OK, I can’t be the only one who thought of Archer, right? 
I’m pretty sure Sterling Archer is what James Bond would be like if his parents were Don and Lucille Bluth, instead of tragically dead. 
When did James Bond graduate from Action Hero to Super Hero? I don’t mind a little leeway for the sake of the story, but for God’s sake, the man was shot in the chest then gets on top of a train for an extended fistfight. 
I don’t recall him being shot in the chest, just picked up some shrapnel and maybe a little spall from shots deflected by the cabin of the earth moving equipment. (Until, of course, Eve took her shot.)
Actually this bit isn’t right. Bond is 007 - the 00 means he is “licensed to kill” - in other words he is one of SIS’s elite killers. He’s not a normal intelligence officer - running agents, collecting information, etc. He is send in when there is a high probability of violence, not necessarily an actual assasination but certainly where trouble is expected or force may need to be applied.
Yea, even in the books the amount of actual spying Bond does is pretty small. I read a few of them a year or so ago, and was amused by how fast the bad-guys figure out who Bond is in most of them.
He’s really kinda terrible at his job.
It’s kinda hard to be really super secret spy guy when you constantly introduce yourself to the bad guy using your real name.
The acme of this has to be THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, where a high-ranking Soviet officer wants to defect, and so requests a little Western help escaping from his KGB minders; a Russian sniper will be standing by in case the would-be defector makes a break for it, and who better to play counter-sniper than James Bond?
That’s not a rhetorical question: the Soviet officer personally requests James Bond, because he of course already knows exactly who 007 is and what he does.
It’s worth mentioning in the books (and some of the movies), Bond often uses false identities and the cover of working for a vaguely defined business called Universal Exports.
Oh, sure. I remember George Lazenby wearing a kilt and faking an accent, and of course getting found out. I remember Pierce Brosnan being handed all the credentials of a banker before promptly getting found out. I remember Roger Moore posing as a marine biologist named Sterling in Sardinia, and I remember Sean Connery acting like a businessman named Fisher in Japan, and – look, he’s trying, bless his heart, but he’s failing every time.
True enough - but there wouldn’t be much of a story if Bond went in, got the whatever, and came home again! Maybe he has a lot of successful - peaceful - missions we never hear about? No confrontation with the villain, no fight; no fight, no box-office
There have definitely been those. The Quantum of Solace short story is actually about some guy and his wife, with Bond being told the story by another gentleman at a dinner party. There is a passing reference to Bond being in town on business, having successfully completed a mission earlier that day. It was a interesting story, but it wouldn’t have made a good movie.
I had the same thought. Surely there was a different military comm network that they could arrange for some heavy-duty SAS or Royal Marines reinforcements for Bond with Silva finding out.
Likewise. I was halfway through the movie before I realized they were saying “Silva” and not “Silver.”
Bond poetry? You mean like the Tennyson which M recited at the hearing?: Quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson Ulysess #skyfall | Digitalphilosophi's Blog
I wondered the same; yes; and definitely yes.
Exactly.
He’s a well-trained, well-groomed assassin with a taste for the finer things in life. He does bad things for a good cause. As M once said, “This country will sometimes need a blunt instrument.”
I completely agree on both points.
Well said.
I thought the same!
Ooo, good catch! I didn’t notice that.
That’s partially why the child in me assumed that James Bond was a name that came with the job and revealing that his birth name was James Bond in this movie kind of tarnished that assumption. That and also the entire premise of the movie is to reveal the aliases (of albeit moles in terrorist cells) but Bond doesn’t have an alias.
Other than what’s already been mentioned, this, for me, was the good stuff:
Adele’s theme song.
The motorcycle chase through Istanbul.
Bond shooting his cuffs after he lands in the passenger car on the train. Classic!
The actress who played Cherie Blair in The Queen, and Mrs. Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, as the MP grilling M.
Seeing the DB5 again - and the gag with the ejector-seat button.
The future M being able to handle a gun and rise to the occasion in the Parliamentary hearing room.
The reveal of Eve as Moneypenny.
Aaaaaand the not-so-good stuff:
The drinking contest on the Turkish beach reminded me too much of Marion Ravenwood in the Nepali bar in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Bond digs out the bullet fragments by himself. And of course they’re highly distinctive.
Javier Bardem just didn’t live up to his billing as the bad guy. He’s not THAT scary, no matter what the Doomed Bond Girl said in the Macau casino.
Silva gets into the Parliamentary hearing room 'way too easily, and then leaves unscathed.
And a question: Is the word “Skyfall” original to this movie? What does it mean as the name of a Scottish country house?
I’ve heard quite a few people (including my wife) say they were surprised/disappointed to discover James Bond was really his name and not the espionage equivalent of The Dread Pirate Roberts.
It’s pretty solidly established in the books - both Fleming’s and those of later authors - that James Bond really is his name. The circumstances surrounding his parents’ deaths are a pretty important element of the latest Bond novel (the one by Jeffrey Deaver). Even within the movies I thought it had been pretty well established his name actually was James Bond.
Bonus Bond Trivia: The World Is Not Enough is actually the motto (well, English translation) of the (James) Bond family - it’s not just a clever movie title.
The bullet in his chest is how they identified the assassin. It was uranium or some ridiculous macguffin.
Bullet fragment.
Depleted uranium, as the U.S. Army uses in armor-piercing shells (but not pistol-fired bullets): Depleted uranium - Wikipedia
That was BTW not Bond. That was actually how Ian Fleming lived life before the end of WW2.
I liked it. Better than Solace. Not as good as Casino Royale. But, Ralph Finnes is now in the franchise and the new Moneypenny is actually pretty, so that bodes well for the future.