[Potential Spoilers] Official SKYFALL Photo Thread (Part I)

lachesis wrote:

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

I have to admit, the link to Bond's dead family is making me slightly interested in where the plot of this film could be going. This could be something really great....or something tremendously cheesy and awful. It's hard to know. I mean, is this going to be like Bruce Wayne going after Joe Chill?

If they also go down the generic path of Bond fulfilling his destiny or continuing his Father's (or would it more likely be Mother's works this time) work I will be might peeved.

That thought crossed my mind. I still suggest that the ideas possibly being put forth by the plot have potential, but I also believe that they could go horribly wrong if not handled properly, only because we've basically seen this sort of story arc that you mentioned so many times before in other films. We're even getting a taste of that now with the new SPIDER-MAN movie, where emo-Peter accepts his "destiny" be learning about how his mother and father were actually agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (or something similar). We've seen it in Star Wars...we've seen it in Percy Jackson and The Olympians (a movie I actually enjoyed). So if Bond is going to do it, they need to bring something fresh to the table.

The day HE came home.

Imagining suitably emotive, perhaps passionate music as Bond walks around the moors. Perhaps the faint whine of the Bond theme on the bagpipes.

Then into the family home down to the basement and abandoned Tube station.

Be glad David Arnold ain't gonna score this sucker.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Be glad David Arnold ain't gonna score this sucker.

true that.

I'm not. Just think what we're missing out on...:(

Hilly wrote:

Imagining suitably emotive, perhaps passionate music as Bond walks around the moors. Perhaps the faint whine of the Bond theme on the bagpipes.

Then into the family home down to the basement and abandoned Tube station.

Sadly I can also imagine the emo babble from M that probably led him to go see his parents grave.... cue vacant stare just off centre into far distance, the breeze gently catching his blonde forelock and revealing the mark Voldemorte...errr Silva left on him....

FieldsMan wrote:

I'm not. Just think what we're missing out on...:(

Melodramatic piano play?

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

lachesis wrote:

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

I have to admit, the link to Bond's dead family is making me slightly interested in where the plot of this film could be going. This could be something really great....or something tremendously cheesy and awful. It's hard to know. I mean, is this going to be like Bruce Wayne going after Joe Chill?

If they also go down the generic path of Bond fulfilling his destiny or continuing his Father's (or would it more likely be Mother's works this time) work I will be might peeved.

That thought crossed my mind. I still suggest that the ideas possibly being put forth by the plot have potential, but I also believe that they could go horribly wrong if not handled properly, only because we've basically seen this sort of story arc that you mentioned so many times before in other films. We're even getting a taste of that now with the new SPIDER-MAN movie, where emo-Peter accepts his "destiny" be learning about how his mother and father were actually agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (or something similar).

My thoughts exactly. If done tastefully and not too heavy-handed, some plot involving Bond's lineage could work well. But, like you said, the threat of Babs wanting to take this too far is looming. If Bond's parents end up being MI6 agents or if we find out that M is really Bond's aunt or something....then I'll vomit right there in the theater. I pray that Mendes has the balls to tell Babs or Michael or whoever to go pound sand if need be.

...and actually, this whole thing sounds a bit like DAD before DAD was....well, DAD. Wasn't the original outline for Bond 20 supposed to involve Bond's family, or something of that nature?

Those photos look great, too. Love the look of the Scottish highlands and the ancient buildings.

dr. strangelove wrote:

My thoughts exactly. If done tastefully and not too heavy-handed, some plot involving Bond's lineage could work well. But, like you said, the threat of Babs wanting to take this too far is looming. If Bond's parents end up being MI6 agents or if we find out that M is really Bond's aunt or something....then I'll vomit right there in the theater. I pray that Mendes has the balls to tell Babs or Michael or whoever to go pound sand if need be.

...and actually, this whole thing sounds a bit like DAD before DAD was....well, DAD. Wasn't the original outline for Bond 20 supposed to involve Bond's family, or something of that nature?

I don't know about DAD. I've always wanted to know more about the original drafts of that movie because they did some significant changes after 9/11, but I never knew what those changes were. I've never been able to find a copy of the DAD script online or at Ebay.

With SF the one concern I have with the film would be a variation of the scene from TWINE where Bond gently caresses the image of a crying Elektra on the computer screen, except this time it is Bond getting emotional at his parents grave. But Sam Mendes and Daniel Craig *could* pull it off, so if anybody was to take a stab at something like this I think the right people are in charge of it.

Back to TWINE...II basically think that if the role of Dr. Christmas Jones had been better written, even with a lackluster performance by Denise Richards, the film would have been stronger. The role was underwritten from the start and then given to an actress whose talents were comparable to the part. Incidentally, Richards is actually very good in the introductory scene with Brosnan (where she tells Bond that if he needs to be concerned about anything it should be about her), so it's kind of a pity that the character had nowhere else to go after that.

Sharky wrote:

...

Is George Lazenby doing anything these days?

lachesis wrote:

Sadly I can also imagine the emo babble from M that probably led him to go see his parents grave.... cue vacant stare just off centre into far distance, the breeze gently catching his blonde forelock and revealing the mark Voldemorte...errr Silva left on him....

I have to admit this whole "Bond comes home" routine is somewhat intriguing if handled well. Wow, Eon is determined it seems to build a whole new mythology. May be a while before they simply do another straightforward Bond adventure, if ever.:)

This scenario reminds of Deaver's Carte Blanche as well. Deaver was obsessed with Bond's quest to know the "truth" about his parents. Are Eon and IFP conspiring to collaborate on these stories? hmmm.

I guess we will also learn, who exactly might have taken charge of delivering Bond's body to stately Skyfall Manor, if Bond had caught a bullet, or a spider bite, or been chewed up by a croc, or experienced some other fatal calamity somewhere along the line.

Was there someone watching him all this time, ready to take dead Bond home, if the bad guys had managed to punch his ticket?

tiffanywint wrote:

Wow, Eon is determined it seems to build a whole new mythology.

Oh, I think they definitely want that. It backfired a bit with QUANTUM OF SOLACE, but the attempts to build some kind of new mythology are still there.

We'll see how strongly the film plays up the parents angle. It's by far the most intriguing aspect of SKYFALL, but it's also the aspect that could go the most horribly wrong. EON's tendency to play up the "drama" does lend one to think that this isn't going to pan out all that well, but at the same time, I gotta admit I like the look of the chapel and the decaying manor house. There's something nice about a more contemporary James Bond confronting the ghost of an aristocratic Britain that has long since vanished. It emphasizes that Craig's Bond is neither quite a product of the past nor of the present.

It's interesting, though, that one of the things that was said about SKYFALL--by Naomie Harris?--is that Mendes was bringing a lighter touch to the proceedings, that there was a bit more humor here. Sure doesn't seem like it, the more we find out about the film. But maybe the "parents" angle is played with a lighter hand than we might think, and is less tied into the central story than we might initially expect.

I doubt they'd waste that angle though. The track record doesn't suggest it will be handled either well nor in an impactless way.

M: "The gravestone never told you what happened to your mother...."
Bond: "It told me enough... it told me she died in a climbing accident"
M: "No.... I am your mother"
Bond: "No... that's not true... that's impossible".
Babs: "It damn well f*cking isn't. SHOW ME THE BAFTAS!!!!!"

Lazenby. wrote:

I doubt they'd waste that angle though.

Would it really "waste" the angle to have Bond's parents featured in a way that doesn't entangle them in some political conspiracy? I'm not sure it would.

But it is EON we're talking about, so I'm bracing myself for the CARTE BLANCHE-esque reveal that Bond's parents were secret agents.

Harmsway wrote:

Lazenby. wrote:

I doubt they'd waste that angle though.

Would it really "waste" the angle to have Bond's parents featured in a way that doesn't entangle them in some political conspiracy? I'm not sure it would.

But it is EON we're talking about, so I'm bracing myself for the CARTE BLANCHE-esque reveal that Bond's parents were secret agents.

Or the Spider-Man reveal circa 1968 (in one of the Amazing Spider-Man annuals) that Peter Parker's parents had been SHIELD agents.

Yep, there's no way we'll see the gravestones for no explicit reason.

Sharky wrote:

In the reboot paraverse/timeline, the Bond family legacy might be something akin to BLADE RUNNER's accelerated decrepitude; he's starting to look less like Taylor Negron to me and more like William Sanderson.

Lazenby. wrote:

Yep, there's no way we'll see the gravestones for no explicit reason.

Could be an overly ambitious set dresser ... I mean, if not for ROGER MOORE'S JAMES BOND DIARY, we wouldn't know what was on any of the headstones in L&LD.

But if this is a major angle on the show, they coud do worse than incorporating graveyard imagery into the title sequence. Hell, when I was 15 and shooting my first Bond parody, we filmed our title sequence in a real graveyard, and it looked pretty good, except for a couple of Ed Wood-like fake headstones with the actors names on them.

Harmsway wrote:

It's interesting, though, that one of the things that was said about SKYFALL--by Naomie Harris?--is that Mendes was bringing a lighter touch to the proceedings, that there was a bit more humor here. Sure doesn't seem like it, the more we find out about the film. But maybe the "parents" angle is played with a lighter hand than we might think, and is less tied into the central story than we might initially expect.

It's confusing because I just read a pretty recent interview with Fiennes (I forgot where...) where he was asked what kind of Bond movie SKYFALL will be....and he said something along the lines of "This is very much a hard-edged Bond movie." What he meant by that...who knows. Perhaps what Harris meant when she said that was more lighthearted than QoS, along the lines of CR. Mendes has said before that he loves CR, so maybe he's going for something similar. Or maybe ROAD TO PERDITION could be serving as a guide for him. Serious movie, but still has some sense of fun and wonder. He's also said that he went back and read all the Fleming novels, so he might be trying to inject some of that pulp-quality into SKYFALL, as well.

I go back and reread Fleming pretty regularly (some of them, anyway, not SPY or GOLDEN GUN though), and what I get out of it more and more is that Tarantino should be shooting these things, the mix of some sharp dialog and a sense for grotesquerie.

I've remained largely spoiler free apart from looking at some photos which I don't think reveal too much atleast little about the plot so I don't mind viewing the visuals.

In terms of the Bond family gravestones, I think it's fantastic that these will feature in the film and I don't see why they should have anything to do with the plot. Why must everything be related to the story? A scene of Bond looking over his family would serve as a nice slice of character movement and add to Bond's background history. Such a scene needn't last very long, yet at the same time it shouldn't be too short, nor should it be treated in a comedic fashion. I hope they don't end up cutting out large chunks in post. I'll be somewhat disappointed if the gravestones are related to the plot (I won't be surprised if this turns out to be the case though and to have Bond fired upon while looking at them would just be cheap and tacky) but then again this whole film could very well disappoint me as I haven't liked any of the Bond films since the Dalton era, excluding CR which is the only one based on a full length Fleming novel.

I've also wanted to see Bond in his flat again perhaps eating scrambled eggs for the same reasons as above. Observing the decor of Bond's pad and what he eats further adds to his character - likes, tastes etc even if only in a very minor way. Remember Caine at the beginning of the Ipcress File and the meticulous process he went through when making his freshly brewed cup of coffee? It was mentioned a couple of times in the film by supporting characters that he is a gourmet.

In terms of the humour, I wouldn't like it if Skyfall has anymore than CR. That wouldn't be appropriate for the Craig films. I'd be perfectly happy if it only had the same amount as QOS. One of the few things I like about this film is the humour and how it is more subtle and realistic than in CR which I think is one of the latter's demerits.

"I go back and reread Fleming pretty regularly (some of them, anyway, not SPY or GOLDEN GUN though), and what I get out of it more and more is that Tarantino should be shooting these things, the mix of some sharp dialog and a sense for grotesquerie."

I agree. Tarantino is a versatile director and can blend everything - action, character movement, story, good dialogue, elegance, refinement etc. very well.

The star of every Tarantino film is Tarantino himself. I'm not prepared to see him become the center of the Bond franchise.

How do you mean, Harms?

Every film Tarantino has made is a pastiche/tribute to a certain genre (PULP FICTION is noir-ish, JACKIE BROWN is blaxpliotation, KILL BILL is Hong Kong action cinema, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS is the men-on-a-mission film, and DJANGO UNCHAINED will probably be Westerns), and while the films are quite well-made and lovingly-crafted, they also come across as Tarantino saying "this is how all those films influenced me, and made me into the director that I am, so this film is me giving something back to them".