[Quick Summary: When someone from M's past threatens all of MI6, Bond tracks down the threat, but it gets very personal.]
Q: What have you learned about Bond scripts you've read (16 so far)?
A: The scripts are sprawling beasts unto themselves, often hard to wrangle.
Q: What's one of the difficulties?
A: The writers are always trying to deliver new spectacles, but it's not easy to sustain. I often go numb reading yet another action-packed, high stakes scene.
Q: In this script, what does work on the page AND on screen?
A: I have not seen it often in Bond scripts but I think they're at their best when the mounting tension (due to conflicting emotion) is in service of a theme.
Here, it is betrayal.
For example, Bond is betrayed in the scene below:
- Bond is fighting a guy on top of a train.
- Eve has a sniper gun, but can't get a shot.
- Back in the London, M orders the shot, effectively putting Bond at risk.
- Note how each character is shown with emotional conflict (see below).
ON THE TRAIN:
Bond and Patrice struggle. Below the train, a treacherous fall the waterfall and river far below --
Bond can hear Eve and M on his earpiece:
EVE (V.O.): There's a tunnel ahead...I'm going to lose them...
AT MI-6:
M is isolated. [This shows M alone, likely feeling lonely, vulnerable.]
All the screens are down. Everyone watches M. [She's alone, shouldering responsibility.]
M (V.O.): Can you get into a better position?
ON THE OVERPASS:
Eve's POV through the scope: Bond and Patrice locked together.
EVE: Negative. There's no time.
She blinks away sweat. Finger tensing on the trigger. [Eve's nervous, conflicted. She could kill 007.]
The train's about to disappear.
ON THE TRAIN:
Bond and Patrice roll across the train roof --
Bond can hear M and Eve on his earpiece -- [He has no idea if M will sacrifice him.]
The train's starting to go into the tunnel!
ON THE OVERPASS:
Eve still has the gun trained on them.
Seconds left now. [This increases tension. Audience wonders if she'll take the shot.]
AT MI-6:
It's now or never.
M: Take the shot...I said, take the shot.
EVE: I can't. I may hit Bond-- [She's conflicted.]
M: Take the bloody shot. [She makes a decision, for better or worse.]
SIMULTANEOUSLY:
Eve fires--
Bond and Patrice twist--
Eve's shot slams into Bond!
His whole body recoils violently -- shot in the side and ribs -- blood sprays -- the impact is huge -- sending him sailing from the car --
Bond flies through the air--
Off the train--
He falls, past the train, past the tracks--
Down toward the river and waterfall below--
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: To improve meaningless action, consider if it's related to the theme. If not, can it be reframed so it is? Or is it tangential?
Skyfall (2012)(undated)
by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade, and John Logan
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