[SPOILERS] Skyfall: Post-Viewing Discussion

I'm seeing the midnight showing. Just made up my mind tonight. Though movietickets.com screwed me by cancelling my order when I had reserved a good seat. I'm stuck with what I hope is a decent one.

Now to find a soda or two to keep me up half the night. And I just gave up caffeine again.

I'd love to know how Silva got out of the glass cage...

I will be heading off to my midnight showing in a bit. Will come back with opinions.

I'm transferring FRWL to my PSP just in case I need some pre-movie entertainment.

And if you hate SF, just switch on FRWL. At least it's Sony.

Skyfall (2012)

Too fucking tired to write about anything other than this being a top 3 Bond film with FRWL and GF.

1. Fairbairn-Sykes saves the day. Awesome.
2. Silva is definitely the best villain since 006.
3. Wow they really weren't kidding when they said they were inspired by THE DARK KNIGHT were they?
4. Sort've a roundabout way to get us back to where we've wanted to be all along, innit?
5. Bit of whiplash from the liberal mixing amd matching from different continuities -- sorry which Bond am I watching?
6. Movie definitely goes downhill after Silva is captured but never quite reaches "bad".
7. This time it was Bond who needed to shoot people when he had the chance. Holy shit you had him in your sights on numerous occasions but just kept listening to him talk.
8. Deepest lake in Scotland is on the Bond estate, apparently.
9. The komodo dragon bit was cool, but wiuld've been cooler if the animals weren't so obviously CGI. It pulled me out of the film. Remember when Bond movies did this kinda thing for real?
10. Severin was hot. Too bad she died.

7.5/10

FRWL
OHMSS
DN
GF
TB
YOLT
*SF*
LTK
CR 06
GE
TLD
FYEO
TSWLM
NSNA
DAF
CR 54
LALD
TMWTGG
TWINE
CR 67
AVTAK
MR
TND
DAD
OP
QOS

Will post my thorough thoughts after a few days, perhaps after a second viewing. For now, I'll just say that I had a ball watching this in IMAX. I said this about Casino Royale, but now Skyfall is the most satisfying Bond film since the 1960s. Bravo Mendes, Craig, Deakins, Logan, et al!

I enjoyed the film very much. Some of my favorite bits...Seeing M pay respects to the agents/staff that were lost (you could sense how much she was hurting inside), the villain was something distinctive( something we haven't had in awhile) and I thought his character was very well thought out. Seeing Bond near the end of his mental limit, then trying to pass the physical and mental tests( and failing). But throughout the film we see Bond start to show some of his roots and getting back to being 007. The background information at his home Skyfall was well delivered and you could see how much Bond hated being at that house (trying to destroy his past and move on). also enjoyed seeing Bond on the rooftop overlooking London (made me think of how much he loves his country) And of course the ending were we are introduced to Moneypenny and M (Mallory) and the way that whole scene was handled. Very Old school scene IMO.

With more viewings to come, I am sure others things will pop...but at the moment I thought it was a very great film!

Quote :

8. Deepest lake in Scotland is on the Bond estate, apparently.

Never heard of lochs?

Yeah it just seemed weird that there could be one thats like ten feet across, frozen over in the middle of a field, yet 20,000 fathoms deep apparently.

The depth never crossed my mind. I was too engaged in the story.

Interesting bit from Pearson:

"James Bond was evidently proud of his Scottishness, talking nostalgically about the stone house in the Highlands which was still the centre of the family. He said the only roots he felt were there. 'I always feel myself emotionally a Scot. I don't feel too comfortable in England. When I die I've asked that my ashes be scattered in Glencoe.'

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

Yeah it just seemed weird that there could be one thats like ten feet across, frozen over in the middle of a field, yet 20,000 fathoms deep apparently.

It's a huge frozen loch. The surface area's much bigger than you give it credit for. Check out the brilliant shot with Bond's silhouette running across it with the halo of the burning lodge in the background (looks like a live action take on a shot from MK12's QOS title sequence)..

I will take your word for it. It just seemed incongruous at the time.

Yeah, there's a few shots that reveal the size of the loch, and it's not tiny.

Really looking forward to seeing this, and am heartened by the positive comments I'm seeing from people's whose opinions I respect. The only thing worrying me are the comparisons to Nolan and the Dark Knight, as I can't stand either.

Don't worry., they're only superficial comparisons. They're very different films at heart.

Yeah, there are some comparisons to be made in certain story bits that happen, but the styles are very different. The way this is film written, shot, and edited is quite different from Nolan (THANK THE GODS!). It also has humour and sex, so it's not like Nolan that much.

I can't wait to get this on Blu-ray. I want to see it again.

You can certainly tell that they took direct influence from it though. I think Skyfall would be a very different movie without those Nolan Batman movies.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

You can certainly tell that they took direct influence from it though. I think Skyfall would be a very different movie without those Nolan Batman movies.

They took one of my favorite elements of TDK; Joker being the biggest troll ever and testing the good guys and hitting them in their weak spots. Sykes mentioned Moriarty somewhere. That's the kind of villain I've wanted. It's what I'd like to see done with a modern Blofeld.

I think that if you want to write a Bond film, start with the villain.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

5. Bit of whiplash from the liberal mixing amd matching from different continuities -- sorry which Bond am I watching?

That had me wondering as well. I'd expected it be the DB5 he won in The Bahamas, but it's the GF one. But this is not the classic Bond.

Not that I really give a crap. I don't think they should box things into a continuity with these films. That's a more recent trend that I think Bond should avoid.

Yeah, its squarely in rhe Rebootverse, but I think Mendes wanted to treat a universal Bond, so he can address more broad themes about the character. Hence the references to Q Branch making exploding pens and other gadgets that they never did in the Craig timeline. It also allows him the freedom to sidestep the whole QUANTUM quagmire.

Also helps that there's a 6 year gap between CR/QOS and SF.

Well, I think if we look at things "in-universe", there could have been a Q Branch that made more outlandish gadgets before Bond was ever involved. It is a weird situation, though.

I was almost thinking it was like a "soft reboot", which I've heard Sykes say about films like BATMAN FOREVER.

But nah, it's just a movie within a series of movies. And I like that it breaks away a bit from what was set up in CR and QOS.

I guess you could view it as a soft reboot. QOS in particular can be totally ignored as it's of no consequence. I'm more interested in what the series can offer from here on out. And in that I see SF as a fresh start. Or restart, or whatever.

Exploding pen is NSNA. They aren't making reference to the old series, but the renegade one.