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I agree @BAIN123. The score is very good in that scene & has an understated sense of foreboding to it.
I also liked the psych test scene, the Silva intro scene, M/Bond in her apartment, Bond/MP at MI6 HQ, M/Mallory in his office, Silva/M at MI6 HQ, & Q/Bond at the Art Gallery for similar reasons. All of these scenes give some quality insight into the characters in them, rather impactfully. That's something SF does very well, I think.
Tony, I'm pretty sure the villain wins in Casino Royale too; Vesper successfully betrays Bond, dies, and Quantum gets their money via Mr. White.
Which I only mention because he says CR is his favourite post-Connery Bond film, but then knocks Skyfall, one reason for which was because the villain wins.
I respect his opinion and agree with some of his comments but what I completely disagree with is him saying what's the point of the film if tge villain wins. I don't care who the hero/protagonist is in a film but I like to see the villain's win from time to time or at least win battles if not the war.
I agree, I almost wondered if @Getafix was the one being interviewed, not Horowitz.
He set out to kill her like rats in a........... nobody wins.
So Silva did win and 007 had better stayed dead for all the good he did, he only delayed the outcome.
That wasn't his mission, though. His mission was to embarrass her and destroy her professionally before she died, which he accomplished 100%.
But by that standard, his mission was accomplished 20 minutes into the film. Make no mistake: HE wanted to kill her. He didn't get to. He didn't even know she was mortally wounded. He was thwarted by Bond.
His end game, though, was for M to die after her humiliation, which was accomplished.
You're both dead wrong, as is Horowitz. The hatred for the film has blinded you to it, wanting SO BAD to believe Bond "lost" to "Silva" to realize that M's death was 100% PERSONAL to Silva. He wanted to kill her, which is why he instructed his men not to kill her. "Listen everybody. Don't dare touch her. She's mine."
I repeat: "Don't dare touch her. She's mine."
Silva did not win. He didn't get his wish.
I can accept a lot of criticism on SF, but not this one.
But then he goes on to say, "Bond is weak in [Skyfall]. He has doubts. That’s not Bond."
Um, well, Mr. Horowitz...
As with any interesting character ever created in fiction, a character's doubts drives him or her to what will eventually be their ultimate change at the end of a story. If a character does not have second thoughts about a tough decision, big or small, how are they supposed to evolve? Where is the suspense if a character is always 100% sure that his/her choice is right? To me, a character who is always sure of themselves is going to make for one hell of a bore. They are entirely predictable.
So maybe Horowitz chose his words poorly when he used the phrase "he has doubts" in a negative context. You know another film character with doubts? Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) from Pulp Fiction. (He has doubts throughout the film about whether he should continue his work as a hitman.) Was Jules Winnfield a weak character? Was he a weak man as portrayed in the film? I don't think so.
I'm kind of surprised Horowitz would make such an amateurish, one sided remark. ESPECIALLY when Casino Royale is one of his favorites. Yes, Casino Royale...the movie where Bond decides to quit the secret service after one mission and is eventually left betrayed and hurt by a woman he loved. Sounds like a man without any doubts whatsoever.... :-w
And for my cheap shot postscript, I would also like to point out that Anthony Horowitz wrote the screenplay to Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker. That is all.
%-(
Agreed. Which was my big problem with SF. I don't like how Mendes and Logan treated Bond in SF's script, they did make him weaker than he needed to be. They could have had M die in many ways, but the script made Bond at least partially responsible for taking her to his house. He was using her as bait, but he didn't save her. Part of me agrees with Horowitz's negative comments about SF in the DM, I just think his motives are a bit questionable.
Silva succeeds by obtaining the hard drive, humiliating and ultimately orchestrating the death of M.
Bond succeeds by preventing Silva from achieving his true, ultimate goal; which is force M to repent her sins directly to him.
I agree that Silva "succeeds more than Bond does" in that lots and lots of damage is done to London, MI6, "the empire" by Silva, but perhaps to say that Silva succeeds and Bond does not is incorrect.
EDIT: Personally I'd look at it as Bond fails his mission, and Silva does too.
Bond, as mentioned, fails to save M and in fact leads her to her death. He also fails to protect Severine.
Silva fails to kill M or at least witness her death before he dies. His frustration with Bond when he turns around after being knifed suggests this was an objective of his. He was a broken man obsessed with revenge. He realized this, I think. That's why he eventually wanted her to take him with her to both their deaths.
The whole ending is a bit contrived and a mess admittedly, and Bond's plan does come across as ridiculous....Mallory's sanctioning of it is even more damning imho. Everyone probably should have lost their jobs at the end of it, not been promoted to new offices etc.
Bond: "If he wants you, he's going to have to come and get you." Hardly sounds like a man trying to "protect" M, does it?
From that standpoint, BOND WON. He drew Silva "out of the shadows" and right into where he wanted him. M was merely collateral damage. That's the risk.
Silva's plan to "embarrass" and "humiliate" M never came to full fruition because his personal vendetta became TOO personal; instead of staying in the shadows and working his magic and continuing to name agents, he got impatient and decided to kill M at the hearing. Bad move on his part.
I think that's why it's not so black and white. If Silva killed M, Mallory, Moneypenny, Q, Bond's maid May, the guy who sold Bond his apartment and everyone else on earth before Bond gets him, would it still constitute a 'win' for Bond?
I've seen it discussed before where "who wins and who loses" becomes kind of a crap shoot with regards to Bond films. On both sides, "someone usually dies".
He wanted to embarrass her and call her out and he did just that - stole the list, made her responsible for the loss of a few agents and the momentary "loss" of Bond, destroyed her office and a huge chunk of MI6 HQ - killing more people in the process and making her watch, got her to send out Bond when she knew he wasn't ready, fooled her into thinking that she won, just for him to hack into MI6, kill some more people, terrorize London, and attack her while she was being grilled by the board because of his actions, and after all of that, he manages to be responsible for her death. Sounds like mission accomplished to me.
We can argue it all day, but my viewpoint won't be changing. If you truly think that Bond didn't make it his mission to save M, then by all means, feel free to keep thinking that. Personally, I think if he shed tears for her, obviously he cared for her and wasn't solely using her for 'bait,' as he was also making it his mission to save his boss from imminent death. Almost every "good" character loses (not just Bond and M) and Silva wins at the end of the movie for me.
Bond's mission was simple: retrieve the list. The issue wasn't the hard drive: it was the list on that hard drive.
This led him to Silva.
It's assumed, though never divulged, that the list needed to be decrypted (according to Moneypenny in Macau) and that Silva had done this. But with him dead, it's likely that the names went with him. Nobody else had access. He acted alone.
You're right, things aren't quite black and white in SF, and this is part of its beauty. It's a film about the personal costs of "doing the job." Notice that both Silva and Bond got their feelings hurt by M's decisions; M got hers hurt by Mallory wanting her to go into voluntary retirement. Furthermore, the characters slip up by allowing personal interests interfere with their logic.
Ultimately, Silva pays the highest price for this. He fails to kill M the way he wants, and his death ends the revealing of agents. But you're right: "someone" usually dies. Bond's delivery of this line sounds like it's a cold-hearted truth; and it is. But it sometimes exacts a personal toll.