Skyfall

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Dr. Trainwreck
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Skyfall

Post by Dr. Trainwreck »

About two hours ago I returned from the Athens Mall, where we watched a midnight screening of Skyfall (I trust you know, the Bond movie) on release night. It will open in America in 9 November, which makes it the first English language movie (that I know of) to have a big opening in Greece before it comes to the US. Fucking A it does.

The movie itself is awesome. It's so far beyond the usual "give Bond a guy to chase" scenario, it might be a different genre entirely. It actually gives attention to Bond's psyche and his relationship with other people (and of course I mean M). M herself might as well be the central character, and I can't remember a Bond movie where he or she is so important to the plot, not just as an identity or boss figure but as a person. It's all about her, and her past, and her personal relationship with Bond and the villain. It's about her past decisions biting her in the ass.

The villain, eh? Bardem, as an ex-British agent, comes across as the Joker with blatant homosexual undertones, and is even creepier than in No Country For Old Men. Jesus. He has his motivations and goals, clear and concise, and has an understandable personality -that of an emotionally addicted manchild. Swap Le Chiffre with Blofield and you can get pretty much the same Casino Royale we actually saw, but Silva (the guy's name) is distinct. The story works because he is who he is and no one else. Same with M. Same with Bond.

Bond himself, well... he actually becomes a human person. We learn he had a home, and a place he found familiar. We learn he had a family, we even see the parents' names. We learn he emotes and cares for people (only one of them, certainly, but cares all the same). We learn that this walking tower of badassery is actually built on solid ground. Daniel Craig is his usual self, which I see as good and others may see as bad.

Also, notables: the crew is updated. We have a Q, a Moneypenny, and... um... a M. In the film's most awesome moment, the Aston Martin DB5 appears. The DB5, with the registration plate and the machine guns in the headlights. Pretty much the entire theater, judging from the reactions, thought this was awesome.

Lastly, it is Judi Dench's last Bond film. Prepare yourselves for manly tears.

Is there anyone else who's seen the movie? Would you like to add your 2 cents as spoiler-free as possible?
Ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν ἐμϐαίνουσιν, ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ. Δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης.

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Re: Skyfall

Post by Stark »

Do you think it fits thematically with the other movies? I don't mean 'is it a huge retcon' or that kind of nerd stuff - I'm curious if you think the three modern movies have Bond on a consistent journey.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Bedlam »

Stark wrote:Do you think it fits thematically with the other movies? I don't mean 'is it a huge retcon' or that kind of nerd stuff - I'm curious if you think the three modern movies have Bond on a consistent journey.
In a way, there seems to be quite a time from Casino Royal to Skyfall. In Casino Bond is the new boy in skyfall he's past his prime and many consider him obsolete although he has experience on his side now. Its a bit of a jump and would have worked better if there had been another movie or two between them but it does give a sort of life of a agent feel.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by salm »

Bedlam wrote:
Stark wrote:Do you think it fits thematically with the other movies? I don't mean 'is it a huge retcon' or that kind of nerd stuff - I'm curious if you think the three modern movies have Bond on a consistent journey.
In a way, there seems to be quite a time from Casino Royal to Skyfall. In Casino Bond is the new boy in skyfall he's past his prime and many consider him obsolete although he has experience on his side now. Its a bit of a jump and would have worked better if there had been another movie or two between them but it does give a sort of life of a agent feel.

Eh? There´s Quantum of Solace between Casino Royal and Skyfall.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Dr. Trainwreck »

Stark wrote:Do you think it fits thematically with the other movies? I don't mean 'is it a huge retcon' or that kind of nerd stuff - I'm curious if you think the three modern movies have Bond on a consistent journey.
I haven't seen Quantum of Solace and, to be frank, I don't plan to. Based on Casino Royale and Skyfall I'd have to say that yes, it is quite good. The movies are consistent thematically, easily more grimdark than any other Bond (except Tim Dalton's License to Kill, perhaps), and he himself is quite the same in character. He's undergone very obvious progression, is more experienced and patient, and might be a little psychotic after all these missions (when a psychiatrist asks him to find a word that goes with "murder", he responds "employment"). But he retains the emotional side he had in Casino.
Ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν ἐμϐαίνουσιν, ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ. Δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης.

The seller was a Filipino called Dr. Wilson Lim, a self-declared friend of the M.I.L.F. -Grumman
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Korgeta »

I think the film works simply because it doesn’t carry on the facade that he is a 'good guy' As a kid I watched the Sean Connery films at my granddad’s (the age of VIDEO TAPES!) and liked it for its silly gadgets, Q, car chases and of course a supervillain's huge friggin base to blow up, along with the supervillain's right hand man who has a fight to the death with Bond. Those aspects are great but they always handwaved Bond's treatment of other people, not just Sean Connery era but pretty much all the way to the Brosman Bond, I'm sure Rodger Moore era almost killed Bond because he was so dull and did not have Sean’s arrogance and swagger to pull off Bond. (Not to say it was bad as in terrible, but it was stale, though I did like Jaws) A film can be forgivable for glossing over a character's antics if that character pulls off his own self confidence that the audience likes him in turn. That is part of Bond's appeal; the overly confident.

Point is Bond needed to have character, tech, women and fights gloss over so much, I did like the Dalton Bond, briefly the series was heading in the right direction showing how much of a bastard Bond actually is under all that charm, and they were going with that on Goldeneye as well but then the world is not enough and the others were just dull. There was no Look on Bond's character just him making one liners and looking cool. Bond needed to be gritty because audiences needed a reason as to why they were rooting for a sexist, calculating and cold blooded killer. To reword Bernard Cornwall 'Bond is a bastard, but he's OUR bastard' that to me is what Bond, he isn't nice and he is ruthless but he's on our side and we should be glad that he is!
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Bedlam »

salm wrote:
Bedlam wrote:
Stark wrote:Do you think it fits thematically with the other movies? I don't mean 'is it a huge retcon' or that kind of nerd stuff - I'm curious if you think the three modern movies have Bond on a consistent journey.
In a way, there seems to be quite a time from Casino Royal to Skyfall. In Casino Bond is the new boy in skyfall he's past his prime and many consider him obsolete although he has experience on his side now. Its a bit of a jump and would have worked better if there had been another movie or two between them but it does give a sort of life of a agent feel.

Eh? There´s Quantum of Solace between Casino Royal and Skyfall.
Sorry I probably should have worded it a movie or two more between them. I think Quantum followed on more or less directly from Casino where Skyfall suggests that Bonds career started quite a while ago and lots of things have happened since then that we havn't seen.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by PREDATOR490 »

Just watched it and dont think it lives up to the hype it has been getting. This film has been marketed to hell and back as being the best Bond film ever and the fucking adverts took 30 mins alone with the first 5 - 6 of them being Bond related. I'm sitting in a cinema to watch a film and you decide to spam the screen with Bond adverts that include scenes from the very film I am about to watch. I find that really annoying to say the least.

Judi Dench gone - Not that heartbroken since the movie telegraphed it from the start she was on her way out. The way she goes is just making it a bit more dramatic.

Which is in a nutshell what this film went overboard with me. The attempts at trying to make this film seem deeper by making it darker and more dramatic. The film was trying way too hard to replicate Batman and created their version of the Joker. The first two acts of the film were a semi-consistant in though I still find them timid for any actual intrigue. The last act however, I just found to be self-indulgent.

The little references were cute but the jump into Bond's home didnt really do anything. Incidentally, I was really disappointed with the complete disconnect from the previous films.
The idea of a new series of films that would track Bond from the beginning and be consistant with one another had appeal but it seems they just decided to ditch that by making this film just as episodic and vague about Bond's character progression as any of the old series.

The ending of this movie seems to have put all the pieces in place to start a return to the status quo of episodic films. We have the new Q, M and Money Penny who all just happen to be young enough to be able to start a chain of stories for the next 10 or so years of Daniel Craig. Since I believe Daniel Craig is going to run for being the longest serving Bond since Moore who managed 7 Films. That gives Craig another 5 to go.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Tolya »

Just came back from the cinema.

Whether this is the best Bond movie up to date or not really depends on your personal taste. If you are more into the "reimagining/reboot" stuff, then it might as well be. If your taste is more suited to Sean Connery stuff, chances are you will hate it for not being cheesy enough.

It is, however, the best out of all Craig's movies. There are a couple of factors at play here.

1) It doesn't take itself seriously. It does point you at the old Bond movies in a light hearted way - DB5 for example, or the final scene that recreates old M's office. And those scenes are surprisingly well executed - they factor into the movie very well and are relevant to the events, while pinching the old Bond style humorously, rather than "look at this old bond stuff hur hur funny" we sometimes get when there's nostalgia at play.

2) It is perhaps the most visually stunning Bond ever made. The production design, the camera work, the colours, the cadre composition - there are several moments in the movie whose stills could function as stunning photographs. I don't remember anything like that in any of the previous movies. And there's a lot of variety which I really like - the movie doesn't throw OMG LUXURY&MONEYZ into your face like the previous ones. All the locales look like they have actual meaning and are not just meant to show how much money the producers spent on shooting locations.

3) The story is simple and makes use of characters, for once. By keeping it simple they do not make it funny when you start noticing all the stupid spots and plotholes. Here it's a simple revenge story that puts Dench right in the middle.

4) The villain. Javier Bardem is an EXCELLENT actor. Truly excellent. I've seen a couple of movies with him and he can basically do it all. He does a similar thing to Skyfall as Ledger did to Batman as Joker. Even though the antagonist's character doesn't have too much depth, Bardem does an excellent job.

5) If you hated Craig as a Bond, you will hate him here too. If not, well, you know the drill. There's an elaborate attempt at creating some depth in Bond's character, but it is mostly irrelevant. All we get told is that he hates his past but we have no real idea why. The whole "Bond's parents" was stripped of weight in the story and to be honest, they could have disposed of it altogether and devote more time to 007-M relationship which really mattered here. The attempt of making Bond look more human was... well, not the most aptly executed. What they did here... well, it's like trying to dress C3P0 in Ms Havisham's dress and pretending he has depth. That should come from within the character, not from some meaningless totems.

6) They stripped the gadgets here to the minimum. It is refreshing, but utterly irrelevant to the presentation. Personally, it was nice to see Bond without his exploding pens and laser watches, but I always enjoyed the humour in Q's lab moments, even more so with Llelewyn than Cleese. The new Q... well, he's the NEW Q. A computer wiz rather than an engineer and inventor.

7) It is Judi Dench's last movie. The fact whether the way they ended her role was good or not is open to debate. I can understand why Predator disliked it, but I need to get some distance on this before I can relate. One good thing is that... Ralph Fiennes is taking over as M, which is great news for me.

8) Now, as I've mentioned, the plot is relatively free of stupidity and plotholes, apart from two things, which really irritate me. Bond villains are genius criminal masterminds, but I am seeing a disturbing trend lately. It seems they have become so professional, that all uncertainty in their actions is gone. Bond is able to track the villain through the fucking London tube at rushhour because he can predict what the poor sod will do next. And that is really bothering. Ledger's Joker was utterly unpredictable and crazy which made him so much fun to watch. Batman (and the viewer) were never sure what Joker has up his sleeve. Bardem's Silva/Rodriguez is like a fucking robot and while we learn what his motive is, the spell of that character fades. That really broke the suspension of disbelief at times. Another piece of stupid I noticed is that M was stealthily running away in the night while sporting a turned on flashlight. In the middle of the field. With the bad guy behind her. My grandma would probably behave that way, but I would expect something more about MI6's boss, operative or not.

Apart from the little problems I mentioned above, I really enjoyed the movie. I do recommend it. It's better than Casino Royale, which felt more like a TV series pilot. This is a full blown grand scale Bond, but with a personal story.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by JLTucker »

Spoilers:
Spoiler
Why is there no talk here about how the film basically purports that intelligence agencies care not about their agents? That they will sacrifice anyone's life for a faux sense of security? That's what made this movie great and how M has to reconcile with herself that she was a perpetrator of morally questionable actions.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Esquire »

Goes with the territory, I'd have thought. "If you are captured, we will disavow your actions" is a real thing - while agencies don't try to get their agents killed, the fact of the matter is that to higher-ups of all stripes people are resources to be used, and used up if needed.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by JME2 »

Saw it this afternoon. Was weary of going into it given I was let down by QOS four years ago.

Boy, was I wrong. As nostalgic as I feel towards the Brosnan-era, I love the Craig-era more and this is the best outing.

While it's a standalone outing and not a continuation of the Quantum arc, that didn't bug me like I thought it would. In many ways, it's a spiritual/thematic continuation of GoldenEye as well as Casino Royale, posting whether Bond is still relevant in the modern era.

It's a great deconstruction/reconstruction of the mythology and here's to hoping for another 50 years.

The one downside was the music. I know Mendes works with Thomas Newman, but this is the first 007 film in 15 years to not have David Arnold composing, so it's bit of a letdown.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Sea Skimmer »

I just saw it and I was underwhelmed. Not as bad as the second Craig Bond, but not nearly as good as the first. I think it suffered from being hastily rewritten to be a much cheaper production, and some general idiot brainbug kind of problems that were not counter balanced by being over the top action.
Spoiler
If they wanted to make a film that questioned if MI6 and human intelligence was relevant, maybe, just maybe, the entire plot should not have revolved around compounding levels of mindbogglingly amateurish incompetence by MI6 and Bond? We found a master hacker, who somehow can hack gas piping to make it explode on office, god did that make no sense, lets plug his computer into our own?

Bond being low on skills and strength would have worked way better if he didn't then cream half a platoon of heavily armed men at the end anyway, and what the hell was with the wise old gamekeeper character? He was interesting, he was someone you don't see in a Bond movie, and then he gets M killed by walking through the darkness in a grass field and into another empty building, with a freaking flashlight on? Also hooray for another movie in which first aid does not exist. M finally dying was incredibly bad.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by JLTucker »

The third act is just a mess. It's overlong and cements why too much action sucks. Watch Skyfall and then watch Casino Royale again. You'll be amazed at how the human drama there surpasses everything in Skyfall.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by ray245 »

Sea Skimmer wrote: Bond being low on skills and strength would have worked way better if he didn't then cream half a platoon of heavily armed men at the end anyway, and what the hell was with the wise old gamekeeper character? He was interesting, he was someone you don't see in a Bond movie, and then he gets M killed by walking through the darkness in a grass field and into another empty building, with a freaking flashlight on? Also hooray for another movie in which first aid does not exist. M finally dying was incredibly bad.[/spoiler]
I think they wanted Sean Connery to act as the old gamekeeper.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Sea Skimmer »

Wow thanks for quoting hidden spoilers openly, I totally didn't hide them for a purpose. :roll:
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
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Re: Skyfall

Post by PeZook »

I totally agree with Skimmer. I REALLY wanted to like the movie ; The action pieces were well set up, and thematically the ending fight was pretty great and symbollic.

But Plot Stupidity and plot holes just kept coming.
Spoiler
Seriously! Come the fuck on!

We start off by learning a Very Important Hard Drive was stolen in Istambul...which was guarded by, like, three guys, who were doing fuck knows what there. Bond gives chase, and in the end Moneypenny fires a shot at the perp while Bond fight him. She hits Bond.

And she doesn't shoot again despite the Perp standing right there in clear view.

Then we are told the damn hard drive contained a list of every MI6 agent infiltrating terrorist organizations...because god knows, taking something like that to Istambul is necessary and smart!

Once Bond fails his test, he is sent to Singapore...alone...to apprehend the super-dangerous terrorist guy who stole the list...because assigning him a team would be, I don't know, offensive, or something. M knew he was burned out! Assign him a few people to help, for fuck's sake!

But this isn't anywhere near as stupid as pretending a former MI6 officer who got burned in 1997 could have planned and executed a convoluted plot involving his own capture and escape because "he knows our procedures" and "is one of us". I guess the new Q being arrogant and stupid enough to just plug Silva's laptop into the local network was part of the plan, too?

Seriously, it's been more than a decade! How could he have POSSIBLY known how the MI6 computer system looks like now? How the fuck could he have planned to escape if he didn't even know what sort of cell the MI6 would use to contain him? If they put a fucking padlock on that door, or more than one guard for that matter, his entire plan would've fallen apart right there. Hell, they could've just shoved him into an unused storage room with a WW2 vintage door, which was actually all too likely in a facility that used to be Churchill's bunker. Post two guards at the door and voila, a hacker-proof cell!

And damn...once he escapes, everybody starts to act as if a plan to lure him into a trap in a remote part of Scotland would get them arrested...what...the fuck? Why the HELL didn't Mallory just send a runner to, I don't know, the nearest Royal Army base (to avoid magical hacking, you see), and bring a batallion of infantry or a squadron of helicopter gunships or a single damn armed drone down on Silva's head once he and his men were nicely isolated in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no civilians around?

The hearing scene was just painful, too. Here's the Minister Of Whatever ragging on M, who starts waxing poetic about shadows instead of telling her how incredibly dumb it is to think human intelligence is worthless in the modern age because uh computer surveillance rules all, I guess?
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Sea Skimmer »

Spoiler
It was worse then every undercover MI6 agent, it was a list of every NATO agent. Totally what random guys in freaking Turkey need on a laptop. That’s why the movie later mentions MI6 might not have any friends left in the CIA. This level of dumb is amazing, I might pass it over if not for every single other problem.

Silva could have known what the MI6 computers were like from having covertly hacked them on earlier occasions, but yeah, it remains absurdly dumb that they put the master hacker in a cell controlled by computers and then plug his own computer into it. Great way to establish the new Q as a complete braindead retard, but I think this may have been partly intentional to highlight his ‘youth’, except its still incredibly dumb.

Interestingly though I just learned that island Silva was on is actually partly real, located off Japan and abandon because a coal mine it was on top of was mined out. It looks like they altered the wide shots some with CGI.

I love that meeting, completely retarded dialogue, and then we find out that if someone openly guns down the guards, not long after a string of major terrorists attacks in downtown London, absolutely no further reaction takes place at all until they burst into the meeting room.

I also love how after Silva escapes, Q, and only Q, is attempting to find him on dozens of CCTV screens, instead of say, emailing his picture and the fact that he is in a police uniform to the London police.

The people I saw the movie with had similar feelings. You expect dumb in a Bond movie, but this one was making your eyes roll at every single thing.

The DB5 showing up was pretty much the best part, I can’t help but think the original version of the film which was supposed to cost 40 million more dollars would have used it more. A proper Bond car chase would have been ideal for showing off that Bond is still awesome even if he’s lost his aim and physical skills.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by PeZook »

Spoiler
A big question is why Silva had to have himself captured and then escape in the first place, when the MI6 had absolutely no idea of his identity before Bond showed up. Why not just kill Bond the moment he meets him, start publishing the names off that list as he did in order to provoke an inquiry, fly to goddamn London and hit M during the proceedings? If he wanted to do theatrics, well...plenty of opportunity to wax them in person while not sitting in a goddamn cell.

The entire "I will escape" part seems so utterly stupid because he didn't control the containment options the MI6 would use for him. In fact, if he knew the entire agency would retreat into an old WW2 bunker complex, then counting on being kept in a computerized cell was and incredible risk in such a detailed plan.

And yeah, we saw heavily armed cops protecting the tube from terrorism, but not a government building full of important officials :D

Occasional stupidity or plot hole is tolerable, especially in a Bond movie, as you wrote: it's the fact that it's one convoluted part after another which makes it so painful. I mean, jesus christ, Silva planning ahead that Bond would catch up with him in that exact place at the exactly correct time to drop a train on him? Counting on Bond not actually taking that last shot?

(BTW, why DIDN'T Bond shoot him off the ladder? There was absolutely no plot reason to keep him alive!)

It's worse than just being stupid ; If the villain is only dangerous because the good guys are retarded, he is seriously diminished as a villain.

Oh, with the CCTV screens: did you notice how the cameras did facial recognition on Bond, but not Silva despite him clearly showing his face to the camera? :D
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JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up

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MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by PeZook »

Spoiler
Oh, a funny thought just occured to me: if you absolutely have to hand something so important to a bunch of guys going to Turkey, an easy way to secure the data would be to not actually use a hard drive, but volatile memory ; It would be sustained by the laptop's battery, and once the chip is ripped out...the data is instantly lost.

Even if the bad guys know this, then they are forced to steal the entire laptop in order to preserve the data, complete with its multiple redundant GPS trackers and a thermite self-destruct charge. That's the beauty of digital data storage - you can't make paper self destruct on command!

But I could tolerate the list getting stolen more or less the way it was in the movie, since governments do fuck up like that in real life ; And it was recognized by the script as a colossal cock-up that it was.
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JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
- NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11

Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.

MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Gaidin »

PeZook wrote:Spoiler
Oh, with the CCTV screens: did you notice how the cameras did facial recognition on Bond, but not Silva despite him clearly showing his face to the camera? :D
Spoiler
Of all the things to hold against them this is hardly one of them. That many people they need to narrow their search grid. They're in contact with Bond. They nail down his exact time, location, and direction of movement(assume Bond is going the right way because if he's not you're fucked anyways) on the cameras, and they have a region for Silva to start with among the minimum hundreds in the packed crowd they're pushing their way through.
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Dread Not »

Glad to see I wasn't the only one who found the film to be underwhelming full of lazy writing. It depresses me that the most positive thing I had to say after coming out of the theater was "The cinematography was truly amazing!" In the last week I've been to see Wreck-it Ralph and Skyfall. The former was the most pleasant surprise I've seen this year, while Skyfall is easily the biggest disappointment.
Spoiler
In addition to all of the other strikes against the movie others have mentioned, another that really bugged my is how Silva spends years plotting his revenge and setting up his unnecessarily convoluted mouse trap, and when finally closing in for the kill he brings along... three other guys with pistols. Christ Silva, use one of those many incendiary grenades you were tossing around at the end. You can barbecue M and a chivalrous Ralph Fiennes in one go.
I wasn't too thrilled with the action in the movie either. The intro sequence was pretty intense and well done, and there were some other brief moments of awesome like the "waste of good whiskey" bit, but otherwise there wasn't anything that really got the pulse pounding. It depresses me that a movie like the Raid: Redemption can be shot on a budget of less than $2 million and absolutely dazzle an audience with its action sequences, while Hollywood pumps hundreds of millions of dollars into movies like Skyfall only to deliver a mediocre action experience. Sure, the Raid pretty much entirely took place in one building and didn't have to pay for big actors like Craig and Dench, but I still think it's sad if someone outperforms you with 1/100th of the resources. Hell, if it weren't for the intro sequence I would barely put this movie's action above that of 21 Jump Street. :roll:
Sea Skimmer wrote:Spoiler
Bond being low on skills and strength would have worked way better if he didn't then cream half a platoon of heavily armed men at the end anyway, and what the hell was with the wise old gamekeeper character? He was interesting, he was someone you don't see in a Bond movie, and then he gets M killed by walking through the darkness in a grass field and into another empty building, with a freaking flashlight on? Also hooray for another movie in which first aid does not exist.
Spoiler
Sorry to nitpick, but she would have died even if Silva hadn't spotted the flashlight, unless Silva interrupted Kincade administering first aid to M in the chapel. It was still colossally moronic though.
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Sea Skimmer
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Sea Skimmer »

Dread Not wrote: Spoiler
Sorry to nitpick, but she would have died even if Silva hadn't spotted the flashlight, unless Silva interrupted Kincade administering first aid to M in the chapel. It was still colossally moronic though.
Spoiler
the logical thing to do would have been to just stop and laid low in the field for a while, exploiting the fact that it was not level and had somewhat tall grass for concealment, something an experienced hunter would naturally grasp, while keeping pressure on the wound, rather then dragging M along encouraging her to bleed out with no treatment while signaling the location to everyone within several miles. Pressure on wounds makes an enormous difference. She lasted a significant period bleeding while moving, she might have lasted hours with nothing but the most basic first aid stationary. No reason at all to assume she would have died anyway when she was conscious to the last minute.

Course one might also ask why they didn't just flee down the tunnel in the first place, after using that entire crate of dynamite they had to blowup the entire house as soon as the terrorist goon squad closely surrounded it, while Bond drove around in his machine gun car running people over. That part really annoyed me, why show a full crate of dynamite at all and then use a few sticks? They could have very reasonably showed the crate was almost empty, which was even implied by the dialogue. Its just another thing that on its own, no big deal, but shows a pattern of crappy writing and direction
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Kingmaker
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Kingmaker »

Spoiler
I don't think Kincaid knew M had been wounded.
So, yeah. I didn't think much of that film. I feel like the central relationship (Bond and M) was poorly handled, the plot was riddled with glaring holes (I'm usually focused enough on what's going on onscreen during theatre trips that I need to stop and think afterward to identify plot holes, but in spite of that there were numerous things that jumped out at me at idiotic on their face. Never mind the idiocy of Silva's breakout plan, how about the fact that he went with possibly the most ridiculously contrived means of getting captured by MI-6, in a manner that could have gone totally off the rails at several points, often in a manner he has no way of influencing. Spoiler
(such as: Bond doesn't catch the assassin in Shanghai (who, one will note, beat him earlier), Bond doesn't successfully talk his way into Disposable Bond Girl's pants, Bond is eaten by a Komodo dragon, Bond gets stuck in traffic and doesn't make it to DBG's yacht in time, Bond does not successfully overcome a half-dozen gun-wielding henchman while impaired by his long-term injuries, Bond overcomes a half-dozen gun-wielding thugs and kills Silva in the excitement, Silva gets taken back to England and is transferred directly to an offsite prison rather than held at MI-6 HQ, Silvia gets taken to MI-6 and thrown in a cell with a mechanical lock...)
That's far from the only spot where I had an issue, and it just kept yanking me out of the movie. Maybe the film had some interesting themes and character development, but it was stuck with a weak frame to hang them on. And, frankly, while it might have been weightier than the typical Bond film, that isn't saying much.
In the event that the content of the above post is factually or logically flawed, I was Trolling All Along.

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Stark
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Re: Skyfall

Post by Stark »

Putting aside the plot (which tbh I think is simply being misunderstood) the movie had too many disparate themes that it didn't do enough with. If they decided to be about one or two of the laundry list of elements they touch on (mother issues, changing face of espionage, age, faith, duty, England being weak, etc) I think the narrative could have been a lot stronger. As it is, the impact of the movie is too spread out and there's too much dead time (going to China seems to me to be an enormous waste of my time and their money, for instance).

The biggest failing of the film to me was the uncomfortable combination of their extremely heavy and personal themes (or attempts at this anyway) and what was basically slapstick nerd humour. Bond has personal issues which parallel the issues of cultural identify in 21st Century England my that's ... HAHA AN OLD CAR SO SWEET BRO. Bonds early life was a cold and barren one and his childhood was ended by OMG IT IS TEH MONEYPENNY!!! HOO NEW???

If they wanted to reboot into comic James Bond movies (cause everyone loved that formula lol) they didn't need to take so long to do it, or attempt high concept stuff that would be constantly undermined by it.
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