FILMS SELECTED: James Bond – ‘Casino Royale’ & ‘Skyfall’

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
NAME: Tay Jit Ying
STUDENT ID NO: 0319002
FILMS SELECTED: James Bond – ‘Casino Royale’ & ‘Skyfall’
WORD COUNT: 618
ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE – CONTRAST ESSAY
LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA
SUBMISSION DATE: 5TH DECEMBER 2014

2. James Bond movies are one of the movie who catch the interest of audiences from all
walks of life until today. In all those James Bond movies, they illustrate about Bond, who is a
British secret agent working for MI6 overcoming all the unexpected obstacles to complete his
mission. This gives me the interest to identify the differences between these two latest James
Bond Movies, Casino Royale and Skyfall and how is his working task different from one
another.
First and foremost, one of the most obvious scenes that can be found in these two
movies is that the main character, James Bond almost loses his life in two different ways
while working on two different missions. In the film Casino Royale, Bond was poisoned by
Le Chiffre with the help of his girlfriend Valenka. Once the poison started to take effect,
Bond could hardly breathe and caused his heart beat to increase tremendously, but he
survived with the help of Vesper, Bond’s assistant. On the other hand, in Skyfall, Bond
almost died when his partner, Eve shot Bond by mistake when Bond was trying to arrest a
villain on the deck of the train. He then falls into a river and goes missing before showing
himself up again at M’s residence, who is the head of MI6.
Besides that, James Bond fought at the high ground in both movies at the start of the
movies but has different outcomes. In Casino Royale, James Bond had a Parkour chase with
Mollaka, a globe-trotting bombmaker-for-hire at a construction site which consists of fighting
on a crane and rooftops of the buildings before killing the villain successfully. Meanwhile, in
Skyfall, James Bond chased a terrorist with a bike on the roof of residents before fighting on
a moving train, but failed to impress M for allowing the terrorists to escape due to the
mistake done by his partner, Eve.
Furthermore, there are explosions in both films, but they are taking place in different
locations and have different purposes. For example, in Casino Royale, Bond chased his

3. villain to an embassy. To prevent being captured, James Bond created an explosion by
shooting the oil tanks with his handgun. His act enables him to escape and continue his
mission at Bahamas. Nevertheless in Skyfall, M receives a warning on her computer in her
car before the Military Intelligence, Section 6 explodes and is believed to be a set up by
Raoul Silva, a former MI6 officer as a warning to the MI6.
Last but not least, in both films, there are two different plots in the casino. Bond loses
his initial stake due to misplayed in a game with Le Chiffre but Felix Leiter, one of his fellow
players who claimed himself as the CIA agent sponsored him funds to continue his game
which made him trigger the anger in Le Chiffre by winning him before the game ends. On the
other side, Bond went to a Macau Casino not to play any games but to continue his mission in
searching for Raoul Silva. However, he had some fight with some Chinese gangsters in the
casino who tried to kill him before sailing to an abandoned island off the coast of Macau.
In conclusions, both films have two entire different plots which make them so
interesting. However, I noticed that those girls who was fallen in love with James Bond will
always die in the end of the movie such as Vesper, the assistant of Bond and M, the head of
MI6. This gives us the suspense feeling and wanting to find out who is going to be his new
girlfriend and the head to instruct him on duty in the future.

4. Reference
1. H. Shaw-Williams (2014, May). ‘James Bond 24’ Director Sam Mendes Talks About
Finishing ‘Skyfall’ Story. Retrieved from http://screenrant.com/james-bond-24-skyfall-
sequel-sam-mendes/
2. Stax (2006, November 16). Casino Royale. Retrieved from
http://www.ign.com/articles/2006/11/16/casino-royale
3. Campbell, M. (Director). (2006). Casino Royale [Motion picture]. England: Distributed by
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment South Pacific.
4. Mendes, S. (Director). (2012). Skyfall [Motion picture]. England. Distributed by Columbia
Pictures / MGM.