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Your Bond Movie "Head Canon"
We've had a couple wonderful threads about dreaming up the ideal sequence/timeline of the Bond films, with many of us wishing we could've had more or less from a certain actor, and so on. In those threads, we got to basically play God, reinventing, removing, adding, swapping, editing films as we pleased. For example, I was able to rearrange the filming order and completely gut and revise the plot of YOLT in order to give Connery a proper "Blofeld trilogy" that we never got.
This thread is slightly different. No more playing God. I'm interested if any Bond fans have, like me, rearranged certain titles in their heads as to "when" they take place in the overall timeline of 007. Do you have separate timelines for each actor? Do you see the Craig films as a reboot? The Bond films mess with continuity (or disregard it completely) so often that it certainly doesn't matter as a fun experiment. For example, I have always sort of viewed DAF as a sequel to YOLT.
I hope this is all making sense. In other words, chronologically, disregarding the obvious technological advances, where do you see the Bond film chronology with regard to Bond as a character? I, for one, have always sort of slotted CR and QOS before a bunch of the films that came before, which helps to justify SF's "old dog" themes. Etc etc.
Don't be afraid to be stupid here, I'm really curious to see what people come up with. You can only use films that actually already exist, but you can create your head canon however you like (and omit films as well). I'll add my list to the fray once I'm done with some work.
This thread is slightly different. No more playing God. I'm interested if any Bond fans have, like me, rearranged certain titles in their heads as to "when" they take place in the overall timeline of 007. Do you have separate timelines for each actor? Do you see the Craig films as a reboot? The Bond films mess with continuity (or disregard it completely) so often that it certainly doesn't matter as a fun experiment. For example, I have always sort of viewed DAF as a sequel to YOLT.
I hope this is all making sense. In other words, chronologically, disregarding the obvious technological advances, where do you see the Bond film chronology with regard to Bond as a character? I, for one, have always sort of slotted CR and QOS before a bunch of the films that came before, which helps to justify SF's "old dog" themes. Etc etc.
Don't be afraid to be stupid here, I'm really curious to see what people come up with. You can only use films that actually already exist, but you can create your head canon however you like (and omit films as well). I'll add my list to the fray once I'm done with some work.
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Comments
Bloodstone
Goldeneye
Goldfinger
Moonraker
Licence to Kill
and
Die another day
Which would explain the old dog view point
Timeline 1: Dr No - Die Another Day
Timeline 2: Casino Royale - No Time to Die
The whole jump from QoS to SF and Bond being a bit worn in never bothered me, canonically there is 6 years between the two, plenty of time for Bond to do other (unseen) missions.
I'll post mine here shortly.
Here's my timeline. Laugh at will:
Casino Royale
** Quantum of Solace (epilogue, optional) **
Those come first
Then the rest are fairly in order, but you can make a few tweaks. I think DAF works best when seen as a sequel to YOLT, and OHMSS gets slotted further on, somewhere before FYEO.
OP, AVTAK, and DAD have a feel of an elder and veteran Bond (as does FYEO) so I'd throw those toward the end of the timeline pre-Skyfall.
Spectre throws a wrench in everything since it works better actually *before* Skyfall (showing a Bond in peak form), but it's so mired in cruddy continuity issues that it only really works after.
YOLT into DAF definitely works better than OHMSS into DAF, in terms of DAF being an enjoyable watch.
Additionally, to me the Casino Royale story from Fleming establishes the Bond character and easily applies to ALL the Bond actors. Even if they didn't get to act out the events in their own film.
Some interesting ideas I've heard suggested.
SPECTRE revenge trilogy. 3 Bond actors.
Live and Let Die plus.
The Felix Leiter double bill with David Hedison. Combines more content from the Fleming novel and then some.
Connery Bond in Japan, mentioned earlier.
Even with the great Charles Gray on board for both as different characters, I like the idea to re-order Connery's last two with EON.
CR
QoS
GF
DN
YOLT
DAF
FRWL
TB
OHMSS
FYEO (A direct follow-up to OHMSS)
LALD
GE PTS
TLD
LTK (This way it's a sequel to LALD whilst the mention of Tracy at the start isn't too long after OHMSS)
Remainder of GE
TMWTGG
TSWLM (A more mature Bond, further away from Tracy's death)
MR
OP
AVTAK
TND
TWINE
DAD
SF
SP
NTTD
Something like that anyway :)
In my head canon the main sequence runs DN to OHMSS and then jumps to TSWLM which is where Bond next mentions his marriage to Tracy.
That means that DAF-LALD-TMWTGG form a separate trilogy of films, a different timeline that has no bearing on the main sequence. It helps that those three are all very similar in tone and style.
After TSWLM it splits again. There’s a ‘serious’ timeline which is only FYEO (Tracy again) and a ‘less serious’ timeline which is the other Moores.
Personally I’ve always regarded Dalton, Brosnan and Craig as all being reboots.
So there’s a single character from DN to AVTAK, then TLD, GE and CR all reboot things.
Easy to rip holes in the sequencing but it’s how I have imagined things for a few years now.
Pre-Blofeld missions
FAAD (prequel to CR)
CR
QOS
BS
DN
* (six month gap between DN and FRWL)
FRWL
GF
TM (sequel to GF)
TB
SF
Blofeld era
SP (Bond is already aware of SPECTRE prior to this mission, but doesn't know of Blofeld)
NTTD
YOLT (the Blofeld from SP/NTTD turns out to be a decoy - Bond meets the real Blofeld here)
Solstice (Christmas-time story that leads into OHMSS)
OHMSS
DAF
FYEO
Post-Blofeld missions
LALD
TMWTGG
TSWLM
Solo (Bond's mission in Africa leads into MR's PTS)
MR
GE's PTS (set just before TLD)
TLD
LTK
JBjr (007's DB5 from the first episode returns in GE, but without the ability to fly!)
GE (film proper, including some GE64 extras)
TND
JB007 Gameboy (minus Oddjob and Jaws)
TWINE
AUF
NF
DAD
EON
OP
AVTAK
NSNA (final mission; no Blofeld here, since he was killed in FYEO)
Thanks everyone for their responses, these are very interesting.
@Quantum_of_Tomorrow Very interesting. I like how you organize things around how they "play" with OHMSS
That's interesting @QBranch, I love how you included Forever and a Day (which I'm going to listen to soon) and Solo (which I recently listened to)!
In a sense, the whole franchise revolves around OHMSS, had Tracy survived, Bond would simply have retired therefore it's interesting to see how everything leads into/is a sequel to/completely ignores OHMSS when thinking about head canon.
yes, a Fleming timeline wouldn't be too bad, but with the continuation novels as well, it's very difficult
Yes, I think with regard to SP it would be a while after the first three Craigs but not at polar opposite ends of the timeline.
Alternate universe(1954): CR'54
Official EON timeline(1962-2002):
DN-YOLT
DAF-TMWTGG
OHMSS
FYEO
TSWLM-MR
OP-AVTAK
The PTS of GE
TLD-LTK
The remainder of GE
TND-DAD
Alternate universe(1967): CR'67
Alternate universe(1983): NSNA
Official EON timeline(2006 forwards):
CR'06-SP
Basically traditional with some variety for the DN-DAD time period.
I've also seen Dalton, Lazenby and Craig essentially playing the same Bond at different phases in his career:
Craig at the beginning(CR'06)
Lazenby in the middle(OHMSS)
Dalton at the end(TLD-LTK)
Interesting how you put the Guy Hamilton films before OHMSS, and I like how you put the less serious Moores next to each other (MR, OP, AVTAK) and having FYEO as a follow up to OHMSS. It works putting the GE PTS pre-Dalton as well, just like it should be with it being 9 years earlier than the rest of the events of GE.
I thought I was the only one nice to know there are a few of us that include the games
When I play Blood Stone and Joss is talking about some big bad I presume it the reformed Quantum now calling itself Spectre
Oh in my head cannon I use the scripted but never filmed idea that because MI6 found out their name was Quantum they changed it to Spectre because and I have heard this multiple times if you were going to have a secret society then no one except the members should even know the name
I like that, that's good. I'm due a marathon timed to finish before NTTD is released and I might just watch them in that order. 👍
The only tweak I'd possibly make is put the YOLT/DAF after DN and before FRWL , " revenge for the killing of DR NO" doesn't have to be immediately after for it to still work). Also Blofeld is not introducing himself to Bond for the first time after having already killed Tracy. Bond's line to M about Blofeld being something of a must with him in OHMSS works better having had 2 films with Blofeld. Thinking about it M's reply of having had enough time also works better. Also, and this is really stretching things, Bond's need for a cunning disguise as Hilary Bray narratively works as well. (Of course it does depend on Blofeld being the stupidest person in the world but I'll ignore that)
I'd also pop GE straight after LTK just to make the "6 years later" timeline work as intended.