Where does Bond go after Craig?

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  • Posts: 1,630
    When it is time for Bond 26 they will have just spent 5 films on -- even when taking the lighter moments into account -- a contemplative, serious-in-tone Bond and a story arc which will reach its end. So, what, with a new actor just carry on ? Or, essentially, do the same thing again but with a different -- though serious -- arc ? It seems to me unlikely. Getting 5 films out of one Bond actor would be a LOT, even where they spaced 2 years apart, such that you get 10 years from one Bond actor -- and I don't expect them to come out 2 years apart.

    That is why I think, starting with Bond 26, they will be ready for a change in tone. No, not with Tarzan yells or talking a wild tiger into backing off and sitting down, not with doofus local law enforcement (which started in DAF, not LALD -- in fact, the change in tone started with Connery's last Eon Bond, not with Moore's appearances). They tried to achieve this before, going from Dalton to Brosnan, and it went off-track I expect they'll get it done better this next time coming.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 6,287
    I think Bond 26 needs to get away from Vesper, and to a lesser extent, Madeleine. That's a lot of (at times, very entertaining and moving) emotional baggage.

    It will be next to impossible to do this without a reboot.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,359
    echo wrote: »
    I think Bond 26 needs to get away from Vesper, and to a lesser extent, Madeleine. That's a lot of (at times, very entertaining and moving) emotional baggage.

    It will be next to impossible to do this without a reboot.

    Well it won’t be possible to keep them, because Bond has left the service in this timeline. He may well return at the end of NTTD, but I doubt it.
  • Posts: 1,630
    I think that much is a given ! It will have a new Bond actor. It will quite likely be a reboot, to some extent at least ! If you consider the changes from Connery to Lazenby as NO reboot, from Lazenby to Connery as NO reboot, and from Connery to Moore as NO reboot, but the change from Moore to Dalton as a soft reboot -- if only because of the age differential and the lack of references to earlier missions handled by the prior three Bonds, but soft since it brought back David Hedison as Felix Leiter in LTK and indicated they had a years' long working relationship and friendship (despite the bland, blink-and-he's-gone 80s Felix of TLD), and because it handled a change of Moneypenny but not of M, and the change from Dalton to Brosnan as a harder reboot, and the change from Brosnan to Craig as an even harder reboot, then I think we may expect a reboot of about the same degree as Brosnan-to-Craig coming up. It can work with the same M, Moneypenny, etc. at MI-6 as before, which is something that has been done before, or replace them, to more clearly indicate a new story is underway. But as for the women in Craig's Bond's life ? I'd fully expect that to stay part of Craig-Bond's story, strictly.
    Did Dalton's Bond have Tracy in his past ? or Dr. No, and so on ? Quite apparently not.
    And likewise for Brosnan's Bond, and for Craig's Bond. Brosnan clearly did not have any of his predecessor's missions in his past, and the same for Craig. Likewise for the women in their lives.
  • Jordo007Jordo007 Merseyside
    Posts: 2,641
    @Since62 great post mate
    I really think we'll get a complete reboot this time round, of course it depends on the choice of actor and the general direction, but I think it's safe to say the producers won't want to be tied down to the Craig arc going forwards.
    I believe we'll see a new Q, Moneypenny and possibly a new M. I think with the continuity the series has tried to create with Craig's films, they'll see the box office recipts and try to continue in that same vain with the next actor. Another thing is people who watch Marvel films now, love continuity and feel that everything needs to be explained to them, I feel this will bleed over to Bond in general audience's thinking, so I reboot will be easier to explain
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,359
    Since62 wrote: »
    Did Dalton's Bond have Tracy in his past ? or Dr. No, and so on ? Quite apparently not.

    Well yeah, he did. It gets mentioned that he was married. Moore’s explicitly had been married to Tracy, Brosnan’s is shown to be uncomfortable when asked about marriage, suggesting he was too.
  • Posts: 16,153
    mtm wrote: »
    Since62 wrote: »
    Did Dalton's Bond have Tracy in his past ? or Dr. No, and so on ? Quite apparently not.

    Well yeah, he did. It gets mentioned that he was married. Moore’s explicitly had been married to Tracy, Brosnan’s is shown to be uncomfortable when asked about marriage, suggesting he was too.

    Exactly. All the pre Craig Bonds were married to Tracy.

    Although some fans regard DAF as a follow up to YOLT, erasing OHMSS, I tend to think of Connery in DAF post grieving. He's let himself go a bit, gotten a little slower, mourned and aged. However by the time of the PTS, he's gotten enough energy back to viciously manhunt Blofeld, and get back to his old GF era self. :)
  • Posts: 1,630
    Yes, as to Moore's Bond having been married to Tracy. He visited her grave, left flowers, then got in a helicopter remotely controlled by a bald fellow. But Dalton's Bond ? Please forgive my failure of recalling an explicit mention of him having been married. As for Brosnan's Bond getting uncomfortable at the mention of marriage, he might have had commitment issues...seriously, though, it was just so far along for Dalton and Brosnan's Bonds to have been part of the same continuity. Connery (b. 1930), Lazenby (1939) and Moore (1927) were close enough in age to contemporaries, more or less, at least, credibly so, but just those three. Excuse me, but now I've got to go traipsing through my mental cobwebs looking for the explicit reference to Dalton's Bond having been married. Doh ! At any rate -- all that in my discussion was part of the foundation for suggesting we can expect a rather hard reboot with Bond 26. Oh, Moore's Bond and Brosnan's Bond both would have had a groaner of a quip for this new storytelling phrase !
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 13,773
    To me point is that the events of Casino Royale and Vesper are what establish and define the Bond character.

    So it's cooked in for Connery and Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan. There's nothing to separate it from them. Doesn't have to be presented on screen or in dialogue. It's there.

  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Since62 wrote: »
    Yes, as to Moore's Bond having been married to Tracy. He visited her grave, left flowers, then got in a helicopter remotely controlled by a bald fellow. But Dalton's Bond ? Please forgive my failure of recalling an explicit mention of him having been married. As for Brosnan's Bond getting uncomfortable at the mention of marriage, he might have had commitment issues...seriously, though, it was just so far along for Dalton and Brosnan's Bonds to have been part of the same continuity. Connery (b. 1930), Lazenby (1939) and Moore (1927) were close enough in age to contemporaries, more or less, at least, credibly so, but just those three. Excuse me, but now I've got to go traipsing through my mental cobwebs looking for the explicit reference to Dalton's Bond having been married. Doh ! At any rate -- all that in my discussion was part of the foundation for suggesting we can expect a rather hard reboot with Bond 26. Oh, Moore's Bond and Brosnan's Bond both would have had a groaner of a quip for this new storytelling phrase !

    Felix to Della: "He was married once. A long time ago."
  • To me point is that the events of Casino Royale and Vesper are what establish and define the Bond character.

    So it's cooked in for Connery and Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan. There's nothing to separate it from them. Doesn't have to be presented on screen or in dialogue. It's there.

    I like that idea, it I also like the idea of the Craig era being its own separate entity. I’d love for the next Bond film to be the final reboot this series undergoes for awhile.
  • MaxCasinoMaxCasino United States
    Posts: 4,615
    To me point is that the events of Casino Royale and Vesper are what establish and define the Bond character.

    So it's cooked in for Connery and Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan. There's nothing to separate it from them. Doesn't have to be presented on screen or in dialogue. It's there.

    I like that idea, it I also like the idea of the Craig era being its own separate entity. I’d love for the next Bond film to be the final reboot this series undergoes for awhile.

    That’s why I think Forever and a Day is a great blueprint. It can give an origin story, while being a one off, which is why it can work for both the fans and creative side of things. I know a lot of people don’t like continuation novels but FAAD makes a great starting point for the next movie.
  • MaxCasino wrote: »
    That’s why I think Forever and a Day is a great blueprint. It can give an origin story, while being a one off, which is why it can work for both the fans and creative side of things. I know a lot of people don’t like continuation novels but FAAD makes a great starting point for the next movie.

    While I don't think there is a need to go back to Bond's first mission for the next era, I'm not strongly opposed to such a prospect either, and, in that case, taking clues from Forever and a Day would seem natural. However, a straightforward adaptation wouldn't be as interesting as a reuse of the novel's premise (for his first mission, Bond is tasked to investigate the murder of the previous 007 and meets an untrustworthy femme fatale who is going to be sort of a mentor to him), while changing most of the story, from the supporting cast of characters and the threat to the locations.

    Rather than the French Riviera that has already been visited many times by the series, such premise could take place elsewhere, in parts of the world where Bond has never been to the screen before. After Craig, I really hope Bond will visit new locations (Central Africa, United Arab Emirates, Nepal) or will return to places that have not been seen for a very long time in the series (India, Egypt, Japan, Brazil).
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    At the danger of dragging the wonderful "Whe could/should be a Bond actor" thread into this. To me, it is highly dependent on who the new guy is. Someoneon the younger end of the spectrum like Nicholas Hoult would kind of demand his run being positioned as the start of something new. First mission, learning the ropes, gaining the accoutrements of the Bond persona (not in a codename theory way, in a Casino Royale way). If they go with a more seasoned presence like f.e. Rupert Friend, they should, in my opinion, do more of the soft reboot à la Dalton and Brosnan, where the connection to previous incarnations is only grazed, but generally he is a professional in the middle of his career and there is some stuff that has happened in his life that may or may not involve women called Tracy, Vesper or Madeleine and men called Sanchez, No or Oberhauser.

    There is this idea going around that audiences today want everything explained to them and tied together in neat little bows, Marvel-style. I wonder whether that is really true for a general audience that would come out for a good Bond film and whether that is more of a narrative put forth by all the bloggers and vloggers who earn their advertising money by writing and narrating explainer articles and videos about all of the connections between films and foreshadowing and comics lore and easter eggs and whatnot.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited May 2021 Posts: 16,359
    Since62 wrote: »
    Yes, as to Moore's Bond having been married to Tracy. He visited her grave, left flowers, then got in a helicopter remotely controlled by a bald fellow. But Dalton's Bond ? Please forgive my failure of recalling an explicit mention of him having been married. As for Brosnan's Bond getting uncomfortable at the mention of marriage, he might have had commitment issues...

    I remember what it is now: Electra asks Bond if he 'has ever lost a loved one'. There's a pause, he looks a little uncomfortable and shifts his weight, and then changes the subject. I think it's fairly clear we're supposed to associate that with Tracy and that he's sensitive on the subject (a bit like the mention of his marriage in TSWLM).
    It could relate to losing his parents, but I don't think filmgoers were aware of his being orphaned at that point...? Was it first mentioned in CR?
  • edited May 2021 Posts: 910
    mtm wrote: »
    It could relate to losing his parents, but I don't think filmgoers were aware of his being orphaned at that point...? Was it first mentioned in CR?

    It was first mentioned in Goldeneye in the Soviet cemetery. Regarding Tracy, while I agree with you, I suppose that, for audience that would have only seen Brosnan's previous films, it could be a reference to Paris Carver.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited May 2021 Posts: 16,359
    mtm wrote: »
    It could relate to losing his parents, but I don't think filmgoers were aware of his being orphaned at that point...? Was it first mentioned in CR?

    It was first mentioned in Goldeneye in the Soviet cemetery. Regarding Tracy, while I agree with you, I suppose that, for audience that would have only seen Brosnan's previous films, it could be a reference to Paris Carver.

    Yes, good points both, that works.

    In terms of continuity I do see Brosnan as more or less in the same continuity as Dalton: the opening of GoldenEye is actually set the year before The Living Daylights, and Bond is being evaluated by the new M (he knew her 'predecessor': possibly even Bernard Lee's M judging by the portrait on the wall), perhaps because she read in his file that he went rogue in Isthmus?
    And as Dalton was married, it kind of follows that Brosnan was too. His Bond even knows the Bond family motto, which he was only told about by Sir Hillary Bray! :)
  • Posts: 4,611
    DC's Bond has an enormous amount of emotional baggage. Surely, script writers will be so relieved to leave all this in the past and have a clean slate? I would love to see a new Bond with no tears, no regrets, no questionable familiy connections, etc etc.
    Casting a new Bond is obviously challenging but there are clear positives.

    PS In terms of future tone, one issue re going for a lighter tone is that it will bring Bond closer to MI. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? The darker tone of the DC era has created "clear water" between Bond and MI IMHO
  • patb wrote: »
    DC's Bond has an enormous amount of emotional baggage. Surely, script writers will be so relieved to leave all this in the past and have a clean slate? I would love to see a new Bond with no tears, no regrets, no questionable familiy connections, etc etc.

    Personally, I hope that the next era will be synonymous with a clean slate. No mention of Vesper, Madeleine. Everything will depend on the age that will be given to the future iteration, on his experience but, if the idea is that this Bond has already been an agent for a few years, it might be smart, nevertheless, to suggest or even to openly say he had a tragic love affair in the past, and that this experience structured his behavior and shaped his psyche. The audience would then have the choice of interpreting this reference (is it Vesper? a similar character?) and the door would remain open. This leads me to say that I wish the next Bond will still express regrets or will have tears when the plot calls for his humanity. I however agree about the family connections.
  • Jordo007Jordo007 Merseyside
    Posts: 2,641
    @patb that's a great point mate, I think they need to stay a darker tone. Maybe with less emotional storylines for Bond. Even Mission Impossible has got progressively darker, I mean Hunt never really killed many people in the early films, compared to now. The tone of the MI films is perfect now in my opinion

    I just hope that when Bond 26 gets around the writers/producers feel less need to hark back to the past films. Spectre was almost as bad as Die Another Day for spot the reference. One or two small subtle references are the way to go, like Bond going undercover as an Ornithologist in DAD, that was perfect and would have been enough for me.
    I think with NTTD, it looks like they've nailed it with references being subtle
  • Posts: 4,611
    I want a Bond clearly fixed in the present rather than the past. This applies to both references to emotional "roller coasters" and yet more DB5's etc. There should be (and are) talented writers out there who can produce a cracking script without any historical references. If a great Bond script can't be written (and a movie created) without references to the past, then what does that say about the state of the franchise?
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,359
    I'm not sure him owning an old car is exactly a massive failure of scriptwriting! :)
  • Posts: 4,611
    I think it maybe. One of the reasons I think fans like TSWLM was that it had the courage to look forward rather than back. That Esprit is iconic for example but icons have to appear for a first time to become iconic. Imagine TSWLM with a DB5? If Bond the character is to appeal to a contemporary audience and compete with the likes of MI, Marvel etc, he has to move with the times and that includes being a "thoroughly modern Bond" IMHO. People who own and drive old cars do so as they look back. It fitted the theme with SF re age, "back in time" etc but with a new, younger Bond, they have to move forward ...please!
  • Posts: 1,630
    It also could relate to the loss of Paris Carver, no ? At least she was in Brosnan's own film-line, in the previous film, wherein it was made clear Paris and Bond had a pretty deep relationship. When he found her corpse he pick up her (scarf ? dress ? something) and smelled it, close to his face, deeply. He was quite upset. I think the reference to Tracy -- though not named -- in TLD at least was at the point where it was with Dalton, the immediate follow-up to Moore's Bond. When you get to Brosnan any such attempt at continuity is just too distant, even if that was exactly what the producers and writers intended by the line. I guess such ideas were too radical at the time, or not even contemplated, and they likely were concerned with continuing the success of the series, but a hard reboot would have made sense for Dalton's Bond.
  • Posts: 1,630
    Since62 wrote: »
    Yes, as to Moore's Bond having been married to Tracy. He visited her grave, left flowers, then got in a helicopter remotely controlled by a bald fellow. But Dalton's Bond ? Please forgive my failure of recalling an explicit mention of him having been married. As for Brosnan's Bond getting uncomfortable at the mention of marriage, he might have had commitment issues...seriously, though, it was just so far along for Dalton and Brosnan's Bonds to have been part of the same continuity. Connery (b. 1930), Lazenby (1939) and Moore (1927) were close enough in age to contemporaries, more or less, at least, credibly so, but just those three. Excuse me, but now I've got to go traipsing through my mental cobwebs looking for the explicit reference to Dalton's Bond having been married. Doh ! At any rate -- all that in my discussion was part of the foundation for suggesting we can expect a rather hard reboot with Bond 26. Oh, Moore's Bond and Brosnan's Bond both would have had a groaner of a quip for this new storytelling phrase !

    Felix to Della: "He was married once. A long time ago."

    Thanks for the reminder ! They really mixed it up with Dalton's pair of films. New Bond, clearly not of the same generation as the prior three actors, but bringing back the same M -- not just the same actor. New Bond, but a mature one, who already was musing about leaving the job (in TLD). They lined him up with a new Felix actor -- a vastly underwritten Felix, and the actor looked like "Mr. 80s" -- and had the better idea but not until the following film, to bring back David Hedison. That was odd, in and of itself -- were we just supposed to forget the Felix from the prior film ? Oh well, they changed Felixes during Connery's run like it was of no concern at all. They were on quite a roll and it didn't matter. One of the things I like about TB was that the Felix was -- though blonde -- evocative of the DN Felix. Same body type. Connery's other Felixes looked like desk jockeys.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited May 2021 Posts: 16,359
    patb wrote: »
    I think it maybe. One of the reasons I think fans like TSWLM was that it had the courage to look forward rather than back. That Esprit is iconic for example but icons have to appear for a first time to become iconic. Imagine TSWLM with a DB5? If Bond the character is to appeal to a contemporary audience and compete with the likes of MI, Marvel etc, he has to move with the times and that includes being a "thoroughly modern Bond" IMHO. People who own and drive old cars do so as they look back. It fitted the theme with SF re age, "back in time" etc but with a new, younger Bond, they have to move forward ...please!

    That is kind of Bond's thing though: he dresses classically, his home is chintzy, he works in an oak-panelled classical building, he drives an old car (in Fleming too) whereas the villains all wear modernist nehru collar suits and live in Ken Adam-futuristic lairs - Bond has always represented the old and the new is seen as evil.

    I'm not sure that's a great thing (and it's kind of a slightly disturbing message in many ways), but it is true to Bond. I think you're right to say that Moore's Bond was probably the most modern and up-to-date (in regards to his present day) that Bond ever got. I wouldn't necessarily mind them dropping that angle.
  • Posts: 1,630
    Which vehicle would be the new iconic one for Bond ? Aston has some wonderful new cars. We will see Nomi drive one in NTTD and the new new not even out yet one will appear in a background behind M. And the producers have kept financially helpful relationships through the years -- Ford earlier (witness: TB), Chevrolet (LALD, but nothing interesting), AMC (TMWTGG -- awful), Lotus (VERY exciting, in several Moore films starting with TSWLM), then, starting with Dalton, Aston again, and kept in it even when they had a BMW deal during Brosnan's run. At a certain point, Aston could be silly as a Bond vehicle. It's supposed to be Bond driving an MI6 car, and certainly top end, but not a car that's one of only, say, three in the world. I don't see them breaking away from Aston in Bond 26. Motorcycle-wise, though...Lotus built an AMAZING bike, that already could have appeared in terms of it being in production, which might seem old by the time of NTTD, but perhaps could be a personal bike which Bond picked up. Suggest you look up the Lotus C-01. Aston does not make motorcycles, so should not have rights to complain. Lotus, though, makes cars as well as this C-01. Would they agree to have their bike in a film wherein the car is an Aston, or, generally, not a Lotus ? Ummmm, dunno.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited May 2021 Posts: 6,287
    Trevelyan mentions the climbing accident in GE.

    I think it would be weird if the new Bond actor keeps referencing Vesper or Madeleine. They're just so tied to the Craig era, and aside from SF, are constantly brought up in the narrative.

    It's not like Moore/Dalton/arguably Brosnan with a brief mention of Tracy every third film or so...
  • edited May 2021 Posts: 4,611
    The vehicle can be used as a symbol of where Bond is IMHO. The Esprit for Moore was a bold and , with hindsight, correct, statement re "out with the old, in with the new". A light, lean and nimble car for a light, lean and nimble Bond would be my chosen direction (no need for the golf clubs or rear seats). How about an Elise? a genuine drivers car and superb for any car chase, I could imagine a young Bond at a Goodwood track day honing his skills and flirting with the Goodwood hosts. (it's potential scenes like this that could enable Bond to connect with a younger audience) We need to see more of Bond enjoying some free time.(It's a sad reflection of the decline of the UK manufacturing industry that we have such a restricted choice).

    PS there is great potential for banter between Bond and Q if offered an electric car.
  • QsCatQsCat London
    Posts: 253
    Denbigh wrote: »
    I think if they can find someone like Matt Reeves seems to be to the Batman franchise even just for Bond 26, then I think we'll be in for something good. I know I keep mentioning The Batman, but personally from what I've seen it seems to be a great balance of modern audience interest, creative freedom, talent, all while so far seeming (in my opinion) a very faithful portrayal of the Batman source material.

    The Batman might be terrible for all we know..
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