that if you do not like Craig and/or his work as 007 you are a hater.
I want Craig to get better coherent movies, he deserves them but perhaps he is kind of the motor behind it all and in that case I will admire his CR and hope sincerely that SP will be he swansong before he buggers off.
1.) I certainly don't need someone to tell me what kind of fan I am, especially when they know jack about me.
2.) We all understand and see why you and others are underwhelmed by Skyfall. Honestly, we often hear it night and day, so it'd be nearly impossible not to be aware of it at this point. I'd like to think we've had a nice debate here and there where both sides came to an understanding. I've enjoyed the discussions, especially when that discourse isn't broken up by measuring contents and cruel words. Why you feel like nobody is aware of your thoughts on the film is beyond me. Trust me, we get it. We really get it.
3.) I wouldn't generalize all Skyfall fans as people who would chop off your head if you so much as disagree. There's this notion that we were all through the moon with Skyfall at release, dazed and drunk on it, so much so that it was praised as the best of all Bonds, but for me, this isn't the case. It was a film I enjoyed, but other adventures like CR proved to be far superior, as it just fit my tastes and had elements that really struck me; Dan's debut, Eva Green and a brilliant modern-day Fleming adaptation being some of those elements. With this in mind, it seems quite counter-productive to chew someone's head off for not liking Skyfall as much as I did. I and many others realized from jump it wasn't perfect, yet we're all painted as supremacy thirsting hotheads that run amok every time someone criticizes the film.
There's also a stain of hypocrisy here too, because while you are painting yourself and those of your ilk as a misunderstood party that we, the Skyfall proponents apparently don't take seriously and criticize, you are dealing to us the same response. We too have been laughed out the door for our thoughts on the film, though they are no more incorrect than yours. When we engage in debates, we are not taken seriously in the same amount as you are as well, though some try to play up the drama to create a disparity for one side over the other. We could all do to be more civil, starting by severing the playground antics and cheeky emoticons that serve no greater good in our arguments beyond prickly quarreling.
4.) And I still don't like the idea of being laughed at for finding the Craig era intellectually stimulating. That's the condescending behavior I was referring to, if you hadn't noticed. It's an element many like myself enjoy in these movies, and it's why we like Skyfall as much as we do. Heaven forbid we enjoy a break from the constant action, explosions and gunfire that nearly made the series parody beforehand. Looking back at the franchise before the Craig era there's so much potential with Bond that was lost, even as recent as the late Brosnan era. It's frustrating to see all the depth that could've been added if EON and co. didn't go for the dimensionless way out that afforded more action porn for audiences. In the Craig era we finally got a character full of deep flaws and subtlety, something we got a brilliant but short taste of in the Dalton era. Why it took so long to arrive, I haven't the faintest clue, but the farther away we stray from how the franchise was handled in the Moore era and in some of the Brosnan films, the more satisfied I will be.
I laugh at you when you really enjoy a badly scripted movie with no internal logic whatsoever and you call it intellectually stimulating.
What I would agree with you is the Craigs era and how they approach the character 007 as it has not done before in that you will find me a compagnion on a quest. But that said as a movie there is simply to much wrong in its basic storytelling and how they arrive at certain moments which is where you create something smart and intelligent instead of an illogical mess that takes too much away from this movie. Like with QoB the idea was sound to begin with but something went wrong with the director, editors and writers involved.
For me Craigs promise from CR has not been delivered with SF, just the opposite it makes earlier 007 movies look like better work.
I wish that they had started with a decent scriptwriter that wrote a logical story, with SF that might have been a far easier task as it does have interesting components we just lacked a writer and director who failed to make a cohesive construction of it.
For me the Craig franchise tells me it is going to be more real and fails to deliver for me mostly due to his directors and amateur writers.
ANd I do not mind that the franchise moves away from the Moore and Brosnan years even though they did deliver in their times. That said for me FYEO is still a more intelligent and Fleming based movie as either of Craigs last two. What I always liked in the Fleming novels was the brotherhood of men which Fleming could easily tell us about it made James Bond a mans man. FYEO has that in droves with Columbo and 007 and it uses some unused bits of Fleming and makes it an intelligent and smart spy actioner [yes, the movies has its laurel & hardy moments but with Moore nobody has ever done that better].
@0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 I do like you opinions on 007 and generally read them as you tend to have something interesting to offer and I do understand what you like in the Craig movies. Only Dalton has the better scripted ones and Craig gets very handicapped by pretentious directors which in my opinion are both Mendes and Forster.
I will perhaps break your heart with this next but if we want to get a smart movie I believe Craig should sit down with Fincher and ask him to do a fifth movie, and get a scriptwriter outside of the 007franchise to see if we can get some really new blood pumping in those old veins. Preferably somebody who has read Fleming, Carre, Silva, Cumming & Lee.
Simply because I want a great action movie with depth and a great tale for my franchise.
It is painfull to see that Cruise in his series is able to refresh and make the series personal and that really makes me want to see the next MI movie more than I want to see SP. I am just not too much a glutton for punishment.
By the way great response of yours and I picked only the obvious one to respond too.
With an actor like DC it makes sense to try and flesh out the character, but even he alone can add an extra dimension whether it's on the page or in the direction, or not. That's what I like best about his portrayal.
What worried me with SF, as opposed to CR and QoS, and what I'm a little concerned about with SP, is the familial angle and the fleshing out of his childhood. They rode a fine line in SF and just about got away with it imo. I wasn't a huge fan of it, but as a one-off I thought, 'I can handle this', it makes SF quite an idiosyncratic picture. I did genuinely think we'd see this glimpse and then it would be put to bed, we move on, but it seems SP may explore the depths of this childhood trauma even further. I've got to say, that doesn't fill me with joy.
I'll give SP the benefit of the doubt and see where they go with it, but as with SF, I hope the now 'connected' story doesn't have too many melodramatic repercussions down the line. There's so much that can be done with 'character' that doesn't involve looking backwards, or tying characters together, just look at CR and QoS. I don't think Bond should get too retrospective or heaven forbid stray into multi-verse territory where all the characters are in each others pockets.
Re. straying away from RM and Brosnan, I agree with you. I say this as a RM and Broz fan, RM and his films are my favourites, but I like different interpretations of the character, I like it when they mix things up. I guess this is again why SF niggles at me, by reintroducing a few things I would consider staples of both those eras. If the rumours are to be believed
My ideal scenario would be for them to ignore attempts to inject anything too overtly self-referential and keep the drama firmly away from melodrama. Don't let any member of the cast or crew be hamstrung by a sense history, or nostalgia.
That is a very valid point @SaintMark.
SF is exciting popcorn entertainment with some interesting overriding themes, as I've said before. I enjoy the movie immensely. It certainly has more depth than some of the mid 90's reboot necessitating hammy EON garbage in particular.
However, I too would like a little less self serving reflection and a bit more of the spy in the spy as it were.
I realize many love SF (as do I) but let's not kid ourselves - it's not in the same league as the incomparable FRWL, which remains the benchmark on how to deliver a tightly scripted hardcore 007 movie imho. I'd prefer them to get back to that sort of thing (even though I realize it may not make as much money so it likely won't happen, sadly). I'd say in the recent past they probably got closest with CR.