Is 'Skyfall' the Improved Version of 'Die Another Day'?

[TMC]

http://www.hollywood.com/news/Skyfall_Die_Another_Day_Comparison/44068525

This article contains major spoilers for the latest James Bond film,
Skyfall.

There are many earmarks that tend to recur with the appearance of a
new James Bond movie. Outside of theme songs, martinis, and beautiful
women, new Bond films are typically marked by the revisiting of
previous entries by franchise fans. It’s a cinch that after you see
Skyfall this weekend, you’ll crack open the DVD or Blu-ray cases to
the older movies on your shelf for a little brush-up. Sometimes that
path leads you to the best of the series. Other times you end up
sitting through the likes of Die Another Day, thinking somehow the
renewed fervor in the character will help absolve the film of some of
its faults.

If you happen to watch Die Another Day, widely regarded as one of the
worst James Bond films, right after Skyfall, which is already gaining
a reputation as one of the best, something rather troubling may occur.
A close watch reveals similarities between the two movies. Granted,
that’s not to say Skyfall was influenced by Die Another Day, but it’s
hard to ignore some of their shared DNA. What becomes readily apparent
is that the small kernels of quality in Die Another Day that barely
glimmer from under its pall of ineptitude are extracted, polished, and
perfectly utilized in Skyfall.

Both Die Another Day and Skyfall start off with the conceit that James
Bond has been out of active duty for some time. Pierce Brosnan’s Bond
was captured by the North Korean military and tortured for fourteen
months while Daniel Craig is shot, falls from a bridge, and enjoys a
reprieve from his hectic espionage occupation while he’s declared
dead. In both films, 007 believes he’s been betrayed, no small
personal crisis for that character. Die Another Day only examines
Bond’s incarceration and torture (what should be his darkest hour) for
the length of a theme song. Skyfall takes the time to establish how
the time away, and the perceived betrayal by his own government, takes
a toll on him.

In both films, once Bond returns, he must undergo rigorous evaluations
to ensure that he is in fact fit to return to fieldwork. In Skyfall,
this translates to a series of physical exercises, tests of
marksmanship, and psychological assessments. Die Another Day, on the
other hand, slaps together a flimsy story device about a virtual
reality training scenario in which MI-6 under attack. This only
further demonstrates Die Another Day’s wanton abandonment of anything
resembling tangible reality and its overuse of silly, effects-driven
gimmicks. Skyfall opts for a more basic and grounded approach, a
function of the gritty realism of Craig’s Bond films.

Just as in that virtual reality scenario in the final Brosnan Bond
outing, MI-6 does actually come under attack in Skyfall. Not only do
we get an explosion in M’s office, but also one of the conference
chambers becomes the site of an assassination attempt and a massive
gun battle. In both films, we are dealing with an enemy harboring a
grudge against MI-6. Colonel Moon survived an assassination attempt at
Bond’s hands while Javier Bardem’s Silva is nursing a nasty vendetta
against M. Like Brosnan’s Bond, Silva was captured and tortured while
he worked for British intelligence agency; further fueling the rage he
feels toward his former boss.

However, Moon’s revenge plot gets sidetracked by his plan to build a
space laser that will take out the minefield separating North and
South Korea. Instead of narrowing the plot to something more visceral
and interesting, Die Another Day, in a move that will define this
entire frustrating movie, goes as over-the-top and absurd as possible.
This would almost be forgivable if they weren’t also wholesale
stealing plot points from Diamonds Are Forever. There is also the fact
that where Bardem plays his villain with a frightening biblical wrath,
Toby Stephans plays his like a poorly drawn cartoon.

Die Another Day and Skyfall are the two movies in the franchise that
most clearly nod to the legacy of the franchise. In the former, Bond
wanders in to the office of the new Quartermaster, the ill advisedly
cast John Cleese, to find recognizable props from previous movies
lining the walls. He even directly notes a few of these props,
including the briefcase featured in From Russia with Love and the
jetpack from Thunderball. Meanwhile, in Skyfall, Bond takes the
classic Goldfinger Aston Martin out of storage, with all its spy
accoutrement in tow. The younger version of Q also makes reference to
the goofiness of an exploding pen; obviously referring to GoldenEye.
Whereas Skyfall weaves its homage to the golden era of Bond into its
narrative, Die Another Day randomly scatters artifacts on the wall
like a T.G.I.Friday’s. It’s not hard to see why one feels reverent and
the other desperate.

These similarities in basic structure between Skyfall and Die Another
Day actually highlight the divergent results of their proper and
improper applications. This phenomenon trickles down to several other
parallels. They also share things like the use of an underground MI-6
facility (more functional in Skyfall), the starring of a black actress
in the lead female role (Naomie Harris acting circles around Halle
Berry), and even variations on the Bond gun barrel sequence. Die
Another Day adds a bullet flying toward the screen when 007does his
famous turn, which seems then to suggest that his shot has the benefit
of science-defying accuracy. Skyfall simply places it at end as a
loving coda. So again, every similarity actually serves to prove that
not all Bond films are created equal.

http://newwrestlecrap.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=entertainment&action=display&thread=12905