MI5 in Skyfall
SeanIsTheOnlyOne
Posts: 545MI6 Agent
In Skyfall, given the attack occurs within the UK, isn't MI5 supposed to get involved ? We don't see Bond dealing with domestic agents after Silva's "capture" while it's a matter of national security.
Comments
As it was personal to M, I don’t think she would have shared intel with Five. She’d want to keep that ‘in house’.
There are rules. A personal case is not a necessary condition to make it her own. Otherwise it would be too easy.
My personal feeling is that Purvis, Wade and Logan totally forgot to take this point into account.
But if you abide by the rules of reality you’d never have a Bond film. Because MI6 don’t have secret agents like Bond at all. Especially ones that drive high end cars and unlimited expense accounts and carry sidearms all over the World without a problem. What is a reality though, is the divide between Six and Five. They both like to play their cards close to their chest and aren’t keen on passing intel between themselves. It’s a long standing problem that has only recently started to soften.
Besides, going back to the film. MI5 may investigate internally within the U.K. but the attack came from someone outside the U.K. So it’s perfectly within Six’s remit to investigate and follow up, which they did. As we aren’t interested what Fives investigation would be in a two hour film, just Bonds. Why would they even think to write it in, let alone film it. Waste of time. We already had more interesting stuff cut out of the film to streamline and reduce running time.
While we're at it, if the Intelligence and Security Committee which Mallory chairs is supposed to be a parliamentary Select Committee he'd be an MP, like Clair Dowar... but he's a civil servant.
@Asp9mm I don't agree. Fleming himself quotes Five in Moonraker and although I didn't appreciate the novel, Deaver deals very well with the dichotomy between Five and Six in Carte Blanche. The fact Bond is assigned to find out who planned the attack is quite relevant, that's why he's sent to Shanghai and Macao. Nevertheless, once he brings Silva back to London, M and him are supposed to share intel with Five.
The "more interesting stuff" you mention is precisely what makes me dislike Skyfall and most of the movies of the Craig era, so don't be surprised if I prefer focusing on topics I get interested in like espionage and geopolitics instead of personal issues like M's past and Bond's trauma. I don't expect you to share my opinion, but try to keep in mind everyone does not necessarily appreciate the same things.
@Shady Tree good point. But suspension of disbelief works enough to make Mallory a credible member of the Committee, while this Five/Six issue disturbs me a lot.
But Bond went to outer space in MR. I don't think that's MI5's job, but had MI6 any jurisdiction out there? Is there a British space force? 🤷😁
Ronnie Vallance of Scotland Yard handles internal matters in Fleming's books
but I dont think Scotland Yard, or MI5 is ever mentioned in the films. Nor any branch of the secret service outside the double oh department
also in the films, CIA agent Felix Leiter shouldnt be operating within the States, yet thats precisely what he is doing in Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die and License to Kill. Fleming goes to lengths to explain these things (Leiters collaborating with the FBI in LaLD, and working for Pinkertons in DaF and GF). as @Asp9mm reminds us, the films by contrast are pure fantasy world.
Good question though. Arent they using the real world MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall for their establishing shots in both the World is Not Enough and SkyFall? that bit of verisimilitude does confuse the issue. If the setting is real, we should assume everything else is real up til its suddenly fiction.
@Number24 given the shuttle leaves from the Amazon forest and Bond remains out of the UK, the sheet is clean 😉
@Shady Tree I can confirm. Neither MI5 nor Scotland Yard are ever mentioned in the films.
Concerning Leiter, it's true. I read somewhere there were domestic operations allowed by the director of national intelligence if necessary. Do they have the same kind of jurisdiction in the UK ? That's quite possible. Anyway it could have been mentioned in the movies.
I don't see that there's any need for them to be involved as he was captured overseas, within MI6's remit. I guess the MI6 building attack would have been something they'd want to investigate, but you could imagine that there would be all sorts of internal politics with that going on as it was on 6 ground. And then later the film itself explains that Mallory agrees with Bond's plan of notifying no-one, not the Security Service, not the police, not the rest of MI6 even.
What perhaps is slightly contentious is that Bond is carrying (and using!) a gun in London, which I'm not sure he should be doing! 😁 And then he (and Mallory and Moneypenny in fact) murders quite a lot people on British soil, and even though they were all bad, there's probably quite a few months of investigation for him to go through after the film 😄 (I guess he could always say that M killed them all!)
But I guess that's a problem which most action films ignore.
@emtiem you are right, carrying and using a gun in London is not as obvious as it appears in the movie. In Carte Blanche, Deaver describes very precisely the issues of the procedure through the relationship between Bond and Osborne-Smith.
About the need for MI5 to be involved, what happens in the tube clearly is a national security matter, which means M and Bond are not supposed to be the only people to investigate. What Bond suggests actually is a writing trick to make the audience focus on the duel with Silva. But it disturbs me because it feels MI6 represents the whole British intel. @Shady Tree is right. On one hand they bring realistic elements like Vauxhall HQ, on the other hand they drop all the things they consider useless to the story. Mallory or M could have briefly discussed about it. I don't think a simple mention would have killed the writers...
You're right about the tube crash, but there's no reason to think 5 don't get involved with that- it's just offscreen and we're in Scotland with Bond before we get a chance to see it. The police would be all over all of this too, but the film follows Bond rather than everyone in his wake.
Good point! But if the shuttle was launched from the UK (Unrealistic even for MR, but ...😁) would it be a MI5 matter?
@Number24 well, thinking about the novel and Gala Brand's status, I would say yes.
That would certainly be better than their normal duties at the time: standing in the rain shadowing communists selling the Morning Star on the street! 😎
"The "more interesting stuff" you mention is precisely what makes me dislike Skyfall and most of the movies of the Craig era, so don't be surprised if I prefer focusing on topics I get interested in like espionage and geopolitics instead of personal issues like M's past and Bond's trauma. I don't expect you to share my opinion, but try to keep in mind everyone does not necessarily appreciate the same things."
You needn't to worry; you are not alone!
On the note of Skyfall: I never quite understood (well maybe from the script-technical side) why MI6 had to bring Silva to Vauxhall Cross.
Surely this type of capture would be handled at a "retention site" in Poland, Czech Republic or as they were in "someplace asia", in the Philippines. At least in the QoS they started the interrogation of Mr White in Italy, where he was captured. M being present at the said interrogation and the implication that Bond is knackered because he hasn't slept, on the other hand, is plain stupid. It takes approx 6hrs to get from Como to Siena, and why would the head of MI6 involve herself on a preliminary interview of a captured HVT...
-Mr Arlington Beech
They're Bond films, hardly realistic stuff. I doubt that the head of MI6 has personally briefed officers being sent on missions... well ever really! So you may as well start there 🙂
In QoS M also travelled to Bolivia and Kazan (as well as Mitchell's apartment). You just can't keep her in the office.
@0073 perhaps because Silva was "captured" by Six halfway around the world. Some kind of reward I imagine.
Good point about QoS.
Fleming's novels largely ignored any other British intelligence agency. Special Branch featured in MR and DAF and Sir Ronnie Vallance got a mention in the short story Risico but MI5 was totally ignored as was GCHQ. Always though it would have been nice for Bond to have an MI5 officer as an ally in one of the stories.
In the novel YOLT Henderson is Australian SIS assisting Bond as MI6 don't have a station in Japan but or course in the movie M has his own nuclear submarine so having a man in Toyko was no problem. Think Henderson would have been amore interesting character being an Aussie, particularly if he had been closer to the book and given more screen time.
The PTS for TB would have been a great opportunity to introduce Rene Mathias of the Deuxieme Bureau but of course we had to have the obligatory eye candy.
As far as the movies go you would think the only western intelligence agencies that exist are MI6 and the CIA. Always though it was ridiculous that in OP it is Smithers from Q Branch that follows Kamal Khan. Hardly a job for a technician.
Felix seems to spend as much time operating in the continental US as he does abroad. Bet the FBI love that when they are watching the movies. The only time he was probably legitimately operating in the US was LTK after his totally unexplained career change to the DEA.
But I suppose nobody watches a Bond movie for realism.
Bond should work with our PST. Back in the cold war they were called POT. Inteligence agencies with sensible, anonymous names. 😀
The Man from POT. It's got a ring to it😂
Or "The PST secret".
"Proper Secret Team" as Ross Kemp might call them in 'Extras'.
Has great potential for some movie titles:
Gone to POT
Harry POTer and the Chamber of Secret Agents
Just to name a few.
"Mirrors, smoke and POT"
"PST is the name of the game"
"The agent who said PST"
The Soviet/Russian military Inteligence Agency is called GRU. "Gru" means "horror" in Norwegian, so that's perfect ....
Having just watched an interview on BBC's 'Newsnight' with Sir Alex Younger - Head of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service between 2014 and 2020 and a former soldier - I was reminded for all the world of Ralph Fiennes' Mallory: similar look, understated persona and sense of authority.
Sir Younger visited the production of NTTD.
I just re-read "Octopussy and The Living Daylights", and in "The Property of a Lady" Bond gets actual operational support from the MI5: cameramen at the auction, a driver for tailing, it is even said that before the auction, the operation is planned in co-operation with MI5 "in meeting rooms at the Whitehall" or something to that effect.
-Mr Arlington Beech