That's the kick in the teeth.
At the end of Skyfall, it implies that things are going to hark back to the old days of Bond. He's a little perkier and his attitude with M reminds me of the cool, upbeat and professional attitude that you would see from him in the Connery and Moore days. Which I'm perfectly happy with. He lacked a lot of professionalism and manner with Dench's M, given that he was still wet behind the ears in Casino Royale, suffering from heartache in QOS, and attempting to piece himself back together in Skyfall.
And that was a brilliant, new and more literal take on Bond, which was a welcome change from what Brosnan and the movies in general were starting to become - a parody of 007.
Craig's Bond has battled the issues that the literal Bond had to deal with, and won, which will result in Craig's take taking on the movie Bond persona of the past...
And with that, it brings me to the women. As you said, there hasn't been a proper decent attempt or succesion in forming a female character, that can be considered on the same page as Bond. For what she was worth, I really enjoyed the character of Camille Montes. She was going through the same emotional turmoil and revenge mission as Bond was. And give praise that she was one of the few Bond girls that 007 never had fun with, which was obviously because of the context of the story. But I really liked her character a lot.
The women in Skyfall? Beautiful as they are, and even surprising because one of them is actually Moneypenny, they were totally forgetful.
Severine, I liked her backstory and I was pretty moved by her fate. It's odd because most women last with Bond right throughout the movie, and so I didn't like what she was reduced to, because she seemed interesting. Her apperance, given that story, only would've worked in what she was in and not beyond that. (But it reinforced Silva as more of an ******* than he was, and he was a spectacularly over the top villain anyway, and one that I don't think any of us will forget...even if he hadn't of killed Severine and M.)
But now that we're most likely getting Bond returning to classic movie form, what will happen with the women?
I have no doubt that they'll be written just as strong, most of them anyway. But the women in the past 3 films were written to match Bond's characterisation and to strengthen his journey.
Now that the journey has more or less come full circle, how will they be wrote now? Back to the good old days also? Physically strong and skilfull with martial arts and weaponry? Written to match and challenge his dry wit and sarcasm?
Will they go back to being less interesting? Granted not all of the previous Bond women were unsuccessful at being his equal, in terms of character structure and writing.
But it will be interesting to see where they go from here.
