Oscars 2013: Bond wins for first time since Thunderball

'Skyfall's two awards at yesterday's Oscars ceremony mark the first acknowledgments from the Academy for a Bond film since 'Thunderball' in 1966.

Sam Mendes' celebrated 23rd Bond film won for Best Original Song, for Adele and Paul Epworth's theme, and Best Sound Editing, a joint award with 'Zero Dark Thirty' after votes were tied for only the sixth time in Oscar history.

[Related story: Oscars 2013 - Full list of winners]
[Related story: Oscars 2013 - Oscar category tied for onyl sixth time in history]

The series has been nominated several times since 'Thunderball's win, which was scored for John Stears' visual effects ('Goldfinger' also won a gong the previous year for Best Sound Effects), but largely Bond has largely found itself snubbed for much of the franchise's 50 year history.

'Diamonds Are Forever' was nominated in 1972 for Best Sound, 'Live and Let Die' in 1974 for Best Music, 'The Spy Who Loved Me' was nominated three times in 1978 for Best Art Direction, Best Song and Best Score, 'Moonraker' was given the nod for Visual Effects in 1980, and then another 'Best Song' nomination in 1982 for 'For Your Eyes Only'.

But none of these converted a nomination into a win.

Though 'Skyfall' did manage to break the pattern, it still lost out in the other categories it was nominated in (Best Score, Best Cinematography and Best Sound Mixing), as well as being snubbed wholesale for nominations in the Best Picture or Best Director categories, despite overwhelming success at the box office and uniformly great reviews (it has a 'fresh' rating of 92% on reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes - 'Life of Pi', for example has 88%).

Bond writer Robert Wade, who with Neal Purvis has penned every Bond film since 'The World Is Not Enough' in 1999, reckons that the franchise is 'too British' to be recognised by the Academy.

“Bond represents Britain,” he told Yahoo! UK Movies.

“He was the most memorable thing about the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Bond is this symbol of what Britain could be or might’ve been or was once and this doesn’t go over well with the Americans.

“British optimism versus the American optimism. Look at the films that are nominated. ‘Argo’, about an American success. Same with ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, ‘Lincoln’, even ‘Django Unchained’ is celebratory.”

Bond's Britishness is something that's unlikely to change, whoever takes over from Daniel Craig when he decides to hang up his Walther PPK, but perhaps 'Skyfall' might go some way to altering the perception of 007 in the eyes of Academy voters in future years.

Here's hoping...