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

[Satan's Onion]

I believe all of you are overlooking one crucial and indisputable fact: that the only Bond film worth considering is 1967's Casino Royale. Since it features several James Bonds, a hilarious riot, and a bagpipe machine gun, its superiority is absolute and objectively scientific.

[Bells]

So here is a true relevant question... the "Origins" trilogy is done, should craig keep going on as Bond?

From where the movies left off, that would be the point where it leaps back into the older movies... at least while trying to make any chronological sense of anything. And there is simply no chance they will remake any bond movies. At least not for a few more decades...

So, should Craig step aside and new bond movies come up with a new framing and new actor or where should they take this Bond next?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

The superiority of the original Casino Royale has been proven in threads before SO. I don't think anybody disputes it. We are ignoring it because this thread is about the EON-productions and it would just degenerate this thread in discussing it.

And of the EON films, the Moore are the only ones worth watching (and maybe Die Another Day).

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Bells

So here is a true relevant question... the "Origins" trilogy is done, should craig keep going on as Bond?

From where the movies left off, that would be the point where it leaps back into the older movies... at least while trying to make any chronological sense of anything. And there is simply no chance they will remake any bond movies. At least not for a few more decades...

So, should Craig step aside and new bond movies come up with a new framing and new actor or where should they take this Bond next?

Craig is doing two more, then his contract is up. The next two are going to be interrelated like Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, as well.

[RickZarber]

Wow, not getting to see it until just tonight, (due to the OCD desire to watch all 22 previous EON films on Blu-ray first; took me about a month,) I figured everything I would want to talk about would already be covered by the time I got here. But no! you guys got all bogged down with "what constitutes a Bond film", and I can just jump right in! Though, hey, glad I avoided this thread until now anyway, as there has been a distinct lack of spoiler tags in some posts...

Anyways, I'll get the largest of my (few) gripes out of the way first: there's no goddamn way Bond could have survived that fall in the pre-credits sequence. Usually these newer "realistic" movies give us at least a suggestion of an attempted explanation to make their ridiculous hijinks suspend our disbelief. But no. Crazy long fall; nice, loud, solid SMACK as he hit. Dude shoulda been a pancake. Come on, movie, I'm willing to meet you half way here! Water as magical shock absorber doesn't cut it.

That said, I really enjoyed the film!* Great song and superb opening credits sequence went a long way towards helping me immediately forget the above gripe. I did a little cheer when I saw Danny Kleinman back as the opening credits designer (he did GoldenEye through Casino Royale, and was sorely missed after the mediocrity that M12 served up for Quantum of Solace). I want to see it again, now that I understand all the iconography! I do wish they'd kept David Arnold (TND - QOS) for the score; Newman did a serviceable job, but it lacked the classic Barry feel that Arnold somehow manages to infuse into his still-modern sounding scores. Quoting the Bond theme every now and then is all well and good, but it needs a bit more for my taste. Don't have much more to add about Deakin's gorgeous cinematography; y'all have covered that fairly well.

I thought Javier Bardem was simply electrifying as Silva. God, that first scene with the rats monologue, where it's just one long take and he just languidly strolls closer and closer... I was getting chills. And the following bit with the... bad touch. Riveting, even though it played for laughs. Honestly, this guy felt to me almost like a book-Bond villain--much moreso than many of the modern baddies, or even some of the classic-era interpretations.

Perhaps the thing I liked best, though, was probably what Seil disliked. I liked the break in formula. When Silva was captured, I thought, Man, I have absolutely no idea where this is going to go from here! It was kind of exciting. Yes, the film takes a major deviation from there, but after sitting through all of the Bond films in such close succession, (and watching many of them with my roommate, who had only seen a small handful of them previously), all of the clichés started to stand out quite vividly, and the formulas started wearing a bit thin. New and unexpected was just what was needed.

I did give pause at the bits that seemed to ignore the reboot function of the previous Craig films, ( DB5 being all Goldfinger, firm 4th wall poke at GoldenEye's exploding pen), but I'm used to just rolling with Bond continuity. Hell, Diamonds Are Forever ignores OHMSS, which is then directly referenced in For Your Eyes Only. So whatcha gonna do. Though, to address earlier comments, I do think this was supposed to be an older, more experienced Bond than CR/QOS. M has a direct line of, "You've been at this a long time now," or some-such. But that's fine, I was getting a little tired of "not-quite-the-Bond-you-know-but-he's-getting-there" anyway.

My only other real gripe is with the end of the film. Well, first, not really a gripe, but I really wanted Judi Dench's M to survive, because I wanted her to end up with Kincade! I thought that's where they were going with him for a bit; that Bond's two surrogate parental figures would end up together and get a happy retirement. But I can see why they ended it as they did. Much bigger emotional impact in any case. But the thing that rubbed me wrong was how forced the last scene felt. "Oh, Eve, you're actually Moneypenny, despite the fact that no one has even used the name Eve in the film up until this point, so that bit of misdirection was useless. But isn't it convenient that I'm asking your name now. Oh and hey, new M's office looks exactly like the 60s again! One can only assume we've moved back into the Universal Exports office back in Regent's Park! Yes, the old ways are the best, so, 50-year-old covers for everyone! Also, no more cell-phones, we wouldn't want to have to include their ubiquitous presence in the modern world in our plotlines, despite already having done so in the previous two movies."

But, again, small gripes, and I'm actually pumped to have Ralph Fiennes as M from now on. OH! And one thing that I've really liked about the Craig films: they've finally included Chief of Staff Bill Tanner as one of the main recurring characters! He's an important part the team for, like, the first time ever outside of the books, where he was specifically described as Bond's closest friend! (Tanner showed up previously in FYEO as a stick-up-his-ass bureaucrat totally divorced from his source--stepping in between Ms after Bernard Lee died and before Robert Brown took over--and then again in GoldenEye and TWINE, as proper book-Tanner, though the character never stuck, and he seemed to alternate his job with Colin Salmon's Charles Robinson character.) Now if they just bring back Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter in the next Bond film, and have him and Bond actually become friends, I'll be happy forever.

Oh god how did I spent three hours writing all this fuckin' hell it is bedtime beyond.


*Though perhaps I should note that I like, or can find things to like about, pretty much all of the Bond films. I quite liked QOS, for example, and only the terribly edited action sequences holds it back in my esteem. And Dalton's two Bond movies are two of my favorites, and that certainly seems to go against the common opinion. I prefer the more serious, simpler Bonds (FRWL, OHMSS, etc), but I still love, say, Moonraker for all its over-the-top shenanigans. Hell, there's only one Bond movie I actively dislike: Die Another Day. (I find it intolerably cringe-inducing and not-entertainingly stupid.) But even that has a cool sword fight that I enjoy, and the first 30 mins are actually fairly inoffensive (minus the Madonna song) before the film starts throwing DNA replacement and invisible cars at you and all of the dialogue goes so far up its own ass with its (totally unearned) smug sense of cleverness and BLEARGHHH.

[Magus]

You can count me as a fellow Dalton fan. The Living Daylights is one of my favorites.

Yeah, I loved how the iconography of the opening turns out to be important in the end. Sometimes you just figure they're throwing random cool-looking bullshit in there. In fact I think that's usually the case (and the naked ladies).

[BloodyMage]

I don't mean to revive a thread that has been untouched for almost two weeks but this is the relevant place to discuss this matter.

Am I the only one unaware that James Bond was his actual name? Seriously, I thought James Bond was a code name like 007 was his agent number at MI6. A friend assures me it was in the books but I've never read any of the actual books because by in large the movies are only loosely tied to them anyway. Yet, I honestly believed that James Bond was a code name passed from agent to agent which explained why he managed to work as a spy for over 50 years and changed faces numerous times (and hair colour). I know the series plays recklessly with continuity but this made sense and it turned out to be a lie.

[Bells]

since Skyfall can be seen as the end chapter of a "origins" trilogy, your theory could just be true as well, as long as you accept Daniel Craig as the first James Bond 007

[Magus]

That it is a code-name is a fan theory to explain why he is played by various actors and never ages, whereas within the films themselves it seems supported that it is the same character throughout, although the only hard evidence up until Skyfall would have been that Dalton refers to George Lazenby's marriage in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. With Skyfall kind of cementing it it would appear that it is the same James Bond throughout.

Of course, the new movies are something of a "reboot".

Despite having the car from Goldfinger.

Yeah.

EDIT: First thing that pops up in a Google search:

So, every Bond actor played a different character who was assuming the codename “James Bond”? This would mean that there have been five James Bonds: Connery/Bond, Lazenby/Bond, Moore/Bond, Dalton/Bond and Brosnan/Bond. With Connery/Bond being the first, right? A bit odd then that Connery/Bond is replaced by Lazenby/Bond only to later on return. Perhaps Lazenby/Bond got compassionate leave after his wife died (his wife died, remember that for later)?. But Lazenby recognises gadgets from Connery missions (recognises, he’s not just clearing out his predecessors desk, hey, what’s that there in the bottom draw? Oooh, very kinky), so that’s not going to quite work. Perhaps Connery and Lazenby were playing the same character, while Moore, Dalton and Brosnan were playing different ones. This would mean that there have been four James Bond – ConneryLazenby/Bond, Moore/Bond, Dalton/Bond and Brosnan/Bond.

But in The Spy Who Loved Me Sheikh Hosein remembers Moore/Bond from Cambridge, which would mean Moore/Bond was using the Bond Codename during his University years, before ConneryLazenby/Bond. Did Moore/Bond possibly have a brief stint using the Codename before passing it on to ConneryLazenby/Bond, only to get it back 11 years later? Not likely. Maybe Moore was playing the same character as Connery and Lazenby, while Dalton and Brosnan were playing different ones. This would mean that there have been three James Bond – ConneryLazenbyMoore/Bond, Dalton/Bond and Brosnan/Bond.

The Dalton Era is the one that’s the most damaging for supporters of The Codename Theory, primarily because Dalton/Bond resigns from the Secret Service in Licence to Kill. Why did he get to keep the codename? According to the theory, shouldn’t he have relinquished the codename and gone back to whatever his name was before he replaced ConneryLazenbyMoore/Bond as James Bond. We’ll ignore this fact and assume that MI6 are slow with paperwork (M’s still waiting on that mini refrigerator she ordered for the office last September), but he was lucky that they didn’t give the James Bond codename to someone else while he was off hunting down Sanchez. The other thing about Licence to Kill is that Felix Lieter acknowledges Dalton/Bond as the one who “was married, a long time ago”. Perhaps Dalton/Bond was also married, perhaps to a hairy-knuckled Scotswoman named Gladys. Or Perhaps Dalton was playing the same character as Connery, Lazenby and Moore, while Brosnan was playing a different one. This would mean that there has been two James Bonds – ConneryLazenbyMooreDalton/Bond and Brosnan/Bond.

As we move along to Brosnan, I think you can see where I’m heading. There’s no dead wife references to save me this time though, but there is something else; Doesn’t the pre-title scene of the first Brosnan/Bond film, GoldenEye take place nine years earlier? Before The Living Daylights? Before Brosnan/Bond took over the codename. Is Brosnan playing ConneryLazenbyMooreDalton/Bond for this one scene ? Does Brosnan join the ranks of Charles Grey and Joe Don Baker with the honour of playing two different characters in the Bond series ? Probably not, since later on Brosnan/Bond clearly remembers the events of the pre-title scene. It’s also unlikely that Trevelyn (shouldn’t that be a codename as well?) would want to take revenge on “some else who just happens to be assuming the code name once used by the person who betrayed me”. Unlikely but not impossible I suppose, but it definitely seems that Brosnan was playing the same character as Connery, Lazenby, Moore and Dalton. This would mean that there has been one James Bond – ConneryLazenbyMooreDaltonBrosnan/Bond, James Bond, the one and only. Nobody does it better.

[Lumenskir]

I wish that analysis had a face so I could give it a wedgie.