James Bond Film Skyfall Inspired By Stuxnet Virus 187
Velcroman1 writes "No smartphones. No exploding pens. No ejector seats. No rocket-powered submarines. 'It's a brave new world,' gadget-maker Q tells James Bond in the new film Skyfall. The new film, released on the 50th anniversary of the storied franchise, presents a gadget-free Bond fighting with both brains and brawn against a high-tech villain with computer prowess Bill Gates would be envious of. What inspired such a villain? 'Stuxnet,' producer Michael G. Wilson said. 'There is a cyberwar that has been going on for some time, and we thought we'd bring that into the fore and let people see how it could be going on.'"
Re:No wonder it sucks! (Score:3, Insightful)
Stupid Gadgets (Score:2, Insightful)
Even though I was 12 years old when I saw it, the ejector seat in Goldfinger impressed me as the dumbest gadget ever. "OK, Bond, we've killed two of your Bond Girls in absurd ways, now get in the back of this truck." "Oh gee, is it OK if I drive myself?" "OK, we'll have a henchman accompany you, just promise us you don't have an ejector seat."
Even dumber (though more low tech) is the part where the limousine gets reduced to a metal cube for no obvious reason.
They do the same with physics (Score:4, Insightful)
How often do we see someone being shot where they get thrown back and yet the shooter goes nowhere?
Or where the bad-ass good guy walks away from an explosion that should have turned him into jelly?
Or fighting on a floating piece of rock in a lava stream? AND they don't burst into flames themselves?
Or spacecraft maneuvering like airplanes?
And lastly, sound in space.
Re:It has a PCI bus. (Score:4, Insightful)
For what it's worth, ID4 does establish (in the second act, I believe?) that our technology is replicated from the alien designs. From a storytelling perspective, it's not much of a stretch, then, to make a "virus". Something that simply moves along byte by byte making copies of itself wouldn't be that difficult a thing to figure out, if you had access to one of their computers on the ground (Which they do, in Area 51) and it's further not much of a stretch to imagine that their admins might have left access a little *too* open.
Sure, he's shown using his PowerBook running MacOS, but it's probably just a terminal window of sorts into the guts of the alien computer, because the PowerBook is designed for a human, and the alien systems are not.
Most movie portrayals of computing are pretty far fetched, but this is one I'm actually willing to forgive. It doesn't seem implausible in the least to me that someone faced with impending annihilation would figure out how to do this. Hell, I bet the guys at Area 51 might have even had a compiler for the damn thing, they have had it for a few decades.
Re:No wonder it sucks! (Score:5, Insightful)
Millions of people also think the Bach Brandenburg concertos, Firefly, Aliens, Terminator2, the Curiosity rover, seasons 3-10 of the Simpsons and Raiders of the lost Ark were pretty awesome. Your point?
Re:No wonder it sucks! (Score:2, Insightful)
It was very boring for a Bond movie. I fell asleep twice trying to watch it. No one liked bond because he simply completed his mission. They like bond because he did it using innovative technology and gadgets. The same reason Batman movies work, take away his gadgets and he is just a rich 1%'er with mental issues and some anger.
Re:New Bond? (Score:5, Insightful)
I had the pleasure of reading through all the Ian Flemming books last summer. They were really fun reads that hold up nicely (well, some of them do). I think it was The Spy Who Loved Me that really drives home the point about Bond And it's this -
Bond is a villain. The only difference with him is that he's our villain.
In such light, I think Daniel Craig looks perfect for the part. Just my two cents.