Fifth SKYFALL Clip - "I'm your new Quartermaster"

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/video/skyfall-clip-quartermaster-084527411.html

Very nice. I don't love the concept of a young Q, but the dynamic seems to work very well in light of SKYFALL's emphasis on Bond's aging. And Craig's older, wearier 007 is doing a lot for me.

Yup, really dig it so far. I like that they're going for a new dynamic instead of trying to recapture Llewellyn like they did with Cleese.

Harmsway wrote:

Very nice. I don't love the concept of a young Q, but the dynamic seems to work very well in light of SKYFALL's emphasis on Bond's aging. And Craig's older, wearier 007 is doing a lot for me.

I think I'll like Ben Whishaw, but the scene seemed a bit too-wordy. Also, it looks to me like Mendes has Bond call him "Q" because audiences outside of Britain may not know what a quartermaster is, and would only have understood what Whishaw was representing by having Bond directly address him as Q.

I don't really like GayQ, but I don't hate him (yet) either. Whishaw's not a very good actor and Craig steals this scene.

Python wrote:

Yup, really dig it so far. I like that they're going for a new dynamic instead of trying to recapture Llewellyn like they did with Cleese.

My thoughts exactly.

Love it. Pretty good chemistry between the two. The aging Bond angle has the potential to be really interesting, and draws some nice comparisons to the OHMSS/YOLT novels.

nuQ reminds me a bit of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory in this clip.

Avoided this one, seen one clip too much and don't want to spoil it...

dr. strangelove wrote:

nuQ reminds me a bit of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory in this clip.

You've just guaranteed my wife is going to love this -- she practically worships Sheldon and already digs Whishaw from THE HOUR and PERFUME (a rare case where her favorite book of all time got successfully translated to the screen.)

Python wrote:

Yup, really dig it so far. I like that they're going for a new dynamic instead of trying to recapture Llewellyn like they did with Cleese.

I agree. But as much as they're going for the new dynamic, there is some of Llewellyn in it, and I think that's important. They might not have the light-hearted banter of days gone by, but I think there is enough of Llewellyn in the character to make him recogniseable as Q, but enough original stuff to make him Whishaw's character. I quite like the way their introduction has them staring at the camera and discussing art. It doesn't really add anything to the characters (except maybe to show that Whishaw-Q is educated), but I like it when a film takes the time to show that there is a world outside the immediate plot.

I'm really hoping that Whishaw does what Ewan McGregor did in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. By the end of REVENGE OF THE SITH, I could easily believe that McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi would age to become Alec Guiness' Obi-Wan. It was one of the few bright spots in those three films (though as ham-fisted as it was, Lucas' willingness to make REVENGE a tragedy was also a highlight), and I'm really hoping Whishaw does something similar here: play the character in such a way that you can believe he would grow to become Desmond Llewellyn in thirty or forty years.

Is he supposed to be Boothroyd? I guessed he was a new character much like Mallory.

I don't know if he's supposed to be Boothroyd. I kind of just assumed.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

I don't know if he's supposed to be Boothroyd. I kind of just assumed.

I don't see any Boothroyd or much Llelwelyn in Whishaw's Q.

For one thing, Whishaw's Q doesn't come across as someone with a military background.

For another, Llewelyn's Q was a man of oldfashioned manners who would have respected his elders. No way would he tear into Bond like this (a Bond much older than him, that is - he certainly wasn't polite to the Bonds who were the same age as him or younger than him).

If Llewelyn's Q, as a young man, had been presented to a legendary agent many years his senior, he might well have thought that he was a clapped-out old hulk ready to be towed away for scrap, but he'd have kept those thoughts to himself.

In addition, Whishaw's Q seems to be a something of a high-minded intellectual with an appreciation of fine art (no doubt he's also brilliant at chess). Which again doesn't chime with Llewelyn's Q. Llewelyn's Q is an educated man, and doubtlesss has a similar public school background to Bond, but he's not A Thinker(TM). He's a practical chap - very practical, of course, but hardly an intellectual. Whishaw seems to be playing Q almost as a trainee Bond villain (perhaps BOND 25 or 26 will see his Q going rogue and starting his own evil organisation, with 007 sent to take him down). He's almost a bit like Stewie Griffin from FAMILY GUY.

I'm with Python in guessing that this is not Boothroyd but a new character like Mallory.

I like how there's still verbal sparring between Bond and Q, but this time around it's driven by Bond's incredulousness at his youth.