Homages in Skyfall and Five-0 to past 007 films? (spoiler)

Spoiler involved is fairly minor (especially since the horse is out of the barn) but stop reading if you want to remain spoiler-free.

After looking at images at the Facebook page of Bondklub Deutschland & Friends you have to wonder whether Skyfall, the 50th anniversary James Bond film,will have homages to past 007 movies.

Bond flies past a statue of a stag in Thunderball (left), a statue of a stag at 007's ancestral home in Skyfall as photographed by the Foraging Photographer. Coincidence?

Thanks to photos appearing on the Foraging Photographer blog, images of a set intended to pass for Bond’s ancestral home in Scotland show there’s a statue of a stag atop a gate post. In 1965’s Thunderball, Bond (Bill Suitor doubling for Sean Connery), using a jetpack, flies past a statue of a stag while getting away from some minor villains.

An homage? If so, it’s fairly subtle. Eon Productions pulled the same trick with 2002’s Die Another Day, the 40th anniversary 007 movie, which was packed with references to earlier Bond films. Many were pretty obvious, such as Q’s workshop filled with old gadgets, everything from what was supposed to be Thunderball’s jetpack to Rosa Klebb’s deadly shoe in From Russia With Love.

Separately, the March 19 installment of the new Hawaii Five-0 series had a “McGuffin” that would be familar to those who’ve seen Die Another Day. The plot centered around conflict diamonds, the same thing that caused Bond (Pierce Brosnan) to pursue Colonel Moon/Gustav Graves in the 2002 Bond film.

You could write that off to coincidence except the Nov. 21 episode of Five-0 also had things in common with Die Another Day, including a North Korean setting, the hero being tortured and dark, murky photography for scenes set in North Korea. Maybe the Five-0 writing staff liked the movie.