It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
I see your point. One can only accept it by the lack of continuity that the franchise always had. For me who grew up in the 80s and 90s with Sean, George, Roger, Timothy and finally Pierce it was hard to ignore (and maybe also to accept at first) that the franchise was rebooted in a very strict way in 2006 with Casino Royale where Bond actually became 007. So I wondered how can that be the same universe where Bond becomes 007 44 years after already being an experienced 007 agent in Dr No? This questions the rules of time and space and if one accepts that the producers never had much sense for continuity and the films work much better as standalone entries, Bond can also be alive after being dead. But I totally understand that this is quite an issue for many Bond fans.
But then again, I've already settled with that conceit of the franchise rebooting in 2006 and moved on.
And since it's about to reboot again, I'm fully ready and not at all baffled by it because I already processed it once 15 years ago. I can do that again. Actually, no processing needed anymore.
I don't think continuity of the story and timeline were as much a factor as the character was. Being a comic book fan of Batman for my entire life I always looked at the Bond films as just the "next adventure" or chapter of the character. I thought it was genius that the films in the beginning were basically stand-alone with no sequels. It gave the producers the freedom to change actors when the current one was no longer an option or no longer fit the author's vision of what the character looked like. Today's generation's obsession with sequels, prequels, and trilogies has basically ended that.
Exactly. The entire franchise rebooted in 2006. The key is Tracy.
DN-DAD Tracy. The Bond, and Dench M, and Felix, in this timeline are all still alive.
CR-NTTD No Tracy. RIP James Bond, and M, and Felix, and Blofeld.
It makes no sense to try to tie the end of SF to DN, no matter how much some want to do it.
I'm not sure if I see an immediate reboot before we see an attempt at a full change of the character which I could imagine would be a franchise disaster given the mostly niche fandom. What I can imagine is a continuation with possibly a film or two with some alternate 007, possibly the one introduced in NTTD followed by several years of quiet nothingness (like the time before Brosnan came on board) before finally returning Bond to his original literary character whether that is through remakes of the original movies or new ones entirely.
Nomi isn't coming back. She's a one-off character.
Barbara Broccoli already confirmed that they're going to cast a new actor for Bond this year.
I did not keep pace with all of the media hype in the beginning but if I had to guess the studio probably caught a lot of blowback when fans initially though Bond was being replaced permanently with a woman...nothing against women of course, just that I'm sure the fans of the literary character were not happy with the possibility...personally I'd love to see another long term actor play the part which is ridiculously hard in modern film making. I am surprised Craig lasted this long, he's played Bond for about 15 years now...I think Tom Ellis from Lucifer would make a great choice in my opinion.
Remember the rumours during the filming of SF that the last scene was basically going to be Craig and Fiennes re-enacting the first Connery-Lee scene from Dr. No? I think the rumour flared up when EON tweeted a photo of Mallory's office - the classic design and the padded door were all it took to set off the speculation! I didn't realise that some people are still trying to make the link, though! :-O
I'm well aware that you can't tie them all up with any seriousness. My point is, if they had left it with a Skyfall ending, you could still go along with the ruse that EON have been making films about the same James Bond. Now we have this odd situation of him being dead, but not dead. He's gone, but he'll be back.
I was watching the trailer to the new Peaky Blinders TV show this afternoon. It's the last series coming up, and I wondered if they'd kill off the main character at the end, (Tommy Shelby). Then I read they're making a movie after this last TV series. Which made me think he'd live on in the TV show.
But using EON's logic, they could indeed kill him off in the TV show. Then still make the movie and cast another actor in his role and call it an 'alternate timeline'. But they wouldn't do that, would they? Because that would be a bit silly.
I can see that people wanting to tie a 2021 Bond to the 1962 Bond are on a hiding to nothing. It's impossible to argue that it's the same person in reality. But the part of fun of the Bond series was always the daft notion that it was the same person in all the films. Now it's not, and that takes away some of the fun for some of us.
Yes that makes no sense since all Bond films have always reflected the time they were made. Skyfall is a 21st century Bond film that takes place in the 21st century. So even if transferring a film's plot back in time is possible, it certainly has not been made so far in the franchise. But who knows maybe we see a film wehere Bond is a kid or is a young adult who is hired by mi6 and the producers therefore decide to go back in time to link zhis film to either Casino Royale or Dr. No.
Didn't they always end the older films with the phrase James Bond will be back...? I still hold that it is the same character just a different adventure like Batman...if we held that logic then the Batman comics should have ended roughly around 1950-ish because let's be honest who could hold up to that kind of punishment for 10 years let alone 80 years...it was always about "the next adventure/episode".
Even with CR you couldn’t.
Except the times they rebooted the comics.
I think the point is you will find very few continuing stories that go from comic to comic, while there are some, most are stand alone stories.
Up to the eighties they used to say 'James Bond Will Return in . . . ' and even mention the next film's title.
One of my problems with the idea of alternate timelines for Bond, is 'timelines' are a sci-fi and comic book idea that's now been passed on to a real-world character (James Bond). Now, by looking at the 'favorite TV program' thread, and seeing the other threads on here, I can see how many people here are fans of sci-fi and Marvel movies, much more than I am. And I think that goes some way into explaining their acceptance of this Bond timeline idea.
To try and explain it simply - having Bond not age for sixty years with six different faces is daft. Yes, of course it is. Killing him off and saying he'll return is also daft, but it also feels dishonest, in a way that his magic age and changing appearance never did.
When it comes to real-world dramatic films and novels, when the storyteller tells you everything's possible, then nothing matters.
Agreed. The Craig era more than any previous era took stylistic and narrative inspiration from other franchises, to such an extent that QOS and SF were basically Bond copying Bourne and Batman, respectively. SP and NTTD have clearly taken cues from the M:I and Marvel movies, possibly even Star Wars given that they have broken down the lead hero and killed him off in a self-sacrifice. There are shades of Tony Stark there as well with the daughter.
I don't dislike Craig personally, he comes off as a nice guy, but I really dislike the way he and the producers handled these movies. The last couple Bonds especially come off as a corruption of the character on a more profound level than any previous missteps like DAF, Moonraker, or DAD.
Prior to 2006, Bond was simply a character who was always there. Continuity wasn't an issue either way. I didn't find it daft. By developing the Craig era as its own separate continuity and killing off his Bond, there are now effectively two Bond series, and to me that's really annoying, especially seeing as how the strict continuity didn't help the Craig era in any way. If anything, it undermined it. There's a reason why the two most beloved Craig entries, CR and SF, work as standalone movies whereas the two most disliked entries, QOS and SP, were direct sequels.
Oh well. Now we have to deal with our own personal head canons when it comes to Bond, and that sucks.
“WHAT?!?! BUT THEY FIRST MET IN DR. NO!!!”
Agreed 100%
There's a honky on your tail.
I always saw the Craig era as a remake, as in, it's another interpretation of James Bond just as Nolan's Batman was a different take on that character from Tim Burton's.
However, that doesn't mean there are no lines that shouldn't be crossed. Killing off a human character and then bringing him back is inherently dumb, like Colonel Adamski has said. It's the reason why they don't kill off Batman regardless of continuity. Villains like the Joker and Two-Face, yes, but that's very different from bumping off the hero.
If this isn't an issue for you, fine, but to me the Craig movies (which I liked at the start) come off as a pointless exercise in "what if." We now have an alternate Bond that didn't marry Tracy, wasn't a naval intelligence officer, shared a childhood with Blofeld, and gets blown up by the British navy. I accepted the first three, but the fourth was a line that shouldn't have been crossed.
I agree again, 1000%. killing off the main character was nonsense. It was the same argument when they killed Han Solo in The Force Awakens...in my opinion you just don't kill off legendary characters, I don't care if the actor doesn't want to play the character anymore, you just have them race off into the sunset never to be heard from again. Now if they try to keep continuity all they can really do is do prequel stories and never come back to this timeline or just keep doubling down and selling the public on an "alternate timeline". The Batman reference doesn't quite nail it though, Nolan just did different stories with the character just like Burton, they weren't playing off of each other.
They'll leave both Vesper and Tracy well enough alone.
It's my hope too that they bring back SPECTRE and Blofeld, again with new actors of course. They likely won't do that right away though.
Why shouldn’t they be allowed to have deaths? Is it just because they’re “legendary”? Because they’re from your childhood? Why be so precious about things?
There are also no stakes if they just keep rebooting characters after killing them.
If they killed Bond off in EVERY film from here on out, sure.