11. The Meaning of the Title
While Skyfall quite obviously refers to the opening scene, in which Bond is shot from atop a moving train carriage and falls several hundred feet into the watery depths below, it also has a certain emotional significance for Bond, referring to the name of his childhood home in Scotland, an isolated mansion which becomes the stage for the film's third-act shoot-out. Cutting right through its core, titling the film as such further implies how important character development is to Bond this time around; Mendes smartly invests a lot of screen time in Bond's troubled childhood and the death of his parents, making his return home - and team-up with his loyal grounds-keeper Kincade (Albert Finney) - a well-wrought emotional moment as well as one heading towards a showy, explosive finale.