Skyfall
Dovy
Posts: 206MI6 Agent
Well, everybody, for better or worse here are some of my comments and questions regarding Skyfall!
1) How did Bond survive the waterfall? Why did Daniel Craig look so exhausted with red around his eyes?
2) Where did Bond get the money to live in Turkey with his girlfriend and to return to England?
3) The interaction with the new Q is great. I love it. "A brave new world!" I guess one assumes that Old Q retired but doesn't explain why Q didn't provide 007 with any equipment in Casino Royale or Quantum of Solace. How is it even possible after the encounter with Trevelyan in Goldeneye that no extraordinary measures to prevent another such situation that involved someone like Silva?
4) Notice that whereas Moneypenny was known to Bond early on as M's secretary in the first films, here we find out that she became an office worker only AFTER having been a field operative!
5) When Bond took M to change cars and the traditional Bond music played I almost expected to see Sean Connery emerge. How did Kincaid know to show up at Skyfall and what was his place in Scotland and with JB?How did he know M was named Emma? Why did Bond even head for Scotland? What were the "crumbs" that led Silva to Skyfall?
6) Do we find out how MI6 got itself back together after Silva's death? In the same building? What exactly did M die of? It's interesting that everyone knows Mallory's name but it seems that the late M's name was some kind of secret. How was Bond able to work with Mallory as M after their poor relationship?
7) Why didn't MI6 have any ingrained protective mechanisms in place to protect their intelligence from people like Trevelyan and Silva, and what kind of history did Silva have in MI6 history? Did he disappear before Bond joined MI6? When Silva had Bond tied up in his island building, were the writers trying to suggest that Silva was gay in his approach to Bond?
Comments
5) Kincade didn't show up, he was already there. He's worked there for many years as the groundskeeper. M's name isn't Emma (it's Olivia) , Kincade simply misheard. Bond heads for Scotland because his place there is off-grid (Silva therefore believes that Bond thinks he's secure there and won't expect him) and Q & Tanner provide subtle clues (the breadcrumbs) for Silva to follow.
1) He’s Bond. Although people have had parachute failures even higher than this and survived hitting solid ground.
2) He sold his watch. That’s why he gets the AT later.
3) Goldeneye doesn’t exist in Craig’s Bond universe
5) Kincade was the gamekeeper/groundskeeper. He worked there and was wrapping things up for the new owner. And he didn’t know Ms name, he thought Bond said Emm, short for Emma. Ms real name was Olivia.
6) MI6 was back together before Silva died. Only one floor and a few rooms within that floor where blown up. M was shot by one of the thugs. C is the code for the head of the real MI6, from the first directors last name. Fleming used M to be different and trying not to break The Official Secrets Act, to which he was still legally bound.
7) You can’t protect any organisation 100%. Philby etc prove that in real life and double and triple agents as well as moles exist in all organisations. That’s what spies are. Silvas background is fully explained in the film. You should watch it. Silva wasn’t gay, he was just trying to unnerve Bond. But Bond threw it back at him. Bond isn’t gay either. Yet.
I did watch Skyfall. I was just wondering about additional details about Silva. Funny how Silva had things in common with Jaws. ;-)
I thought M had just been shot in the arm Even if Trevelyan didn't exist in Craig's universe, surely it wasn't the first time where precautions should be taken to protect the MI6 system ..
Silvas background is very fully and clearly explained by both himself and M.
As in real life, MI6 isn’t 100% infallible. No organisation is. That’s reality however many precautions they take for any foreign or domestic intelligence agency. We have spies working in and trying to infiltrate foreign intelligence agencies just as much as they try to infiltrate ours. History is littered with many great examples. That’s what spies do. In the case of Silva, he wasn’t an enemy agent working against MI6, he just went above and beyond his brief and caused a lot of trouble without being officially sanctioned to do it. Alec was completely different, he was an enemy that infiltrated the system.
M was shot in the side. It’s clearly shown many times as she holds the wound and you see it bleeding out.
I always took it as her getting a bit of shrapnel in the side as I thought we see the bullet hit the wall next to her, but it's not important either way.
I'm surprised how many people seem to miss the 'Emma' joke, I thought it was a great little gag.
Yeah, I think it was shrapnel. I’d have to rewatch it again.
dovy said: surely it wasn't the first time where precautions should be taken to protect the MI6 system ..
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like not connecting the villains laptop to the network drives perhaps? the film has a few lapses in logic needed to make the plot work.
if you look at other more realistic variations on the spy genre, spy agencies are full of moles and double agents. it makes sense, the people they find to recruit are rotters by definition. Le Carre and Deighton's books are full of these types of characters. Fleming's books feature a few (Property of a Lady off the top of my head).
Whats surprising is I think there are no moles or doubles within MI6 in the Bond films until Goldeneye, then its a recurring theme in almost all of the films following. I think Everett McGill's treachery in License to Kill (he's CIA, or DEA maybe?) is the first time in the series when we see a "good" agent sell out to the bad side. Anybody think of any earlier examples?
That's a great observation, I hadn't spotted that. Especially odd when you think how much of a standard story element double agents are in spy stories.
A bit like how the first few Mission Impossible movies all featured IMF agents gone-bad as the main baddie. Maybe it's something to do with the end of the cold war and needing to find villains within who weren't motivated by blockbuster-unfriendly passions.
actually I just thought of one in the very first film: Miss Taro! ( a character straight from Fleming)
but I still cant think of any moles or doubles between Miss Taro and Killifer (Everett McGill's character), not even in the more realistic 1980s films.
The Russians on the other hand were plagued with doubles and rogue agents, it wasn't their fault the world kept creeping so close to WWIII
Since so many action scenes happen so fast it is often difficult to see what happens. I didn't see exactly how M was wounded. Silva made it seem like it was in the hand or arm. But the whole scenario of what happened with Silva seems terribly far-fetched, not unlike how M didn't have adequate protection at her home DESPITE having her own bodyguards. Or should have been the case at least.
How did M manage to get away with reinstating Bond after she revealed that he had FAILED his tests, pretending that he passed them by the skin of his teeth?
Funnily enough I did think of her, but I don't know Dr No very well (whisper it- I don't really like it!) and I'd forgotten she actually worked for the Chief Secretary; I thought she was just the usual seductress person!
Well... she's the boss.
But she's always answerable herself to her bosses.....
She said in CR06 that she's answerable to the Prime Minister and even he's smart enough not to ask what they're doing, or words very close to that.
3) Goldeneye doesn’t exist in Craig’s Bond universe
So thaat's why it's such a depressing place to be ;)
"- That is something to be afraid of."