![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eleanorjaneSo, I saw Skyfall with the boyfriend and a friend tonight.
- Like others, I was unhappy about M being forced out of her job and then killed off - to be replaced with yet another white guy, ho hum. Though I did hear that Dame Judi stepped down because she's losing her sight, so she *had* to be replaced. I like the fan notion I heard that they're setting Eve up to take the job in the long run - I hope so, because:
+ Eve was AWESOME. I didn't mind her being "relegated" to an office job a) because it was quite clearly her choice, and b) because I think the movie did a fairly good job of showing that the field agents are just one piece of a big machine, not the lone heroes (no matter what Bond would like to think).
- I do wish they'd shown Eve, at the end, as being more "assistant"-y (like Tanner), instead of sitting at a desk all secretarially. Not that there's anything wrong with secretaries, but it's not exactly a promotion. As someone else pointed out (argh, all these unattributed references, but I've read a lot of reactions to Skyfall recently and I don't remember who said what) M's assistants doubtless spend a lot more time doing actual analyst and handler work than being secretarial, but the setup was straight out of old-school Bonds, with Moneypenny at a desk in front of M's office.
~ I liked the MI6 offices in the tunnels. I wish they'd kept those.
+ Q! ADORABLE! I want to pinch his little baby cheeks and make him look all disgruntled! AWWW! (Also, I like the Q/Bond suggestions that people have made; usually that kind of pairing is a bit of a turnoff for me (eg all the Die Hard 4 fic with John McClane/Matt Farrell... ugh) but I really liked the Bond/Q dynamic in Skyfall, probably because Bond was pretty ungrudging in his appreciation of Q's abilities, albeit still sardonic. Bond couldn't be unsardonic to save his life.
~ Severine = compellingly gorgeous (and I actually thought she looked reminiscent of Eva Green as Vesper Lynd; if that was a deliberate choice, clever work casting director). Severine's plotline = icky. The worst bit, for me, was her death - that she's just died at the hands of a fucking asshole, but we're expected to clap and cheer because Bond - who was unable to save her thirty seconds ago - has just recovered his ability to kick ass in time to save his own life and kill all the bad guys. Poor Severine; what a shitty, shitty life.
+ I liked Mallory a lot more than I was expecting to. I like that he backed M in public at the ministerial enquiry despite his contentions with her in private; I loved that his first reaction when Silva breaks in is to go for a gun.
~ I am fanwanking away the bullshit about M "never being a particularly good shot" as her just covering for the fact that she's just been badly shot. I refuse to believe the idea that she would allow herself such a great weakness; I can't believe she'd allow herself to be less than excellent at self-defense so crucial. M was hard, and tempered; she's not a paper-pusher or a politician, she's a lifetime espionage agent who rose to the top. There's no way she couldn't shoot well.
+ I liked the defense of the house, and I liked that Kincade didn't die as collateral damage.
~ I'm conflicted about Silva. I thought Bardem knocked it out of the park, but I'm all meh about villains being gay and predatory as part of their villainy. On the other hand, Bond's line about "who says it's my first time?" redeemed that substantially for me; that Bond, of all Heterosexual Heroes, is willing to allude to having had same-sex experience is a substantial step forward IMO. (And I liked that it was in a chiding way, reproving Silva for his assumptions of Bond's straightness.)
+ Q was in there as catnip for the nerd girls, sure (and I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought his resemblance to Matt Smith was probably a deliberate cash-in on a certain zeitgeist), but I actually thought Tanner was surprisingly cute in an ordinary-guy kind of way. Then again, that's possibly because he reminds me of Clive Anderson, and I have a shameful weakness for Clive Anderson.
+++ I loved the fundamental disconnect between Bond and Silva. Silva keeps trying to reach out to Bond and build a connection between them because he sees them as the same - used up by M and thrown away. But Bond is far more in step with M than Silva was, apparently, because Bond's anger and disillusionment isn't because M made the call to shoot him; it's because he took it as M not trusting him to do his job. Equally, Silva harps on M betraying Bond by sending him out in the field despite him failing his tests (and let's face it; Bond had to know he failed them already; there's no mistaking that) but Bond sees that as M having faith in him this time. Sending Bond after Silva was anything but a betrayal, and Bond knows it. And I love that; I hate betrayal plotlines in general, and I'm glad Bond was smart enough to see M's actions for what they were. He's always understood her pretty well, I think.
+ Komodo dragons. What's not to love?
- Everyone else saw the whole "the laptop is a honeypot and Silva is right where he wants to be", too, didn't they? Q, you little baby computer genius, what the everloving fuck were you doing plugging that laptop into the MI6 network? There are not enough facepalms in the world.
(To be fair, that plot device kind of had a neon sign on it going "This Plot Device Last Used By Loki In The Avengers", so it was kind of hard to miss.)
I'm sure I had more thoughts, but it's late. Goodnight, internets!
- Like others, I was unhappy about M being forced out of her job and then killed off - to be replaced with yet another white guy, ho hum. Though I did hear that Dame Judi stepped down because she's losing her sight, so she *had* to be replaced. I like the fan notion I heard that they're setting Eve up to take the job in the long run - I hope so, because:
+ Eve was AWESOME. I didn't mind her being "relegated" to an office job a) because it was quite clearly her choice, and b) because I think the movie did a fairly good job of showing that the field agents are just one piece of a big machine, not the lone heroes (no matter what Bond would like to think).
- I do wish they'd shown Eve, at the end, as being more "assistant"-y (like Tanner), instead of sitting at a desk all secretarially. Not that there's anything wrong with secretaries, but it's not exactly a promotion. As someone else pointed out (argh, all these unattributed references, but I've read a lot of reactions to Skyfall recently and I don't remember who said what) M's assistants doubtless spend a lot more time doing actual analyst and handler work than being secretarial, but the setup was straight out of old-school Bonds, with Moneypenny at a desk in front of M's office.
~ I liked the MI6 offices in the tunnels. I wish they'd kept those.
+ Q! ADORABLE! I want to pinch his little baby cheeks and make him look all disgruntled! AWWW! (Also, I like the Q/Bond suggestions that people have made; usually that kind of pairing is a bit of a turnoff for me (eg all the Die Hard 4 fic with John McClane/Matt Farrell... ugh) but I really liked the Bond/Q dynamic in Skyfall, probably because Bond was pretty ungrudging in his appreciation of Q's abilities, albeit still sardonic. Bond couldn't be unsardonic to save his life.
~ Severine = compellingly gorgeous (and I actually thought she looked reminiscent of Eva Green as Vesper Lynd; if that was a deliberate choice, clever work casting director). Severine's plotline = icky. The worst bit, for me, was her death - that she's just died at the hands of a fucking asshole, but we're expected to clap and cheer because Bond - who was unable to save her thirty seconds ago - has just recovered his ability to kick ass in time to save his own life and kill all the bad guys. Poor Severine; what a shitty, shitty life.
+ I liked Mallory a lot more than I was expecting to. I like that he backed M in public at the ministerial enquiry despite his contentions with her in private; I loved that his first reaction when Silva breaks in is to go for a gun.
~ I am fanwanking away the bullshit about M "never being a particularly good shot" as her just covering for the fact that she's just been badly shot. I refuse to believe the idea that she would allow herself such a great weakness; I can't believe she'd allow herself to be less than excellent at self-defense so crucial. M was hard, and tempered; she's not a paper-pusher or a politician, she's a lifetime espionage agent who rose to the top. There's no way she couldn't shoot well.
+ I liked the defense of the house, and I liked that Kincade didn't die as collateral damage.
~ I'm conflicted about Silva. I thought Bardem knocked it out of the park, but I'm all meh about villains being gay and predatory as part of their villainy. On the other hand, Bond's line about "who says it's my first time?" redeemed that substantially for me; that Bond, of all Heterosexual Heroes, is willing to allude to having had same-sex experience is a substantial step forward IMO. (And I liked that it was in a chiding way, reproving Silva for his assumptions of Bond's straightness.)
+ Q was in there as catnip for the nerd girls, sure (and I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought his resemblance to Matt Smith was probably a deliberate cash-in on a certain zeitgeist), but I actually thought Tanner was surprisingly cute in an ordinary-guy kind of way. Then again, that's possibly because he reminds me of Clive Anderson, and I have a shameful weakness for Clive Anderson.
+++ I loved the fundamental disconnect between Bond and Silva. Silva keeps trying to reach out to Bond and build a connection between them because he sees them as the same - used up by M and thrown away. But Bond is far more in step with M than Silva was, apparently, because Bond's anger and disillusionment isn't because M made the call to shoot him; it's because he took it as M not trusting him to do his job. Equally, Silva harps on M betraying Bond by sending him out in the field despite him failing his tests (and let's face it; Bond had to know he failed them already; there's no mistaking that) but Bond sees that as M having faith in him this time. Sending Bond after Silva was anything but a betrayal, and Bond knows it. And I love that; I hate betrayal plotlines in general, and I'm glad Bond was smart enough to see M's actions for what they were. He's always understood her pretty well, I think.
+ Komodo dragons. What's not to love?
- Everyone else saw the whole "the laptop is a honeypot and Silva is right where he wants to be", too, didn't they? Q, you little baby computer genius, what the everloving fuck were you doing plugging that laptop into the MI6 network? There are not enough facepalms in the world.
(To be fair, that plot device kind of had a neon sign on it going "This Plot Device Last Used By Loki In The Avengers", so it was kind of hard to miss.)
I'm sure I had more thoughts, but it's late. Goodnight, internets!