SKYFALL, or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Fight Like a Rat in a Barrel

[Magus]

There needs to be a movement to define "Bond movie" in its most simplest terms, "a movie featuring as its main character James Bond" to save Seil the embarrassment of his ridiculous arguments--arguments he hasn't even made yet! They have spoiler tags for a reason, Seil.

If you feel it's a good movie and it features James Bond it is a good James Bond movie. A + B = C and so forth.

I admit it is no Goldfinger or The Living Daylights, and is quite divorced from the tone of Moonraker or Live and Let Die or their ilk (although perhaps those are also not James Bond movies?) but it clearly possesses the main ingredients of a Bond film--James Bond, and more James Bond.

I think what you are really searching for is that you thought it was a bad movie so just say so! I will disagree of course but...

EDIT: Is this like when people say The Dark Knight is "not a Batman movie" despite it having Batman in it and also being a movie?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

The term "batman movie" and "james bond movie" mean more than just having that character in him. You are being ridiculously reductionist. If I make a rom-com and James Bond makes a cameo in it is it a James Bond movie- by your arguments yes and that's stupid.
A franchise has certain tonal and genre consistencies and if your movie doesn't have those it is completely viable to disavow it as part of the wider franchise.

[Bells]

i THINK Seil saw it as a "Bourne Identity" movie with James Bond in it, and better. Which... it kinda is.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Professor Smarmiarty

The term "batman movie" and "james bond movie" mean more than just having that character in him. You are being ridiculously reductionist. If I make a rom-com and James Bond makes a cameo in it is it a James Bond movie- by your arguments yes and that's stupid.
A franchise has certain tonal and genre consistencies and if your movie doesn't have those it is completely viable to disavow it as part of the wider franchise.

He didn't bother going into that, though. He just said it's a bad James Bond movie. The movies have had such massive shifts in tone and content that trying to say that one of them doesn't match up with "what James Bond should be like" is ridiculous. Give some examples, is my main problem with saying it's not a good James Bond movie.

There is nothing in this film that is any more "Bourne-like" than GoldenEye. And in a series that has both Thunderball and Moonraker I think we can basically leave complaints about the tone "not being like James Bond" at the door, especially when it was far more like a regular James Bond movie than Casino Royale (a movie which is not really realistic at all--it revolves around a poker game. It has a scene somewhere around the middle where an African guy attacks him with a machete in a hotel corridor. He hooks himself up to a cardiac-arrest machine and gives himself a jolt, etc. I'll admit it's the first one with a realistic torture scene...Pierce Brosnan getting electrocuted and drowned by the North Koreans in Die Another Day was rendered farcical by the Cher song overlaid on it) and had numerous references to the old ones in his gadgets and situations.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

My walk to the shops is more of a bond movie than casino royale.

[stefan]

Originally Posted by Professor Smarmiarty

My walk to the shops is more of a bond movie than casino royale.

To be fair, when most people walk to the shop it doesn't involve being accosted by a large man with suspect dental work and then being strapped to a laser table.

[Seil]

A Bond movie usually has a few characteristics that deviate from the standard action movie plot - most of which involve prominent actors and government authorities, crazy gadgets (the definition of the stereotype) and usually world-ending or taking-over-the-world villain plots. (A la Die Another Day, Diamonds Are Forever, Quantum Of Solace, to name a few).

Not to say that other action movies don't have Bond-movie elements, it's just that pretty much any action movie ever is about some jaded American badass trying to save his family.

Congratulations, this is officially the saddest permutation of "I have relevant degrees" ever!!

What, that I've been watching the movies for decades? That I'm involved enough to have a collection started since before I was a teenager? It proves that I'm a nerd, certainly, but no one on the forum can deny a "nerd" label of some sort.

While it is a good movie, it lacks certain elements that I haven't listed, admittedly, because I'm describing what the Bond franchise feels like to me. Though, even without the Bond label, it's just... over done. This may be bitterness talking over the loss of Judi Dench, but the whole thing was just handled really poorly. Yes, Javier Bardem was great in the movie, yes, he was a sympathetic villain. But many things I feel that they could have explored in his character, just.. weren't. He was just written off as crazy-with-parental-issues.

And having 'Skyfall' be the name of James Bond's childhood home was just dumb - even more so than the big "Home Alone" moment when they booby trap the house. Even more so that the helicopter crashing into it. Did it look cool? Yes. That doesn't stop it from being dumb, and adding to the "Home Alone" feel.

And Ben Wishaw was cool. However, he was what, twenty-five? While Daniel Craig looks (and acts, with his shoulder injury) about sixty-five. The Craig movies are prequels - Ralph Fiennes is Bernard Lee, Wishaw is an aged Llewellyn, and an aged Craig is a young Connery. It just doesn't look right chronologically. I get that it's not right chronologically anyway, but when you've got a twenty-five year old Q talking to a sixty year old Bond, it kind of disrupts the flow.

[Lumenskir]

What, that I've been watching the movies for decades? That I'm involved enough to have a collection started since before I was a teenager? It proves that I'm a nerd, certainly, but no one on the forum can deny a "nerd" label of some sort.

Without even going into the whole 'qualifications' thing, that's not what you said. You said that because you've started the most threads on a shitty nerd forum and own the movies on a shitty format, you are somehow qualified. The fact that you think the 'original' VHS's are radiating Bond-pontification legitimacy is what I found sad.

While it is a good movie, it lacks certain elements that I haven't listed, admittedly, because I'm describing what the Bond franchise feels like to me.

So basically you want this to thread to be a trip down No True Scotsman Lane, with all of us describing what does or doesn't make this a 'Bond movie' instead of actually talking about what we liked or didn't like about the movie itself?

[CABAL49]

Originally Posted by Lumenskir

So basically you want this to thread to be a trip down No True Scotsman Lane, with all of us describing what does or doesn't make this a 'Bond movie' instead of actually talking about what we liked or didn't like about the movie itself?

But now we know that Bond is a Scotsman, not just Sean Connery. But no, that's not what Seil was doing. He was going off the fact that he was an avid fan of the Bond series, and found things he thought didn't fit. He specifically said he thought it was a good movie.

What the fuck is this argument about I don't even. You are picking on Seil because he feels it is different from the Bond movies. Which is a fair statement. This was hardly a typical Bond movie. To me it seemed like they were trying to jump the shark.

[Lumenskir]

Just so I'm clear, I'm not trying to pick an argument with whether he is right in liking the movie or not, I'm just saying that the extent of any "What is a Bond movie?"-discussion is basically

Person 1: "I believe a Bond movie has elements A, B, and C."
Person 2: "I have differing beliefs."
Person 1: "Ok then!" "I hold fast to my previously expressed beliefs harder!!"

It's a conversational rocking horse, just back and forth with no progress.

even more so than the big "Home Alone" moment when they booby trap the house. Even more so that the helicopter crashing into it. Did it look cool? Yes. That doesn't stop it from being dumb, and adding to the "Home Alone" feel.

You know, Rio Bravo, Straw Dogs, and a number of other movies did the whole "Booby trap home from invaders" things before Home Alone (who's only major innovation was cranking down the lethality and cranking up the slapstick). Maybe if you compared that sequence to those movies you would like it better!?