Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Skyfall: A Bond Intro, Shakespeare Style

If you've read Romeo and Juliet, then you know that Shakespeare outlines the story in the prologue. Before the first scene even starts, you know the play is about two star-crossed lovers who die. Skyfall does something similar in its opening credits.

Spoilers for the movie below. Here's a video of the opening credits, for reference.


The opening titles give the audience a glimpse of what's coming in the movie, including plot points, locations, and themes.

Here a few examples, and you could analyze and dissect the opening titles to even greater detail.

Time - Image in opening credits - Connection to story
0:30 - Bond continues sinking in the water - Bond presumably drowns and MI6 pronounces him dead
1:00 - Fallen knives and guns form cemetery gravestones - The death of "the old ways" in espionage
1:15 - Zoom in on Bond's eye - Bond returns to London
1:31 - Shooting the shadows - Bond's tests before returning to fieldwork, M's idea about "working in the shadows"
2:18 - Dragon dance - Shanghai
2:47 - Black skull - The black skull image that flashed on M's hacked computer
2:50 - Cemetery - Exposed MI6 agents who were assassinated, the graves of Bond's parents at Skyfall estate
2:52 - Fall into a grave and then Bond is walking on the ground - Bond's "resurrection"
3:05 - Shooting at mirrors - Scene in the Shanghai skyscraper, mirrors in Skyfall house to distract Silva's men
3:21 - Blood stain on Bond's suit jacket - M lets Bond go back into the field even though he didn't pass the tests (he's a damaged/injured agent)
3:28 - Blood and fire falling over a large house - The final fight at the Skyfall estate where most of Silva's men die, M dies, and the house blows up

The opening titles do not obviously tell you what is going to happen in the story, but the imagery gives you a general sense of what's coming. I noticed how connected the opening credits were only after I finished watching the movie.

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