History Headscratchers / Skyfall

*** Especially if he was recruited as a hacker. In the '80s, it wasn't uncommon for PlayfulHackers to get recruited by the organizations they hacked.

* How ''did'' Bond survive, anyway? First he got shot, then he fell a hundred feet from the roof of a moving train, and ''then'' got dropped over the edge of a waterfall. Realistically speaking, any one of those thing should have killed him, ([[spoiler:and heck, M died from a comparatively less fatal-looking gunshot than what Bond got]]) and yet nobody in the movie even bats an eyelash at him coming back alive a few months later.

*** The fact that Bond could dig the shrapnel out of his shoulder with a pocket knife suggests that the wound was probably superficial, which may make sense if the bullet was slowed by penetrating the glass of the caterpiller. Bond would probably be dead if the bullet had penetrated his thoracic cavity and if he had received no medical attention at a hospital. You got me on the waterfall drop. Also, it seems pretty clear that ([[spoiler:M bled to death]]).

* In the end, [[spoiler:would it have been impossible for Bond and M to bring the local police in for reinforcements? Or were they intentionally making themselves vulnerable to lure out Silva? I wasn't sure why a regiment of SAS weren't waiting, or why the RAF didn't take out the helicopter.]]
** If I remember correctly [[spoiler:Bond specifically requested the "bread crumbs" be only enough for Silva to follow up on and nobody else. Presumably this meant any outside contact and arrangements, such as an Armed Response Unit, would have been picked up and cause Silva to bug out - likely scuppering any real chance at netting him.]] A concrete explanation is never given on-screen however.
** M answers this question in a single line: [[spoiler:"So I'm to be bait?"]]

* As chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I thought Mallory was M's superior - So wouldn't [[spoiler:his taking on M's role be a demotion? Why is ''he'' taking the job?]]

*** Or he actually was demoted for [[spoiler:how he handled the incident. It's not like the ministers on that committee can blame Judi Dench's M anymore.]]
** It's possible that he took it voluntarily. The events of the film, especially combined with [[spoiler:M's heroic speech and later death in the field]] may have made him rethink whether he really wants a "mere" political career instead of a more direct involvement. It's also not like it's a low-prestige or low-paid role.

-->'''M:''' Who the hell do they think they are? I report to the Prime Minister, and even he's smart enough not to ask me what we do. Have you ever seen such a bunch of self-righteous, arse-covering prigs? They don't care what we do; they care what we get photographed doing.

* M's name is so secret that she threatens to have Bond killed for mentioning it in Film/CasinoRoyale2006, but [[spoiler:she's dragged in front of an apparently public parliamentary committee in this movie. Would it not be exceedingly awkward for this meeting to proceed without her name ever being mentioned once, especially if the news were there?]]

* Another issue with M's name: [[spoiler:is it really "Emma"? I thought it was just Kincade's interpretation of hearing Bond call her "M", but a lot of people treat it as her real name, so... what's the truth?]]

*** See FreezeFrameBonus on the Main page; The gift box containing M's porcelain bull dog has her full name printed on it. It's [[spoiler:Olivia Mansfield]].

** Cyanide vapor is created by dissolving the actual compound in acid, so it's possible the tooth contained a bit of that that was intended to create said vapor (or there was an acid tooth and a cyanide tooth, and they had to be cracked together), but the comparative parts weren't calibrated properly and thus the acid overwhelmed the actual poison. Weak amounts of cyanide can also induce heavy vomiting, which brings up ''more'' hydrochloric acid- from the victim's own stomach- which would definitely feel like one's insides were being burnt out. Finally, all that acid could definitely induce a ''wound'' in the jaw and palate that could, if the victim survived, become infected and lead to degenerative necrosis. (Also, it would make sense for [[spoiler:M16]] to create something that would burn out an agent's teeth and a large part of their face upon death- [[FridgeBrilliance it would destroy a large portion of the agent's identifiability]].) So while an ''ordinary'' cyanide pill wouldn't inflict the damage shown on Silva, it's possible to think of circumstances where a sufficiently high-tech cyanide capsule tooth might.

* One of the main themes in the first two of Craig's Bond movies was that Bond was a rookie. It's only at the end of QoS that he seems to have gotten a hang of things. But since he's only just gotten used to the job, it seems weird for the theme of ''Skyfall'' to be that he's getting too old for the job. I mean, he only just got experienced at it!

*** I get he was with [=MI6=] prior to Casino Royale, but Casino Royale and QoS do still make it a point to show Bond making mistakes and being lectured by M. It just seems weird to me for Skyfall to talk about Bond being too old when they only just resolved the question of Bond making rookie mistakes.
*** We can probably assume that Bond has been completing missions off-screen for at least a few years between QoS and Skyfall.

* Why did Bond take the shot when he and Silva were in the shoot-off? He knew full-well that he wouldn't make the shot, and Silva wouldn't hesitate to kill Severine. Fine, he had a gun to his head, he may have seen completing the competition as his only way out. Acceptable casualties and all that. But he then proceeds to kick the snot out of all of Silva's henchmen anyway, and if he hadn't taken the shot he would've had another weapon to take them out. It just seems like he let Severine die for no reason, but maybe I'm seeing it wrong.
** He didn't know Silva would be CuttingTheKnot by shooting Sev. Also, they were expecting him to try something with the loaded gun, not so much with the empty.

*** In point of fact, Bond is taken to that island from Macau, which is even further away from Japan. (Roughly a thousand miles, in fact, which means either it's a different island or Bond had a LOT of time to fool around with Severine aboard the sailboat.)

** Perhaps it was security-through-misdirection? If I knew that [=MI6=] had a secret list they wanted hidden I would assume that it would be somewhere in England, and Turkey would be one of hte last places I would consider looking for it unless I found out otherwise.

** It's encrypted (obviously), and it needs to be decrypted. Perhaps as a security measure the hard drive is configured so that it can only be decrypted with a key from inside [=MI6=]'s mainframe, nessitating a connection so that if lost it can be tracked. They just weren't expecting Silva to be able to hack into [=MI6=]'s systems and obscure where he actually was.

** They switch to a new account, or move off [=YouTube=], or put it in multiple places at once. Heck, Silva can hack [=MI6=]; he can hack Youtube.

** It's quite possible the man killed in Shanghai was associated with Silva's torturers, but I assumed by the presence of Severine, who seems to serve as Silva's personal representative/second-in-command, that it was possibly just an assassination that Silva had taken on, either for pay at someone else's request to finance his personal vendetta or to further another personal goal. The painting ended up in his hands through some of his black market contacts, and was being used as bait to get the target in an accessible position.

** It's probably a setup. Silva hires Patrice, either giving him the ridiculously distinctive bullets and using him for a couple other assassinations, or picking him on the basis of his highly identifiable signature bullets, specifically so [=MI6=] will have a trail for what they dig out of Bond (or what Bond digs out of himself as the case may be). The job in Shanghai is a setup, exposed enough for Bond to have easy access to it, and to pick up on the trail Silva is leaving (as well as to be noticed by Severine from afar) but discreet enough that he'll readily think it had all been their own idea.

*** This. You honestly think that his plan hinged on posting a random video on Youtube and counting on the terrorist organization in question watching it, and believing it enough to act on it? The clear implication is that he's provided the information through other channels, and the [=YouTube=]/website seems to be just him publicly taunting/humiliating [=MI6=] and showing the world what a massive failure M has been. Posting random crap on [=YouTube=] in a laughable attempt to mask it makes them look incompetent AND desperate.

* When M is in the car near the beginning, her aide reports that the stolen hard drive is being decrypted, and they're getting a signal. Um...how? The data on the drive doesn't know whether it's being decrypted or not. If you ran a ''program'' on the drive it might phone home, but who would ever do that? It should go without saying that you should never run exe files on an enemy hard drive. The best I can figure is that the hard drive is outfitted with a radio transmitter that broadcasts a signal whenever the drive spins, a la the first ''Film/MissionImpossible'' movie. However, the aide specifically says that the signal is coming from behind the MI 6 firewall, which means it's a network signal and not a simple broadcast. So...how does that work?

** It could be a nod to the "coming out of the shadows" theme; notably, members of the Intelligence and Security Committee (i.e Mallory) are either [=MP=]s or Lords and, thus, are very public figures. Then again, the first time we see her in ''Casino Royale'' she's coming out of a press conference or committee hearing regarding Bond's killing of the parkour bombmaker.

[[folder: The William Telling shoot-off]]

[[folder: Chinese island]]

[[folder: Silva's age]]

[[folder: Radio communications]]
* Throughout the whole pre-credits section, Eve and [=MI6=] headquarters are shown to be in constant radio contact with Bond (e.g. Eve alerts Bond from her car that Patrice is uncoupling the train carriages). If memory serves, he's never shown to lose his earpiece. So when Eve is struggling to get a clear shot at Patrice on the railway bridge, why couldn't someone have told Bond that there was a sniper in place and he should try to move a few metres away?

[[folder: Why was the List on a laptop in Turkey?]]

[[folder: Everything involving computers]]

** They switch to a new account, or move off Youtube, or put it in multiple places at once. Heck, Silva can hack [=MI6=]; he can hack Youtube.

[[folder: The Shanghai Job]]

* So Silva has a list of our agents, and he's putting names on Youtube. You know what would be a great way to protect our people? Put up a bunch of our ''own'' videos, listing ''actual'' terrorists as if they were undercover agents. The bad guys won't know which videos are legit, and they might wind up killing some of their own people!

*** This. You honestly think that his plan hinged on posting a random video on Youtube and counting on the terrorist organization in question watching it, and believing it enough to act on it? The clear implication is that he's provided the information through other channels, and the Youtube/website seems to be just him publicly taunting/humiliating [=MI6=] and showing the world what a massive failure M has been. Posting random crap on Youtube in a laughable attempt to mask it makes them look incompetent AND desperate.

[[folder: Severine's Dress]]
* Why does Band call Severine's dress "backless"? [[http://www.spontaneouschick.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/how_to_wear_a_backless_dress.png This]] is a backless dress. Does Bond not know the difference between a backless dress and a sheer dress?
** Severine's dress, though the back paneling is sheer, is clearly meant to show off the bare skin underneath at least as much as the decorative beadwork, etc.

[[folder: The One List]]
* It occured to me watching this, but, the list, why is the full list on an encrypted HDD? From what I would have guessed, a list that important would not be in one kind of place or HDD, it would more likely be that the list would be split in many many ways as well as encrypted. Several examples would include, the coding being split into multiple HDD, meaning the program wouldn't work unless you had all the HDDs or something, or the list itself was split up, like the first names, last names, assumed first, assumed last and the organization they have infiltrated all split up, and only making a lick of sense when you have ALL the HDD, kinda like a virtual jigsaw, no one object, no matter how encrypted should have that much ammo to protentially destroy all work.

[[folder: Easy Out]]

*** Silva has a lot of resources at his disposal. Once he realised that he was being led on a wild goose chase he stopped, took another look at Bond's record and probably used satalights to take a peek at Skyfall. It wouldn't be that hard to figure out that "hey, Bond's gone off the grid, he's probably holing up somewhere he knows well."

*** Isn't it already established that Brosnan-era Dench!M and Craig-era Dench!M are two different people anyway? Even here on Wiki/TVTropes we list Dench!M as two different people, the one who loathes Cold War relics and the one who misses the Cold War. Their personalities are a little different from each other as well.

*** This. You honestly think that his plan hinged on posting a random video on Youtube and counting on the terrorist organization in question watching it, and believing it enough to act on it? The clear implication is that he's provided the information through other channels, and the Youtube/website seems to be just him publicly taunting/humiliating MI6 and showing the world what a massive failure M has been. Posting random crap on Youtube in a laughable attempt to mask it makes them look incompetent AND desperate.

*** Even if Bond had an arsenal in his possession, it was a ridiculous expectation on his and MI6's part for him to be able to take on a squad of mercenaries with no knowledge whatsoever of their numbers or armaments. The fact that Bond wasn't expecting or prepared for Silva's chopper and backup team proves this.

** A key running theme throughout the movie is that Silva and Bond are NotSoDifferent -- how many times have we seen James Bond extract himself from a tight spot or get out of more-or-less similar circumstances even when he was unarmed? If Bond can manage it, Silva can; that's all we really need to know.

* In the end, [[spoiler:would it have been impossible for Bond and M to call for reinforcements? Or were they intentionally making themselves vulnerable to lure out Silva? I wasn't sure why a regiment of SAS weren't waiting, or why the RAF didn't take out the helicopter.]]
** If I remember correctly [[spoiler:Bond specifically requested the "bread crumbs" be only enough for Silva to follow up on and nobody else. Presumably this meant any outside contact and arrangements, such as a SWAT team, would have been picked up and cause Silva to bug out - likely scuppering any real chance at netting him.]] A concrete explanation is never given on-screen however.

*** Silva has shown himself to be an awesome hacker, so involving even a platoon of the SAS to help deal with Silva dramatically increases the chances of Silva spotting the trap and (as a result) not turning up. They want [=MI6=] want Silva "dealt with", not scared off.

*** With the resources they had(limited number of shotgun shells) I wouldn't have wasted trips and snares and pressure traps on the walk up to the house- too much open ground, too many variables on where they would or wouldn't step. Inside the house, walls and corridors limit where they'll be and make it easier to predict. Tripwires on the doors would have been useless as they used explosives to open the doors rather than kicking them in, so again, resources that would have been wasted. Ultimately I think with the resources they had available they did an excellent job.
*** Even if Bond had an arsenal in his possession, it was a ridiculous expectation on his and MI-6's part for him to be able to take on a squad of mercenaries with no knowledge whatsoever of their numbers or armaments. The fact that Bond wasn't expecting or prepared for Silva's chopper and backup team proves this.

*** Ok, but if Q led Silva ''away'' from Skyfall, then how did he find Bond at Skyfall? Bond's off the grid at that point. There are no tracking devices on him. One imagines that, realistically, Bond and M would wind up just hanging around for a couple days before they finally realize that Silva doesn't know where they are, and thus the entire plan is moot.

*** It remains a second question as to why they couldn't scramble reinforcements to arrive ''after'' Silva is already on the ground at Skyfall and no longer monitoring communications. The UK is a tiny place; the air force could have been there in a couple of minutes to deal with their li'l helicopter problem.

*** The fact that he is a dangerous man and they don't know what kind of arsenal he'd be bringing is why they ''should'' have brought in reinforcements. ConservationOfNinjutsu is a meta-law, not something that the characters are supposed to actually treat as real- one James Bond and a couple of old people should not be seen as better than one James Bond, two old people and the army, the navy and the air force. Reinforcements don't exist to be slaughtered (at least, not in-universe); they exist to even the odds and ''increase'' the chances of beating the other guy.

* For that matter, were the RAF and others explicitly told to stay away from Skyfall? With what justification? Frankly, it's hard to see how Silva could be allowed to fly assault helicopters over the UK without being taken out for safety's sake. Given that he conducted a major terror attack on London something like a day earlier and his last known residence was a former chemical manufacturing center, it's hard to see why anyone ''wouldn't'' just scramble jets and shoot him down.

*** You're overthinking it. It's obviously a reference to The Man with the Golden Gun, as is Bond shooting mirrors in the title sequence. google the Sam Mendes interviews about Skyfall. He states that everything in the movie is an homage to what he remembers about the previous Bond movies. He deliberately did not watch the other films but relied on what stood out in his mind and made an homage to that. http://www.npr.org/2012/11/09/164430652/from-the-theater-to-mi6-sam-mendes-on-skyfall http://www.timeout.com/london/film/sam-mendes-interview Things that dont make sense to US real life humans make sense within the context of the James Bond universe. Now that it's on DVD I see that the gray suits are a throwback uniform to the Connery era, as is the "New" office which is the Connery Bond M/[=MI6=] office.

*** Silivia had his own Website/YouTube account, and a listed time he would put up more videos, so it'd be pretty easy to tell which were real or not, at least until Silvia's first account was shut down, which will barely slow him down. Also, the terrorists can probably spot an agent if they know where to look. Keeps to himself? Joined us recently, after which we've faced a serious downturn in productivity? Has some British contacts on his phone? He's a spy. Shoot him.

** From first reponse poster: this is judgement on 20/20 hindsight. You can argue that she made the wrong call, but it should be made considering only the knowledge available to her and [=MI6=] just after Vauxhall is bombed. If Bond was indeed the best chance to get Silvia, sending him would be the right call even if it blows up in her face spectacularly.

* It occoured to me watching this, but, the list, why is the full list on an encrypted HDD? from what I would have guessed (other films and books and games and such of a similar setting helped me summise this) that a list that important would not be in one kind of place or HDD, it would more likey be that the list would be split in many many ways as well as encrypted, several examples would include, the coding being split into multiple HDD, meaning the program wouldnt work unless you had all the HDDs or something, or the list itself was split up, like the first names, last names, assumed first, assumed last and the orginazation they have infiltrated all split up, and only making a lick of sense when you have ALL the HDD, kinda like a virtual jigsaw, no one object, no matter how encrypted should have that much ammo to protentially destroy all work.
** Most likely, someone somewhere just got careless. As someone mentioned under a different folder above, there's been a surprisingly large number of security leaks from the British government which basically revolved around someone leaving files which you'd expect should be under much tighter security basically just lying around. Any security system is ultimately as good as the people using it, the people using it are ultimately human, and they sometimes goof up in quite disastrous ways.

** Silva probably had a contingency for in case Patrice failed.

*** Fair enough, but I still fail to see where he got this car from. Either Mi6 provided it to him which is unrealistic because the DB 5 is ridiculously old, very rare, and stupidly out-of-place for a covert agent or Bond owns it in which case I fail to see why Mi6 would have spent thousands of pounds modding his private vehicle.
*** I think that since the car belongs to the MI6 and they obviously cannot sell it on the market it has been stored in a garage secretly owned by the MI6 when it was no more useful. Bond for some reason knew where it was thought that it would be useful for its gambit.

*** not so: CR car is American Drive, silver with leather interior. The Skyfall car is a mockup of the Goldfinger/Thunderball car, gold colored. MI6 would keep the Goldfinger car in storage. Desmond Llewellyn's Q was always insisting on Bond returning equipment in pristine condition. Also, relics of Bond's adventures turn up in every 4th movie or so, establishing that the previous adventures did in fact happen in universe.
*** There IS a precedent, at least in the novels, for Bond taking it upon himself to trick out his personal vehicles. In John Gardner's first entry, "License Renewed," Bond has his Saab outfitted with some handy gadgets, albeit mostly defensive ones. The only offensive one that I recall was some kind of port through which he could fire a .44 Magnum revolver he kept in the car. The outfitting was done without MI6's knowledge or approval, given M's unamused reaction when he finds out. Craig's Bond seems to be quite lucky at casinos. If he could afford machine guns and an ejector seat, he could probably also afford a paint job and new interior, even switching the steering wheel over.
*** Daniel Craig's Bond (in this continuity) became 007 in Casino Royale, so it's VERY easy to imagine there had been plenty of other 007s in MI6's service in the decades prior. Craig's 007, a 'relic' of the age of espionage, probably read up on previous 00 Agents and their toys and either had the car built that way with his winnings from Casino Royale or found it in MI6 storage and fixed it up. M recognizes the ejector seat and comments on it, and considering her age in the film it would make sense that she had known the previous 007 Agents.

*** Lazenby 007's real name was most likely Bond too, since his wife took the surname "Bond"; would he really have married her under his MI6 code name? And Moore 007's real name is definitely James Bond, as he meets an old friend from his (pre-MI6) student days, who knows him as "James Bond". Also, Lazenby and Brosnan both quote the same family motto ("The world is not enough."), which ''Skyfall'' reveals to be the motto of James Bond's family. So either all these are just amazing, astronomical coincidences, or the "James Bond is only code name" theory doesn't hold water, and the different Bonds are simply different interpretations of the same character.

*** OR MAYBE the names in the grave, the wives names and everywhere else where edited out in post-production and where replaced with the code name... by the MI6.
*** Except Kinkade called him James Bond to his face and knew him by that name, the rifle that belonged to his father has his initials carved onto it, Craig Bond's second target ever knew him by the name James Bond before he got the 007 designation, and it's a [[PercisionFStrike Fucking]] stupid idea to give a ''secret agent'' a name used by other ''secret'' agents. You may as well paint a big sign on Bond saying "I work for MI6! Shoot me!" Why go through all that effort to give this one guy a code name when he already has a code number, and make that code name the one that all these organisations in the original continuity knew as being an MI6 agent, when you're not even certain you want him around until the end of Casino Royale? The "James Bond is a code name" thing just makes no sense in or out of universe.

** Likely because he didn't want to risk any doctors ask as to why he had bullet shrapnel in his shoulder since he was effectively dead and probably wanted to be left alone at this point. Plus at that time he didn't know it was depleted uranium and figured that leaving it in would be fine. Now as to why he didn't get one of MI6's doctors to pull it out is another question...

*** Silva has shown himself to be an awesome hacker, so involving even a platoon of the SAS to help deal with Silva dramatically increases the chances of Silva spotting the trap and (as a result) not turning up. They want MI6 want Silva "dealt with", not scared off.

*** Once more with feeling, Silva is already shown to be a dangerous man. They couldn't anticipate what arsenal he'd bring. And M didn't want anyone else dying for her- they weren't going to risk bringing in reinforcements for Silva to pick off. The guy damn well near took out an supposedly secure parliament meeting with a gun, not to mention everything he's done to MI6 at that point.

*** Desperation would explain why he pulled out his sidearm but not why he loaded it with an incredibly expensive bullet that provides no benefit and makes him easily trackable. Were the filmmakers just assuming that depleted uranium = M1 Abrams round? If so they are sorely mistaken. And even if the writer needed a way for MI6 to trace where the shrapnel came from they could have gotten ballistics back from a normal bullet and traced it to the manufacturer. Sure its an extra step but its significantly less stupid.
*** It's a plot point the guy is kind of stupid though. As said the CIA have been onto this guy for months due to his methods. Convenient for the plot certainly, but it wasn't specific to Bond and MI6.
*** You're overthinking it. It's obviously a reference to The Man with the Golden Gun, as is Bond shooting mirrors in the title sequence. google the Sam Mendes interviews about Skyfall. He states that everything in the movie is an homage to what he remembers about the previous Bond movies. He deliberately did not watch the other films but relied on what stood out in his mind and made an homage to that. http://www.npr.org/2012/11/09/164430652/from-the-theater-to-mi6-sam-mendes-on-skyfall http://www.timeout.com/london/film/sam-mendes-interview Things that dont make sense to US real life humans make sense within the context of the James Bond universe. Now that it's on DVD I see that the gray suits are a throwback uniform to the Connery era, as is the "New" office which is the Connery Bond M/MI6 office.

** It could be that the 00-program is an official secret, and that therefore M does not exist, even though the head of MI6 is a public office. Naming her in the context of her role as M is therefore different from naming her in the context of an officially-unrelated job, and might even be worse than revealing a single secret identity as it ties a major public figure to the extra-legal black ops team.

** Just because he was a rookie to the 00 program doesn't mean that he hadn't been working for MI6 for years prior. It sounds like the Prague job was his first kill assignment and given his age at that point, M decided to promote him even though it was only his first outing, as it were - hence her remark about it being too "early" to promote him.
*** I get he was with MI6 prior to Casino Royale, but Casino Royale and QoS do still make it a point to show Bond making mistakes and being lectured by M. It just seems weird to me for Skyfall to talk about Bond being too old when they only just resolved the question of Bond making rookie mistakes.

** A bigger question is what the MI6 agents were doing directly next to the room despite two guards killed and the door being open? Did Silva kill them that silently or did they just keep out of it not being armed/trained personnel?

** Police uniforms are hardly as rare as uncut diamonds or secured 24/7 under the tightest and most impenetrable possible security. I hardly think it's beyond the capabilities of a man hacking into MI6 on a regular basis to order some convincing police uniforms from a supplier under false pretences or to arrange for some henchmen to sneak undercover into a police station and steal a car.

* Okay, the movie explains that he let himself be captured so he could hack into the MI6 computer system and get their data. But, first of all, he wouldn't have needed to let himself be captured personally, all he would have needed was let Bond acquire his computer, which Q would've then plugged into their system. Secondly, ''he didn't actually do anything with the MI6 data''. His plan seems to have been to escape, then go and kill M at the governmental hearing. But the date and place of this hearing was most likely public knowledge, or at least Silva wouldn't have needed to hack into MI6 to get that info. So what was the point of letting Bond catch him? I guess he just wanted to show to M and Bond how invincible he was, but this also put his whole plan at tremendous risk, and indeed caused it to fail. If he had not let himself be captured, he could've simply walked into that governmental hearing and shot M without anyone suspecting it beforehand. And if he wanted the MI6 data for reasons unrelated to his revenge plan, he could've done that too by letting MI6 think they've managed to get his computer.
** The point wasn't just to defeat MI6, it was to *humiliate* them - M specifically. By "infiltrating" the organisation and escaping in such a way, then - to his mind - it further cements the idea of how pathetic and useless MI6 is in the face of terrorism. Combined with M's hearing for a similar cock-up chances are this would have completely crushed public opinion and totally undermined support.

* Throughout the whole pre-credits section, Eve and MI6 headquarters are shown to be in constant radio contact with Bond (e.g. Eve alerts Bond from her car that Patrice is uncoupling the train carriages). If memory serves, he's never shown to lose his earpiece. So when Eve is struggling to get a clear shot at Patrice on the railway bridge, why couldn't someone have told Bond that there was a sniper in place and he should try to move a few metres away?

* Why would something as important as a list of undercover NATO agents be on a random, easy-to-steal laptop? Something of that importance should really only be behind multiple firewalls of the agencies in question. Was it stolen before the start of the movie and Bond and co. had just recovered it? If it was the British copy of the List, why were they in Instanbul, and if it was the Turkish version, why was MI6 recovering it instead of the Turkish equivalent?
** Perhaps it was security-through-misdirection? If I knew that MI6 had a secret list they wanted hidden I would assume that it would be somewhere in England, and Turkey would be one of hte last places I would consider looking for it unless I found out otherwise.

** It's encrypted (obviously), and it needs to be decrypted. Perhaps as a security measure the hard drive is configured so that it can only be decrypted with a key from inside MI6's mainframe, nessitating a connection so that if lost it can be tracked. They just weren't expecting Silva to be able to hack into MI6's systems and obscure where he actually was.
*** So...the key is on MI6's servers, and you need a network connection to download a copy of the key? (Presumably you're supposed to delete the local copy of the key after using it.) And as part of the authentication process, you have to tell the servers your current location? I guess that could work...though I don't see how that would help you track the drive if it was stolen. Any thief worth his salt would know not to run random files he finds on the drive (such as this decryption program), ''especially'' not with an active network connection that might phone home. So the thief would just be stuck with a drive that he can't decrypt (except via brute force). Though if he felt he had a way to beat the servers' authentication system, and to make the thing lie about his actual location, then he might try that. Which, I suppose, is what the bad guys did. Ok.
*** That still leaves the question of why MI6's IT staff would have decryption keys stored on a network accessible system instead of disconnected storage and why they did not immediately destroy any and all backup keys for a laptop known to have been stolen.
* MI6 headquarters suffers a deadly cyber-attack, so they move to a new base. In this new base, they imprison Silva, the man responsible for the original cyber-attack. So why ''the heck'' do they put him in a jail cell where the door can be opened via computer? Obviously they should lock him up with some physical bars and locks, to eliminate the chance that his hacking skills (or the skills of his allies) will help him bust out.
** It can be opened via computer, but this is a closed network with no access to outside signals. Nobody thought that the hacking attempt would come from within MI6's own network.
* When accessing Silva's laptop, Q comments that it contains security protocols that will potentially delete sensitive data. He later states that the "polymorphic code" is changing whenever he tries to access it. And then, when they uncover the encrypted map of London, somehow this hacks the MI6 network and opens the prison doors automatically. Does any of this make ''any'' sense? You have the physical laptop, so just download the data to your own machine and don't run any exe files from the enemy drive! And you should probably airgap your machine too, just in case you screw up.
** Considering how computer saavy Silva is, he could have set up failsafes that if any attempt to take the data outside of it's normal operating environment it deletes itself. Plus a big theme was that MI6 was growing complaciant.

* It bugs me that MI6 systems are repeatedly compromised, yet everyone goes on using those systems as if they still work. Granted, they ''do'' move to a new base after the first one is attacked. But Silva has access to that one too; he reads off the results of Bond's fitness tests. Yet when Silva is captured, they bring him to that very same base. Then that base gets hacked ''again'' by Silva's laptop, but 10 minutes later Q is still using those same computers as though he can be sure that they aren't compromised. Q and Bond talk over the radio about their plan to mislead Silva. But for all they know, Silva could be listening in the whole time!
** Depends on whether or not the radio was a part of the same system. Given the size of any government department, MI6 would have to be using several different systems, if only so if one goes down they're not dead in the water. Not to mention that different systems would have different requirements and thus be kept separate; what you need to keep your computers running isn't relevant to operating a radio, so you'd build two separate systems for efficiency sake and again, for redundancy in the event that you lose one system you can keep doing things.

** They switch to a new account, or move off Youtube, or put it in multiple places at once. Heck, Silva can hack MI6; he can hack Youtube.
** Have you seen how well attempts to take information off the internet usually go? MI6 takes the video down, five different people put it back up again.
** I figured Silva had already given the 5 names to MI6's enemies by some other means, and posting it to Website/YouTube was just further mocking them. Given who he is, that wouldn't be entirely out-of-character for him.

** I doubt she actually did gamble the money away. Personally, I just assumed Bond kept the money and had it sent to his own account, but I didn't think about it beyond that one scene. In any case, I'm sure MI6 could have put it to good use somewhere.

** Except that the MI6 operatives are still listed on Website/YouTube. Meaning that anyone who sees past what is, it has to be said, a pretty obvious attempt at a double bluff is still going to be in a position to whack a British agent if possible. They don't want to play games with Silva, they want him stopped.

** This is all assuming that the Website/YouTube videos were the ''only'' way Silva was releasing the [=IDs=] of the agents. I think it's safe to say that's not the case. Even everyday hackers don't normally rely on releasing information to just one source. It's more likely that he had a widespread orchestrated info release (of which the Website/YouTube video was only one platform) that MI6 would be wasting their time to try and replicate.

* M Mentions Silva was captured before the transfer of Hong Kong to the Chinese (Before July 1997). Even considering his hacker background, how is he so up to date on MI6 procedures and firewalls? He's literally 15 years out of date. By the time he was captured, MI6 had barely just moved into the headquarters he hacked. How does he know so much about their systems to pull what he pulled?

** I get the sense that it's a judgement call by M to overrule what the standardized tests returned, the idea of intuition stemming from M's personal loyalty to Bond and judgement that the systematic tests MI6 had implemented would fail to deliver the "proper" call in his situation.

** Something else to consider, as well, is the theme of expendability: the movie's arc for M is her willingness to cut agents loose, or send them into no-win scenarios for a bigger gain elsewhere. She may have made the judgement call that, even in a best case scenario, whoever went after Silva would end up dead, but still in the very least point the way to where he was (or take Silva down with them). She may have okay'd Bond's deployment to the field, simply because it would be better and less costly than sending an agent in their prime, whose loss would hurt MI6 more.