"Did you just move in? No, why..?"
nobody
Posts: 110MI6 Agent
This exchange annoys me. If "SPECTRE" takes place immediately after the events of "Skyfall", which we know it does, then, in fact Bond HAS just moved in. If Moneypenny never posed the question, we'd have assumed that he was just settling in to his new flat. So why does Bond deny this? Irritating lapse in continuity...
Comments
Where's May when you need her?
I thought it looked more Spartan than anything else as befits the 'man without qualities' vibe.
Sadly, Mendes again demonstrates that as a Bond fanboy, his skill is lacking. Bond's flat is a wonderful opportunity to get some insight on the man from his home style. Unlike Dr No or LALD, we are given an empty living room with pictures leaning on the walls, the telly (for a plot device, no more) and a few boxes. - These minimalist approaches work in one act plays on the stage. They leave a film fan - and a Bond one at that, wanting. Coupled with the ruined and forgotton Skyfall lodge, paint the image of someone empty and linear. A shame, amd somewhat lazy set design for a one liner.
Look at the scenes in M-Manf's flat in CR-06 for a comparrison. A bit oppulant for Mr Craig's 007, but beautifully done!
Viewing all of this information together, the filmmakers are obviously trying to drive home the point that Bond is a total workaholic who takes no time to indulge in anything other than the most basic needs (sleep, food, drink, sex). So Bond has indeed been living there a while, but hasn't found the time to do anything with the place. He knows it looks like hell, but doesn't care because his focus is so singular. I believe this is consistent with Craig's interpretation of Bond, although it's inconsistent with every other version of the character. Coincidentally, it's also the thing I most dislike about Craig's Bond. Surely a man who keeps such a home would not be so well put together in his dress. It also runs contrary to his military background.
It's not messy, it's just unpacked, still neatly in boxes.
It doesn't represent Bond as a workaholic, but someone who doesn't take lots of time with furniture and unpacking boxes, when his work probably meant he spends a lot of time abroad. You have that risque print of a woman, and some academic looking books around, plus a bottle of wine. That's all Bond needs.
(Though it would have been a pretty cool reference if there were some golf clubs and a coffee machine around)
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
Very well put. Craig is perpetually ' becoming Bond' and never quite being Bond. The possible exception is SP but that film is so weak and mired that it never quite lands (not Craig's fault) If we're to see his flat in SP I think it would be different. As it stands I think it's perfect for the film and a deliberate statement and not an oversight in my view.
Bond's home would not be full of arty farty stuff ot sentimental clutter.
It should be functional, practical a place where he would keep resources and material of use.
EMP's reaction shows it is a place Bond does not share. - If this is because he is never there to use it, why not lease it out?
In short, in context it doesn't make sense. It also (dare I say it) makes the character less interesting.
Re Bond's journey into becoming 007, that was completed at the end of CR-06, with that epic 'The names Bond, James Bond.' While Mr White's leg bleeds in shattered pieces off screen.
The promise of solid character evolution just hasn't been followed up to with QoS's 'Vesper Vendeta,' SF 'Momy issues' and SP 'cuckoo cronicles.' SP also doesn't help with the unwaranted 'tie a ring around it' routine.
A spiral of woe, woe and more woe. We need writers and a director to say Woah! Enough already!
Bond should be someone who revils in what he does, because life is short. An unstarted flat (yes, flat not fart) is a metaphor for an un incomplete character.
Closest to Fleming's portrayal in that point would be Dalton - but only in that!!
And he'd also take good care for his doll collection :v
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Great point. I just don't think Craig's Bond's flat was consistent with the character.
I think a lot of people feel this way. I wonder if EON has its finger on the pulse?
I respectively disagree about Bond never being home and being a workaholic based on the appearence of his flat - even with Craig's Bond. In the novels Bond has a normal office job with regular hours most of the year and normally was sent off on a mission once or twice a year. When you look at the life or death missions he went on and how many times he had to recover from being wounded it's not surprising his field work was limited to that. Bond's department was a highly specialized one (which is one of the reasons it had only a handfull of 00 agents). Though he was sent on some fantasy adventures by Fleming, the author tried to keep Bond's fictional work week existance grounded in reality and one of the ways he did this was by telling his readers that just as how most of the men and women who work in the intelligence field most of the time have pretty routine lives (even though the work itself is interesting), Bond's was also like that. Most audiences can easily take away from the films the false idea that Bond spends most of his time globe trotting and seducing throngs of women and blowing things up, because that's precisely the only thing they see him do. Even if one examines the missions in his films and placed them in real time, they actually would only take place over small periods of not more than a week or two.
So, if the premise that Bond only is out on missions for a few weeks a year, how to explain the flat in the film? Easily - as I mentioned in my previous post, it can take weeks or months to find a new home and different amounts of time to actually move in. The state of his flat in the film more or less suggests that - and again, though it may have been done to suggest the state of flux Bond was in following SF and his mission in Mexico, it could also have been shown just to show some continuity from the last film - his flat had been sold and his possessions put in storage and we see he's found a new flat since then and is beginning to move in. To take from that the idea that Bond is a workaholic and has an empty life outside his work is IMO uninformed and innacurate.
Said Craig's Bond is never at home etc.
it is also completely inconsistent with Fleming's Bond and all previous interpretations
Fleming's Bond knew where all his towels and shampoos came from, there was page after page describing this stuff, he may have had a maid to keep it clean but he was obsessive about the consumer goods he used and filled his flat with
Moore's Bond looks to be quite consistent, from what we see in Live and Let Die, look at that espresso machine he uses to fix M a coffee (M mocks him for this unmanly affectation)
I think the scene in Dr No is too brief (and maybe budget limited) to really show us how Connery's Bond lives while he's at home, but since he's bringing a chick home he probably wants it presentable
the others we don't see their apartment, I would guess Brosnan's Bond had some tasteful décor, conversation pieces even, he just seemed very Yuppy-ish.
Lazenby's Bond was probably more of a slob (and I bet Tracy would have not been into the housewife scene had she lived).
Dalton actually may also be too focussed on his crazy hunches and missions of revenge to care about what his apartment looks like (but if he's bringing that cellist home, one'd hope he'd clean up a bit first: Connery already knew his apartment was good enough for some babe action when he left the casino with Sylvia Trench, Dalton probably would rush to clean the bathroom while the cellist was distracted by his CD collection)
also Fleming's and Moore's Bond both were shown to know their way round the kitchen ... I bet Craig's Bond has some frozen TV dinners he's forgotten about and piles of takeout containers he hasn't thrown out yet
nothing wrong with that, its a different interpretation of the character and this scene helps to flesh that out