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Comments
Think there was already a movie with that title
(With Rod Taylor?)
I think that was from a much earlier draft (maybe before the Peter Morgan one which iirc was the beginning of the whole M/Silva storyline), the plot was something to do with GM food and Spanish flu wasn't it?
Way better than the content of the actual movie. ;)
That’s really cool. Great fan poster for a great Bond film!
Part Two (that I'm just now continuing): M confronts Rodriguez...
And the more I watch this film, the more I feel that this is genuinely DC's Goldfinger film...
"Appalling"...
When she reminded him of her mention of his British fortitude, "that bit was alright"...; that's subtle humor and worth the price of admission for me. That's mature writing and mature humor-- gone are the bad puns... (although later in this film they fall into that trap... "007 where were you"...)
I also find it interesting that so many accuse this last bit as being Home Alone; whereas this finale was an homage to STRAW DOGS-- and to bring that in to a Bond film was quite unique.
to be fair there has been some decent humour during the Craig era but the best was in CR and QOS IMO - and it's usually situational or about subverting our expectations of Bond (like when he's asked if he wants his martini shaken or stirred and he says 'do I look like I give a damn).
So I do enjoy the humour in this film and how it's delivered. The couple at the tube station is a highlight, as is Kincaid and the great Silva.
Firm top 10 film for me.
Not many would get away with calling Bond that !
Brilliant.
A couple of points, here.
Bond was written as an orphan by Fleming. CR was the first film to dive into that, somewhat, in the (excellent) train scene with Vesper. So I didn't find it contrived at all. SF is the most Jungian of the Bond films; the entire word association test is based on Jung, and Jung was particularly interested in orphans as archetypes. Where I part with Bond fans who disliked SF is that it was much more than mere entertainment, for me. I can see how some just want a good ol' action-packed Bond film, but I think Mendes and co. went back to Fleming and drew on his association with Jung (a young Fleming once wrote to Jung and translated one of his lectures.) So I didn't sense a "destiny" aspect to his story.
I competely agree on Blofeld. I respect Babs and Michael and Mendes and DC. But how could four really good minds screw that up so badly?
Probable.
I'm not too concerned with when/how Fleming brought the matter up. But he did. It's out there, as is his relationship with Jung. Now, how much meaning we want to put into that is up to each fan. I actually put a lot of stake in the orphan/Junagian apsects of Bond's character, and I think Mendes did, too--to great effect in SF. There as some terrific Jungian allusions in SP, as well (the idea of duality, for example). But it went too far, unfortunately.
I think it's down to the execution. Bond being an orphan was just a footnote in the books. A tragic little detail that SF turned into a dramatic origin story. The big house with the servant/butler type, the underground cave where he went in as a kid and came out as a man. It was all a bit too Batman imo.
I do still like SF and I think the finale is great but that side of it does seem cribbed straight from Nolan's Batman films and I'm not sure it really works for Bond. One of the things I liked about Bond is that we've always seen him fully formed. We don't need to see what made him who he is because that isn't relevant to his adult life as a secret agent. It's what he does that matters, not where he comes from. Even in CR he's still very much the same guy, just earlier in his career. And I liked that. That doesn't mean it just has to be pure action. Some of the books and films did a lot of interesting character stuff but that all came from his adult life with MI6. I never once thought when reading the books or watching the other five actors, "I wonder what Bond's childhood was like, what led him down this road". That never mattered to me, so the childhood stuff in the Mendes films has never really sat well with me.
I do understand that it will never be universally loved in the community, as it is simply too different from the others to fully appreciate for some. At least not for the next 10-20 years, until it gets the classic status that it will eventually earn.
It might be a movie that you have to feel rather than intellectualize.
Skyfall is all about character, in particular Bonds character, rather than a straight forward "plot".
(Does anyone watch Bond movies for the Plot? My condolences...)
Bond has a real character arc in Skyfall but it is only ever hinted at, and a lot of it is free to interpretation, which is masterfully handled because Bond needs to have some mystery about him and Mendes understands that. There needs to be some room for personal interpretation which makes it easier to see ourselves in his shoes.
The whole movie to me, is about willpower more than anything, and Bonds Motivation.
In is actually closest to an underdog/Rocky like story than any other Bond film.
It's like they took the line from QoS "i am motivated by my Duty" and made a whole movie about it.
It's a character study in the sense that it shines a light on what makes Bond tick by deconstructing him a little bit. The only other Movie that ever did that was Goldeneye (my Nr. 1), but not to such an extend. It's a deconstruction of his character, peeling off layer after layer to see who he is. Obviously if you do that with popular characters like Bond, traditionally a lot of the core fans will get pissed because they have an idiolized version of their hero in their head and they don't wanna hear anything that contradicts with their personal version.
It might simply be to intimate or personal for some people who don't want to see Bond physically broken or hooked on painkillers, aimless for the first third of the movie, and i respect that. But everything in it to me has a completely logical reason and resolve, and at the end he is still good ol' 007, maybe even better than before.
Basically the whole island scene after the PTS in Turkey, as well as the training inside MI6 are designed to humanize him, get into his character. Of course this is not your typical knight in shining armour, who is perfectly groomed all the time, so if you were expecting Roger Moore or Connery, you will have a bad time...
You see Bond angry, betrayed, self indulgend, as he doesn't really know what to do with himself. He is brooding. That is not our typical idea of Bond no, but he is human after all and i think what would piss him off more than anything in the world is being betrayed by his 'country' or his employer like this. He has risked his life over and over for the service and has become the best agent they have and to have his abilities questioned by M like this has to sting deeper than anything for him.
But the great thing about that sequence is that it lasts only for 4-5 minutes tops, because Bond gets bored out of his mind without his job and he knows it. He's looking for adrenaline kicks elswhere as shown with the scorpion game. But that will never be enough for someone like him. Then he sees the terrorist attack on the TV and all his self pity is forgotten and all he can think about is his duty once again. He is needed, and that is more important than his feelings of betrayal. He goes back to London and forgives M. He appears in her home and puts his personal feelings aside (beautifully played by Craig) to announce that 007 is reporting for duty.
After that, and this might be my favortie sequence of the whole movie, we see Bond trying to get back into the service again. The problem is that he is still injured from the Turkey mission, he is physically weakend, BUT he never gives up. His Body is weakend (contextualized through the physical injury to his Shoulder) but his Mind is STRONG.
He keeps going no matter what... thats the core message of the whole movie to me really.
The underlying theme of the movie is, Bond never backs down. He never stops. He probably doesn't even know how. Even if everyone in the Service, including M and Malory have doubts about his capabilities, he does not. He just wants to go and save the world.
Thats where i see a lot of parallels to my favorite Movie Goldeneye, which Roger Ebert once famoulsy called 'the first self aware Bond'. In GE Bond is pretty much ridiculed by EVERYONE he meets, for his mindset, his appearance, his old fashionedness, his sexist views (debetable) and his blind loyalty to his country, but he never starts to doubt himself. He has only one focus and thats his mission. There is real oposition to him in both movies from all angles, people are looking down on him, but he is not letting himself get phased by that. I like Bond movies where he gets tested like this, he has to earn his victory. That makes the final win that much more sweeter.
James Bond has always been a man who owns his decisions, even the shitty ones. Especially in the Fleming books. Thats why he is every mans ideal. He takes full ownership of his life, he is not getting bossed around or ruled by others, also nicely hinted at by his deep rooted "rejection of authority" in the psychological evaluation scene.
After that part, Bond finally gets on his mission, which is very simplistic: Find and neutralize Silva. He is a threat, he killed innocent People, so naturally Bond will want to stop him. He lives for the chase.
The Movie takes us to his childhood home in Scotland, and in my opinion that was done just to show more of his character, to get under his skin. It shows that Bond has been doing the same thing all his life, overcoming trauma like the death of his parents, keep going, adapting, pushing forward. Kinkade delivers the most important hint about this. "When he came back he was not a child anymore". After that Bond never took the time to stop even for a second and reflect on his life and his ways. He just moves on and on. There are men coming to kill him? Good, he'll just kill them first, Thats his mindset. No worries, just finish the job.
As for Judi Denchs M, protecting her was always just a secondary goal in all this. Also she is part of the whole aparatus so "she knew the risks". She is not a damsel in distress but an ally.
Skyfall establishes pretty much from the first scene that Judi Dench's M will be gone after this movie, either way. She made the biggest mistake of her career by betting against Bond and has to deal with the consequences of that. I never would have expected her to recover from that anyway, so seeing her die by the end really has not much impact on the franchise as a whole, only on Bond as a person because they had a deep Bond (pun intended). Seeing her die, and getting her approval in her final moment is Bonds emotinal resolve and closure as he was never able to grief the death of his parents. He chose to run away from it all until this day. M was the closest thing he ever had to a Mother, so being able to grief for her, at his childhood home, brought his personal story full circle.
At the end of the movie, Bond is the last man standing. He has won over all the others, all the doubters, and pretty much killed a whole bunch of terrorists all by himself. All due to his (almost obsessive) willpower to get the job done. He has earned the respect of the new M who finally understands what his predecessor saw in him. He understands why he is an indispensable asset to the service, even if he's 'older'.
The old ways sometimes are the best.
The fact that Bond has any type of arc makes it very unusual and, for that one fact, renders it a let down for many Bond fans.
Thank you, it is strange but before reading the comments on this site, it never even occured to me that saving her was his goal. He took her to Skyfall as bait, knowing full well that he put her in grave danger. His sole mission was getting at Silva, thats why he did it. Also i never saw M as this helpless victim that needed saving so badly. She did what she did and she owned up to it. She literally knew the risk of that final mission and she signed up for it. Like an Ally going with Bond on a mission. Also her death was pretty much an accident so Silva did not get his personal revenge.
The reason why she had to die in the context of the story i already explained above.
Different strokes for different folks.
I get that Bond is mostly fluff entertainment, and i love that too. But in the last couple years i have become very obsessed with James Bond the character, and all his ticks and contradictions, probably due to my own age. So for me Skyfall was amazing, from the very first time i watched it and nothing has changed since then.
‘Many Bond fans’. Not sure I agree with that.
Not a big fan of SF, but I do appreciate your spirited take.
Also SF pushed it a bit far by getting 007 shot and fall down a bridge that would kill anybody on impact and then he falls in a river and does not drown. He became a bit terminator lacking the lovely Austrian accent.