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The Rewatchables ·

Skyfall

year 2012decade 10sdirector Sam Mendesgenre Drama
host Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennesseyhost Amanda Dobbins
All 15 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 18:50

Silva's entrance: the rats-on-the-island speech to Bond

Five candidates are laid out, with an effort to keep scene distinct from sequence: the Shanghai skyscraper shootout, the new MI6 introduction in Churchill's tunnels with word association and sit-ups while Rory Kinnear briefs him on the state of the world, Silva and Bond's first meeting with the William Tell scene, the tube chase, and the church scene at the end; a Shanghai versus Macau mix-up is corrected along the way.

Smaller stuff is what connects one host to the movie: the first meeting with Q in front of the Turner painting, talking in metaphor and at cross purposes in really well-written dialogue, with Wishaw great as Q; it is not a sequence where a train bursts through the ground.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:26:26

"Mommy was very bad"

Candidates read aloud: Silva's lines about orphans making the best recruits and what is this if not betrayal, the evaluation line about not being approved for field duty, the coconut and rats speech ending with what she made us, called top shelf and Shakespeare, and Mallory's then we're all buggered, carry on, after Q worries about the PM.

The film

Skyfall (2012)

Directed by Sam Mendes · Drama

143 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

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Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

56:54

Casting What-Ifs

Sean Connery was in discussions to play Kincaid; Kevin Spacey was approached for Mallory; the discarded Peter Morgan ...

Sean Connery was in discussions to play Kincaid; Kevin Spacey was approached for Mallory; the discarded Peter Morgan script

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:56:54Read transcript
  • Sean Connery was in discussions to play Kincaid before the producers decided the stunt casting would take people out of the movie, which the hosts agree was right; Kevin Spacey was originally approached for Mallory, Mendes having directed him in American Beauty.
  • Ralph Fiennes as Mallory is loved: in a sedate movie where everyone operates at a mild level he chews the scenery in every scene, and he has gone on to be M.
  • Connery would have been distracting, nobody wants five seconds of fading Connery, who has not been seen in public for a few years, and it would have been the Marvel interconnecting universe, which Bond movies are not.
  • A behind-the-scenes what-if: release the Peter Morgan cut, though a Morgan disciple sees plenty of his DNA in the finished film; the making-ofs describe a collaborative effort rather than a writer's version being ruined.
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1:06:12

Half-Assed Internet Research

Yale professor Stephen Carter's theory that M is Silva's adopted mother, with 'Raul Silva' and 'think on your sins' a...

Yale professor Stephen Carter's theory that M is Silva's adopted mother, with 'Raul Silva' and 'think on your sins' as anagrams; the James Bond codename theory; alternate titles Silver Bullet, A Killing Moon and Once Upon a Spy; the Golden Dragon Casino interior was built at Pinewood; Silva's island is based on Hashima off Nagasaki

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 01:06:12Read transcript
  • Yale professor Stephen Carter believes there is a deeper mystery to Silva and M, possibly that she is his adopted mother; Raul Silva is an anagram for a rival soul and think on your sins for your son isn't in HK, readable on Bloomberg and in blog posts.
  • Codename theory holds that James Bond is a codename used by different individuals, one per actor; one host does not buy it, finding it overthinking a series that before Casino Royale had no such intentionality.
  • Heroes like Superman or Bond don't expire, yet like Unforgiven and the Rocky films the best entries are about a hero no longer as powerful, and this movie's genius is being both; a further wrinkle says the Bond of this film does not know about the codename theory, was brainwashed into believing he is an orphan, and that Silva is also a James Bond.
  • The franchise used to just not worry about continuity, bringing back an old actor and ignoring the dead wife; the spreadsheet-making impulse is mocked, Silva knowing the layout of Skyfall is explained by recon or Google Maps, and gaming out archetypal themes is called a bummer.
  • Asked whether they want continuity across the next films, one host says Skyfall would then be the logical end of the franchise and nothing with Craig will be as good; another notes the series rarely takes risks and wonders whether Carrie Fukunaga (as transcribed) will break the formula against the controlling Broccoli family, who could not accommodate Danny Boyle; both look forward to Bond 25.
  • Alternative titles were Silver Bullet, A Killing Moon and Once Upon a Spy; the Golden Dragon Casino interior was Pinewood Studios, production visited China, Turkey, all over England and Glencoe in Scotland, and Silva's island was shot off Macau but is based on Hashima, an abandoned mining town off Nagasaki, prompting jokes about dial-up and Prodigy.
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1:14:20

Recasting Couch

Daniel Kaluuya; Tom Hardy; Kano; Emily Blunt (Richard Madden, Cumberbatch and an aging Idris Elba rejected)

Daniel Kaluuya; Tom Hardy; Kano; Emily Blunt (Richard Madden, Cumberbatch and an aging Idris Elba rejected)

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 01:14:20Read transcript
  • The curveball is casting the next James Bond rather than this film's roles; the Idris Elba angst conversation is declared over since he is now older than any previously cast Bond, though Daniel Kaluuya fits some of the profile.
  • Among white male Brits there is no strong class: Richard Madden, Scottish and hot after Bodyguard, is a little wooden without Craig's layers of pain, after a Richard-James-Steve Madden stumble; the next Bond must be handsome, different from the archetype, a good actor, sexy, cool and good with a gun.
  • All the thirty-something British actors are already in Marvel or other franchises; Tom Hardy would be welcome but won't take the mask off, Kano, the grime emcee from Top Boy, is a way-out-of-the-box pick, and no Cumberbatch.
  • On a woman as Bond, Charlie's Angels is a depressing example of marketing to women, but Emily Blunt is the one: British, charismatic, great in action films from Edge of Tomorrow to Sicario, already engaged with English mythology via Mary Poppins, though Bond is called an inherently conservative property unlikely to make that choice.
  • For the film itself, Rubenek (as transcribed) as M is wished for, and nobody missed Felix Leiter, Jeffrey Wright's character who picks Bond up at the airport, since this movie refreshingly does not care about America.
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1:18:54

Picking Nits

Bond in khakis in bed after sex on a Turkish beach; the scorpion trick while supposedly dead; MI6 selling his apartme...

Bond in khakis in bed after sex on a Turkish beach; the scorpion trick while supposedly dead; MI6 selling his apartment and Skyfall; three to four months to decode the agent list; the NATO list on one hard drive; hackers posting reveals on YouTube; Q's secret breadcrumb trail run from the hacked HQ screen; strangling a man underwater with a knee; Bond announcing his name everywhere and never simply being shot

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 01:18:54Read transcript
  • Early on, Bond has sex with a woman by a Turkish beach and the next shot has him in khakis in bed with a Heineken, which is weird. — Chris Ryan
  • The counter is that both are dressed, she in a pink cover-up, and they are lounging rather than in bed; who has ever put on khakis after sex and gotten back in bed?
  • Made personal, the post-sex routine offered is a giant turkey sandwich and telling the mirror you're the best. — Chris Ryan
  • Others want a cigarette or a vape, lie in post-coital bliss, get a water and put on boxers; the conclusion is that Bond goes no-underwear khakis, impractical for a man who may need to run, and one host admits having done it.
  • While pretending to be dead you do not entertain a bar with scorpion tricks, though the defense is that Bond cannot keep a low profile, feels a sense of duty and wants to be loved by mommy; another host would be mad that they sold his apartment and Skyfall, with Her Majesty getting the money.
  • Three to four months for hackers to decode one list of agents is stupid, the list of NATO agents being on one hard drive in 2012 is worse, and the hackers posting reveals on YouTube is accepted with a joke about a Macau hacker vlog.
  • Q's top-secret breadcrumb trail for Bond and M is laid in the middle of headquarters on the giant screen of the computer that was just hacked and let everyone out of jail; whether Bond can strangle a man underwater with his knee is debated against Craig's short legs and compacted power, with the reminder that he dies of hypothermia doing it.
  • A nit with James Bond himself: a secretive operative who tells everybody his name, dresses impeccably and sleeps with strangers has never simply been shot in the face over a coffee, since villains always lure him to an island to explain the master plan, Scott Evil style; the reply is that Silva is after Judi Dench's attention and a cell, essentially the Joker plot from Dark Knight.
  • Earlier, during the scene discussion, the scorpion trick was flagged as a low-profile failure that would go viral in 2012.
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1:29:31

Probably Unanswerable Questions

What was Silva's relationship to M beyond an agent she screwed over?

What was Silva's relationship to M beyond an agent she screwed over?

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:29:31Read transcript
  • The only question is what Silva's relationship to M actually was beyond being an agent she screwed over; one host takes it literally, another wants to know what transpired, with the cyanide torture suggested as a prequel, Silva in Hong Kong.
  • M's quick explanation that she cut him loose for six agents is perfunctory and she is not to be trusted; the takeaway is that agents are changeable instruments of the state, which the moving ending between M and Bond defies.
  • Watching Judi Dench's face in scenes with Bardem is a favorite part, since she seems legitimately disturbed when he puts the gun to both their heads; the ending and M's death were underdiscussed, the Skyfall sequence has her doing action scenes, and this is reportedly the most screen time M ever had in a Bond film.
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