In the first look at the stats from our Skyfall survey we reported the responses to the first three questions.
As the last two questions were completely open and given both the variety and verbosity of some of the responses it seemed a better idea to take a look at how people responded by how they rated Skyfall as a Bond movie. While there were five different options to choose, they have been divided into three groups consisting of positive, neutral and negative responses.
While I had intended to look at the first of those today, a computer meltdown means I only have my iPhone (yes, my backup computer fails to boot up either!) and so instead decided to look at a smaller group, those who ranked Skyfall poorly.
One important thing to note here; the size of this group is just 28, which is too small to be statistically valid, but it is still interesting to see where the replies converge.
Particularly liked
There were three main things on which this group agreed were good, listed below:
- Adele’s theme song (6 mentions, 21%)
- Daniel Craig (5 mentions, 17%)
- The pre-titles sequence (4 mentions, 14%)
It is good to see that this segment of responses isn’t because of the anti-Daniel Craig brigade, with the current actor being mentioned favourably a number of times.
Particularly disliked
As you’d expect from this group, responses to this were far more verbose than for elements that were liked. Many things were mentioned just once or twice with four main points coming out:
- Plot/screenplay/story (7 mentions, 25%)
- Not Bond-like (6 mentions, 21%)
- Locations (4 mentions, 14%)
- The villain is weak or too much like the Joker (4 mentions, 14%)
Here I was surprised that just one person mentioned the gun barrel being at the end of the film, I had thought this would be mentioned more frequently.
Selected quotes
Below I’ve selected a number of quotes from the survey to give an idea of how respondents replied.
- The end of the film is set in Scotland which… lacks the exotic locale of previous Bond films. James Bond does not go on holiday to Scotland with his mum! The relationship with Judy Dench character was tediously overplayed.
- It wasn’t a Bond film…it could have been Rambo or Mission Impossible (or Mission Implausible). Daft plot.
- Ridiculously simple plot, Silva as the Joker not a Bond Villain, Whishaw as Q who is so incompetent he lets his own defense program get hacked.
- The screenplay was bad. TOO many implausible scenes. It was OK in the 60’s & 70’s but today’s audience is too smart. Along with updating the fashions, etc, you need to update the thinking.
- The franchise really matured in the last two films. This one was silly fantasy.
- Didn’t feel like a proper Bond film to me. Really disappointed especailly after all the reviews I had heard… They even managed to make the DB5 look uncool! Looked like Bond was taking his mum out for a Sunday drive. Even the plot seemed silly and dis-jointed.
- Bond now may be up to date from a film makers point of view, but the main key elements for a Bond movie have been lost, Gadgets, Locations, Girls and the famous one liners.
- A throw-away of the entire Craig-reboot.
- No glamour. The women don’t really play a definite part. The Istanbul sequence could have been from the recent Taken 2.
- Slow. No gadgets. Minimal Bond girl focus. Rubbish plot – lots of pointless scenes. Villain is made to look petty and pathetic. We’ve hone from world domination to a personal grudge. Too busy trying to turn Bond into Bruce Wayne. Please don’t let Sam Mendes anywhere near another Bond film.
- Weak story line, too much action, less about spying.
- It wasn’t classic James Bond.
- All the best bits had already been shown on TV.
- Horrible story line. Bad guy has no character.
All being well I will have a functioning computer back shortly, at which point I will take a look at how the other two groups responded.
Watch this space, or follow The James Bond Dossier on Facebook or Twitter!
Also see
Skyfall survey: what Bond fans really think of the new 007 film
January 4th, 2013 at 16:55
It’s very striking that topping the list of things this group liked about Skyfall was Adele’s miserable, badly-sung caterwaul. It didn’t show up above the radar as one of the most popular plus points amongst those who rated the film positively or neutrally in this survey, and for me personally it was one of the film’s few out-and-out negatives.
The overhyped Adele was entirely found out here. Hitherto she’d shown she was a passably good impersonator of an R&B belter (though hardly Aretha Franklin), but with a straight ballad we now know she has all the soul of a robot, her insipid delivery making the top notes of the theme’s chorus sounding particularly dreary (and not quite in tune either).
It tells you all you need to know about the questionable tastes of the small minority of respondents who viewed Skyfall negatively, that they liked this dirge. It means the producers must have done something very right overall (theme tune artist selection apart, of course).