Some initial thoughts on the Skyfall trailer

Back in May when the Skyfall teaser trailer was released I felt rather disappointed, rather at odds with much of the James Bond fan base, who were overwhelmingly positive about it.

However, the new trailer gives us much more to go on and my reservations of the time have now been replaced with something much more positive, so here I’m going to take a look at the thoughts that come to mind.

Spoiler alert: some of my comments below may be considered spoilers. Don’t read on if you don’t want to know!

First of all there is the look of the trailer, and in fact that was one of the positives about the teaser trailer too. The cinematography by Roger Deakins looks outstanding; the digital photography looks crisp, but at the same time it seems to have a warm classic look too. That’s something that I also feel that Casino Royale achieved – although that film was shot on celluloid – but was sadly lacking in the follow-up, Quantum of Solace.

The international version of the trailer is slightly different to the US version although they are within two seconds each other in run time; the international version starts with M apparently writing at the obituary of Bond, while this comes later in the US version for some reason.

Anybody who is familiar with the novels will recognise this is a plot device used by Ian Fleming in You Only Live Twice (and continued in his last novel, The Man With The Golden Gun) and what we can see written by M matches the text from the former almost word for word.

In fact as it went on I felt that the trailer looked rather like The Man With The Golden Gun, although there isn’t really much substantial to go on to give that idea having watched it several times; Javier Bardem with a pistol, perhaps, but it certainly seems that Skyfall is unlikely to follow the beginning of The Man With The Golden Gun due to the way in which 007 introduces himself to M.

There is perhaps slightly too much emphasis on action rather than story, but that’s something we’ve become used to the more recent James on films anyway and something that they are unlikely to change. However, Javier Bardem’s character looks weird with his blond wig – in fact he looks positively strange, and rather artificial – and he reminds me of Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) in A View To A Kill crossed with Dominic Green from Quantum of Solace, especially when he says to Bond: “Mummy was very bad”. And the new Q is far too young and geeky, although I’m glad that they haven’t tried to replace Desmond Llewelyn with a clone.

The other thing that I think you can pick up from the trailer is that Bardem appears to be one of the agents that was put at risk after the loss of the hard drive, when he tells Bond: “The two survivors. This is what she made us.”

The trailer does use a version of the James Bond theme which I think adds to the atmosphere, rather than the electronic grunge sound on the teaser, and anyone missed “Bond, James Bond” in Quantum of Solace won’t be disappointed. I don’t like James Bond with the beard, but I’ll have to live with it; and believe these are the first scenes released where James Bond is AWOL and sitting in a bar playing a drinking game involving scorpions.

I was a little surprised to see how little of the Aston Martin DB5 appeared but I can wait, no problem, and the shot of the sailing boat was rather reminiscent of when Bond and Vesper sailed to Venice in Casino Royale; I don’t know if that was done deliberately.

All in all I think we’re shaping up for what could be an good James Bond film again – I’m certainly keeping my fingers crossed. Let me know what you think in the comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook.