It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
We can all have varying opinions, and I am not trying to persuade anybody who does not like it; to each his own. But I also feel no need to defend it. It is a very, very good film and a great Bond film.
PachitoPistoles worded things more strongly than I would (for me, you can say whatever like, pretty much, and still be a Bond fan if you love the films in general) , but I know where he is coming from. It is an excellent Bond film.
Why should a story be complicated? I prefer the linearity of TB and SF to the involutions of TLD and OP any day.
Didn't say it had to be. I was just making an observation.
It came to me when thinking of the early SF draft, where the pts was set in India, but it got canned. That made more sense, as the idea was to have Bond walk along the top of the train, with the natives hanging off the sides of the train like barnacles. That would have made the scene less like the one in OP imo, and would have been more interesting because both fighters could utilise anything they could grab from said locals to use in the fight. Bond does show a rather contemptuous attitude to the locals in the scene anyway when he is driving around with Eve, which contrasts with this overt politeness when picking his way through a London Tube train later, and I reckon it was written to highlight this: that Bond is rude to foreigners but all nice back home. But it gets lost in the shuffle cos a) It was moved to Turkey, which has no real colonial associations with the UK and b) there are no natives hanging off the train, it's an Indian thing (or was, the Govt objected to the scene calling it national stereotyping).
And the India setting would have helped with the whole Bond reborn/reincarnation thing which they were maybe aiming for, it's a bit lost set in Turkey, but it could also hint at how the UK has reinvented itself since imperial times, esp having a black Moneypenny (who shot at Bond, which he later forgives with such magnanimity, might also play into the theme).
Of course, Rodgriguez well I can't remember his backstory in full, but it seems if I recall all about his sense of betrayal by 'mother' ie the motherland, which seems mirrored by a good many attitudes of former colonies, esp in Africa.
M's windbag poetry recital during the hearing is a Colonel Blimp moment - the old guard doesn't realise that old traditions just don't hold up any more and the world has changed, as Rodgriguez heads down the Mall to take her out. To me it does recall the notorious time head of the Met Ian Blair reacts to a so-called terrorist attack on the Tube that was thwarted, not even being informed by his subordinates that the 'terrorist' was a Brazilian minding his own business, because his staff were intimidated by their boss.
The problem is, for me, that the director doesn't seem too aware of this or if he is it makes Bond -and M - seem even more unsympathetic.
That's a stretch. Bond evinces no "attitude" at all.
Another stretch. Silva/Rodriguez feels betrayed by M, or, at a stretch, the organization she controls.
Nonsense. There is nothing remotely ironical about the recitation. SF is the most unabashedly patriotic Bond film ever made, and is the very antithesis of the anguished postcolonialism that runs through the vast majority of pop culture schlock dealing with geopolitics.
Because everybody knows an Oscar nomination basically kills an actors career /:)
Because his villain was not that great after a very promesing beginning?
Seriously, for the record I actually agree here.
That's kinda true...Joaquin Phoenix got nominated though, exposed the truth that Oscars are bullshit, and yet got acclaimed for Her...but that's only one actor.
This is a very good comparison, @talos7. SF is one of the six best Bond films made imo, and to answer the op, it has not lost its appeal.
The direction is all British patriotism but the writing isn't - suggesting the writer and director aren't on the same page.
But I admit I am looking at the subtext, which can't be proved.
Something like that.
*chokes, spills soda falls off chair*
Umm, oooookaaaay.
I don't perceive the exploding pen line as Skyfall ostracizing Goldeneye at all; far from it in fact. All the references are done with reverential tribute, not hard-handed contempt. Plus, exploding pens were no doubt a real life espionage tool, so it connects it to our little world of reality too. Weirder things have happened.
Or maybe you're looking too much into a fun little quip meant to make the fans grin. Yeah, let's go with that...
I've actually got GE ranked one spot above SF, but I admit that may be a personal eccentricity.
Agreed, entirely. Lots of people are guilty of reading far too much--and often what they wish to see--into SF.
Again, precisely.
Clearly, the makers of SF were declaring that Bond was going back to basics, but that is hardly the same thing as an attack on what has gone before. Why would Bond films slate other Bond films? Makes no sense whatsoever.
About slating references being impossible, look at the beginning of FYEO for instance.
Bond's successful employment of the DB5 in SF was meant to denigrate GF where Bond used it in botched escape attempt.
The destruction of MI6 was meant to dump on TWINE. This is how you REALLY blow s**t up you morons.
Bond being shot off the train slagged on TB, where Bond getting shot was nothing comparatively.
SF's Q being played by a gay chap was clearly making fun of Desmond's Q, who never got laid in a single movie.
Bond's work out scenes are obviously pissing all over Connery & Moore's later films for them being all fat & out of shape.
Severine's murder is knocking every silly Bond movie in which Bond ends up with the girl.
Wow, Skyfall seems to have been specifically DESIGNED to give the finger to most previous movies, eh?
;)