{"id":897,"date":"2012-11-04T21:46:42","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T21:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/?p=897"},"modified":"2016-03-16T13:39:08","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T13:39:08","slug":"a-random-collection-of-thoughts-on-skyfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/2012\/11\/04\/a-random-collection-of-thoughts-on-skyfall\/","title":{"rendered":"A Random Collection of Thoughts on Skyfall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-908\" title=\"Skyfall - Bond with Aston DB5\" src=\"http:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-content\/uploads\/Skyfall_Bond_and_Aston.jpg\" alt=\"Bond with Aston DB5\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/>I went to the nearest multiplex cinema with the two blokes and a chick yesterday, and there was an interesting turn of events. Prior to seeing the film, the two blokes weren&#8217;t brilliantly keen on Daniel Craig&#8217;s Bond and I was rather fond of him (he would rank second behind Sean Connery on my list). Following our viewing of <em>Skyfall<\/em>, I wasn&#8217;t so sure of Craig&#8217;s Bond and the other two blokes now think he&#8217;s alright (the chick thought the film was alright, too).<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve slept on it and I think I&#8217;d rate Skyfall as a pretty damn good Bond film. I get the feeling that the amount of hype didn&#8217;t do the film any favour, and everyone I&#8217;d spoke to who&#8217;d seen it had described it as &#8220;non-stop action&#8221;, which it really isn&#8217;t; I can think of several parts of the film where it dragged its feet. Critics citing it as the &#8220;best Bond film ever&#8221; were presumably not accounting for the 50 years of Bond films, as Skyfall is definitely not that &#8211; remember, I&#8217;m a picky Bond fanboy with opinions (just like every arsehole with a blog on the internet). Within the Craig era, I&#8217;d rank Skyfall as being better than <em>Quantum of Solace<\/em> but not quite as fun as <em>Casino Royale<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I can guarantee that I&#8217;ll get around to recapping the film in full when it comes out for home viewing, but in the meantime here&#8217;s a random collection of thoughts and points to think on if you&#8217;ve seen the film. Warning: <strong>SPOILERS!<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Was &#8220;crum-ball&#8221; really the best rhyme Adele could come up with to match &#8220;skyfall&#8221;? &#8220;Play ball&#8221;? &#8220;Find all&#8221;?<\/li>\n<li>M doesn&#8217;t seem to make a single correct decision during the film. M is really terrible at her job. The chick felt that there should have at least been one moment of redemption for her, a moment that never came.<\/li>\n<li>Bond&#8217;s gadget-laden Aston Martin from <a title=\"Three blokes and a chick watch: Goldfinger\" href=\"http:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/2012\/08\/11\/three-blokes-and-a-chick-watch-goldfinger\/\"><em>Goldfinger<\/em><\/a> makes a reappearance, which is fantastic &#8211; I loved it. Unfortunately, when the Craig films rebooted the franchise, Casino Royale had it so that Bond won the Aston in a card game, making it a bog-standard Aston. This means one of two things, either Casino Royale apparently took place before Goldfinger, or Bond had Q branch load the car up with 1960&#8217;s gadgets<sup class='footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/2012\/11\/04\/a-random-collection-of-thoughts-on-skyfall\/#fn-897-1' id='fnref-897-1' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(897)'>1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/li>\n<li>Will was concerned about the Aston blowing up as we&#8217;ve only got about three of the damn things left!<\/li>\n<li>Was the komodo dragon pit an alternative to a tank full of piranhas? Is it that good of an idea to have a bridge over a pit of carnivores as a feature of your casino?<\/li>\n<li>Why did the film feel quite like a Batman film? The villain was quite like the Joker, there was that bit where the villain is captured because he wanted to be, Bond kept skulking around like he&#8217;s trying to be Batman, and we even got to see the gravestone of Bond&#8217;s parents.<\/li>\n<li>The film shows that Bond was raised in some horrible old mansion in the middle of nowhere in Scotland. Siy wondered if this was some way of explaining Connery&#8217;s accent (and also the new owners must have been pissed when they found out the building had gone up in smoke).<\/li>\n<li>How come Mr. Silver&#8217;s false jaw never cropped up again? It was a bit of a missed opportunity for him to get into fisticuffs with Bond and have Bond punch it out of alignment.<\/li>\n<li>Was making the villain vaguely attracted to Bond the only way to make Bond meet his match? Was it necessary for Bond to imply that he&#8217;s had at least one gay encounter? I didn&#8217;t need to start thinking about Bond picking up soap in the shower while he was in the navy!<\/li>\n<li>Was M really that major a character to deserve the focus this film gave her? I get the feeling that it was just because it&#8217;s Judi Dench&#8217;s last film, which isn&#8217;t a very good reason. Bernard Lee and Robert Brown never got a send off!<\/li>\n<li>Did we really need the whole M = mother connection? And did James Bond really <em>have to start crying<\/em><sup class='footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/2012\/11\/04\/a-random-collection-of-thoughts-on-skyfall\/#fn-897-2' id='fnref-897-2' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(897)'>2<\/a><\/sup> at the end when she goes?<\/li>\n<li>After Mr. Silver scared everyone off of that island, did nobody ever think to come back later to see if the chemical plant had really exploded? Not even a passing aeroplane noticing the distinct lack of explosion?<\/li>\n<li>When Bond approaches the woman from behind in the shower, why is her reaction not to scream and flail at the sudden intrusion of her personal space?<sup class='footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/2012\/11\/04\/a-random-collection-of-thoughts-on-skyfall\/#fn-897-3' id='fnref-897-3' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(897)'>3<\/a><\/sup><\/li>\n<li>Was Q belittling <em>GoldenEye<\/em>&#8216;s exploding pen really necessary? It&#8217;s not big to make fun of older films just because they seem a bit camp now, just to make your film look better by comparison.<\/li>\n<li>Is England really safe now <a title=\"I could listen to that laugh for hours.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3UjuYtgMDIg\" target=\"_blank\">Voldemort<\/a>\/<a title=\"Good film!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PtNqfxg87yI\" target=\"_blank\">Francis Dolarhyde<\/a> is in charge of MI6?<\/li>\n<li>Is Bond really that old? I&#8217;m sure being in your 40&#8217;s is old in the spy game but still, he&#8217;s fitter than most people younger than him!<\/li>\n<li>Bond&#8217;s ability to shoot straight came back rather suddenly.<\/li>\n<li>When Bond is driving that bulldozer towards the villain on the train, why does the villain just stand there shooting? Why doesn&#8217;t he just run away down the length of the train?<\/li>\n<li>Was M really the designated Bond girl for this film?<\/li>\n<li>The film didn&#8217;t seem too<a title=\"Once you see it, you'll never unsee it!\" href=\"http:\/\/theabyssgazes.blogspot.co.uk\/2010\/03\/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html\" target=\"_blank\"> teal and orange<\/a> but definitely has some colour adjustments. I&#8217;m intrigued to see whether the conversion to the small screen will make the colour quality a lot more teal and orange.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Those points aside, it&#8217;s still the best film this year and I highly recommend it as a worthy addition to the Bond franchise (it certainly did a better job of honouring the series than <a title=\"Three blokes and a chick watch: Die Another Day\" href=\"http:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/2012\/08\/27\/three-blokes-and-a-chick-watch-die-another-day\/\"><em>Die Another Day<\/em><\/a> did!). In particular, I applaud the people who made the film for pressing the reset button and returning things to the way they were pre-Casino Royale by the end of the film; I eagerly look forward to seeing what I assume will be a return to Bond basics in the next film (and maybe we&#8217;ll get back to foiling that Quantum group that was revealed in the last film?).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/2012\/11\/04\/a-random-collection-of-thoughts-on-skyfall\/\"><img width=\"125\" height=\"125\" src=\"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-content\/uploads\/Skyfall-150x150.png\" class=\"alignright tfe wp-post-image\" alt=\"Skyfall\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-content\/uploads\/Skyfall-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-content\/uploads\/Skyfall-300x300.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 125px) 100vw, 125px\" \/><\/a><p>I went to the nearest multiplex cinema with the two blokes and a chick yesterday, and there was an interesting turn of events. Prior to seeing the film, the two blokes weren&#8217;t brilliantly keen on Daniel Craig&#8217;s Bond and I was rather fond of him (he would rank second behind&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,313,61],"tags":[68,45,80,67,346,79],"class_list":["post-897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","category-james-bond","category-three-blokes-and-a-chick-watch","tag-68","tag-batman","tag-daniel-craig","tag-james-bond","tag-seriously-its-basically-the-dark-knight","tag-skyfall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}