Speaking of plotholes, here’s a doozy. The “one more thing” is the Aston Martin. How exactly does Bond end up with it?
If it’s his personal car, then why is Q fixing it for him? Especially if he’s no longer with MI-6 but even if he is. The only reason cars get worked on in Q branch is to install lethal “extras.” Surely they aren’t being added for a civilian’s use? Or even added to an active agent’s personal vehicle? Q has that dumb joke about “bring it back in one piece” vs “in pieces,” but what is that about? Bond took it out of a personal garage and made a point of mentioning how it’s not “on the grid” with MI-6. Q did not issue it to him and so can’t complain about what happens to it, and isn’t required to fix it. Unless it is MI-6 property and Bond stole it and hid it in his garage?
The DB5 wins the trophy for biggest plot hole in SF, I think, because it’s so big it slops over into the next film. It simply makes no sense for this car to exist in the Craigverse.
At the beginning of Skyfall, when Bond is waiting for M in her apartment, didn’t M said to him something like all his possessions were confiscated and the rent of his flat was cancelled? So maybe that would mean the DB5 wasn’t realy in his possession anymore? Otherwise, yeah, it’s a huge plothole.
Edit: That also explaines why he has not a lot of stuff in his new apartment at the beginning of Spectre.
But it does make poetic sense if not realistic sense. I realize for some viewers poetry is non-essential, but I find that its absence makes for a lessened cinematic experience. In fact, when the poetry is absent, it is the plot holes and coincidences which begin to command my attention–usually to the detriment of the film.
It’s flexible reality - the point where the Craigverse wormholes into the Conneryverse. A similar wormhole, albeit smaller, was Moore killing Drax with his darts bracelet gun although he clearly wasn’t wearing it when captured at the Amazonas base…
That doesn’t add up for me. in SF, Bond tells M the trouble with “company cars” is they “all have damn trackers.” Then he reveals the DB5, leaving us to conclude it’s not a " company car. " (His ownership of the CR car doesnt predate tracking technology; if they could put a tracker in Bond himself in that film, why not his car?) Then not a minute later, Bond’s thumb hovers over the “little red button” and M says “Go ahead, eject me.” Which means it IS a company car, or else how would she know what the button does? Or maybe she’s just seen Goldfinger. But if it is a company car, Why is there no tracking device and how does Bond get away with stealing it from the government? (At my work you could be fired for taking a stapler!) But if it’s Bond’s personal car, why would it be outfitted with lethal devices? If Q did it, that explains why M knows what’s in it, but not why she’s cool with Bond hiding it. If someone else installed the armaments, Bond’s probably broken a lot of laws.
Of course the first thing Q would have had to do was replace the steering. The CR car has it on the opposite side!
The easiest explanation is that when he won the Db5 from Demitrios it already had all the gadgets installed. Demitrios had them in there because he’s a bad, paranoid dude who needs to be careful. Perhaps installed by Spectre? Or it was an old mi6 car that was owned by an agent in the 60s (not james bond) and had the gadgets when Demitrios aquired it.
Or maybe the vast majority of viewers just don’t care: James Bond drives Aston Martins; his Aston Martins have gadgets; the ejector seat makes the audience laugh… move on it’s entertainment not documentary?
It´s not a plothole. It´s a gimmick which is explained throughout the Craig films.
In CR he wins the car. In SF it is revealed he kept it in storage. Blowing it up was an interesting way to blast it into the past. It strained credibility to be reconstructed by Q for SPECTRE. Then again, I guess with Bond doing almost everything NOT by the book, it is absolutely plausible that he told Q to reassemble the car from its wreckage pieces - AND to build in some nice new features.
Is it necessary? No. Is it a crowd-pleaser? Absolutely. Every showing I attended the Aston got a big response from viewers. It kind of belongs to Bond like wearing a tux at least once a movie.
Me too, but it felt like the audience was thinking, “Yes, finally something we recognize!” Logic was no requirement so long as we got a tie to " the good old days. "
It’s always difficult for me to gage audience reaction to the Craig films. They must be well received to make so much money, but the audiences i see them with don’t laugh, cheer or gasp like they did with “classic” Bond. Doubtless that’s partly because the Craig’s aren’t as geared towards “pandering” to illicit such responses, but it always seems like when the crowd does get some scrap of humor or nostalgia, they eat it up gratefully.
Anyway, I’ve gotten over the DB5 in SF (it helps that I never watch it), but it would have been easier if they’d left it a smoking pile of scrap. It’s a wonderful car and a treasured icon, but at this point I’d be happy if it’s parked next to JW Pepper and a rack of safari suits in the “Never Going Back To That Again” warehouse.
I agree absolutely. People are desperately in need for lighter entertainment, and that’s what Bond films offered in earlier times. Hopefully, BOND 25 will respond to that.
Again, totally agreed. Destroying the Aston in SKYFALL would have clearly signified: this era is over, we’re moving forward now.
But doesn’t Q also hint that it isn’t really Bond’s car and Bond was just borrowing it?
“I believe I said bring it back in one piece, not bring back one piece.”
To me, this says that it is not the same car Bond won in CR. Not to mention, that car was left-hand drive, and the DB5 in SF and SP were right-hand drive, being the same car from GF. I always saw it as the SF car being different than the one from Casino.
I believe there were drafts from P&W, in which, it was the CR car and there just machine guns in the trunk, but Mendes decided to make it the GF DB5 with the gadgets. So, it’s not the same car.
Also the Craig Bond in Skyfall is a lot older, so a lot has happened between CR/QoS and Skyfall we just never saw. Maybe he used a DB5 for one or more mission we never saw.
And what I said before:
didn’t M mention to Bond in her apartment, when Bond is visiting her, at the beginning of Skyfall, something like that when they assumed he was death all his possessions were confiscated, so that means even if it was his car, now it wasn’t anymore.
… this could apply, too. I could even imagine that Bond, after winning the car, asked Q to install some extras. Just for fun, a little something to amuse himself. And then he put it back into the garage.
But frankly, I believe nobody cared about any continuity there. Nor did I.
As for the DB5, let’s not forget that Bond probably used company’s money playing with Dimitrios in CR. He won, but, in that case, that doesn’t necessarily mean the car was his to keep.
Still, I was under the impression that the car in SF was the same as in Goldfinger. Clearly it was meant to be a joke, not a good one though and very unnecessary (too important for the plot).
I think there’s probably ways to explain the car away. For instance, maybe it is the one from CR and maybe Bond did get Q Branch to install extras (even if we never see a “Q” in the Craigs until Boy Wonder shows up in SF) and maybe the reason it wasn’t mothballed or sold off with the rest of his stuff was because he stowed it in a garage he never reported to MI-6. And maybe it’s untraceable not because it’s old but because he deliberately located and destroyed the homer (because he has an attitude, and ultimately gets to do whatever he wants).
But as Marcin says, that’s a lot of brainwork dumped onto the viewer to justify a joke that isn’t worth it (to me, anyway: I get that people love it). If it is the car that he won in CR, then that’s not much of a payoff, nostalgia-wise (Hey, folks, remember two movies ago? Good times, good times). So obviously it’s supposed to be the one we remember from Connery days. Except it’s impossible to picture Craig participating in any of those missions.
Anyway, I apologize for derailing this thread on such a trivial tangent, as obviously the inclusion of the Aston Martin is at best a manipulative gimmick and not intrinsic to the plot itself. If he’d driven a Lotus or a Yugo, the overall story would’ve remained the same. I might as well complain about the illogic of Craig wearing suits that are obviously too small for him. It might be illogical, but it doesn’t count as a “plot hole.”
Of those, there are plenty, and I gladly cede this thread back to their discussion.
