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Anyone wish they had rebooted the series earlier?
Aziz_Fekkesh
Royale-les-Eaux
44 years into a series seems a little late to me to restart a timeline, as wonky as it was. I'm sure an argument can be made that GE was essentially a restart, but there were enough reminders to dispute that (DB5, Monneypenny, Q, etc.). I don't know, it seems like at this point 3 films is comparively few in a new timeline. Or did the new focus on terrorism and "gritty" action films mandate that the series only restart in 2006? I know GE was needed to remind audiences of what Bond was all about, but the timing seems a bit off to me, I don't know.
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Comments
No, they are not set in the past, but very much in the present.
Rule number 1: Don't even try to develop a time fixation for the Bonds. ;-)
Bond both mentioned the Beatles at the height of their career in GF and used the latest cell phone with an antenna the size of pencil in TND. And we're supposed to think this is the same Bond. :-) That's also why Bond isn't driving the old Bentley in QoS or SF (although in SF he actually could have seeing where they took the film. ;-) )
How does reboot equal prequel? The two words mean totally different things.
so dr no and skyfall are probs set in like 3 years of difference or 20 years in the past or now
Eh? You've got me confused now :-/
Getting to the question I don't think you can view LTD or LTK as reboots because in LTK they mention Bond's late wife who we all know was killed in OHMSS. So we are to assume this is the same James Bond. GE I think you could make a stronger case of being a reboot.
None of the above. There is no proper order for these films, no pinpointing in time, nothing of the sort. Look, they gave up time-related concerns well into the 70s. Bond, his clothing, cars, technology and world politics, kept progressing. (Watch TSWLM.) TLD put a full stop to any continuity effort. It was suddenly clear that, much like in the comic book universes of Batman, X-Men, ..., various incarnations of the same subject (e.g. Bond) can exist in a franchise. Anyone who worries about continuity or such has lost the battle from question 1 onwards. Which explains why Judy Dench is the male M's successor in GE and his predecessor in SF.
I think the semantic debate over the term 'reboot' for CR has lost its validity by now, @DB5. Your attempt to set the record straight is a brave one but most of us have given up worrying. To exemplify, I could technically disagree with considering Temple of Doom a prequel to Raiders. Yes, the film takes place before Raiders and we see Indiana Jones, but there's hardly any causal relationship between the events in both films. If anything there's a discrepancy of some sort (where's Shorty in Raiders?). Yet the term 'prequel' seems to provoke a notion of events in one film leading to events in the other. I don't mind people calling Doom a prequel of course, I'm just saying that one could get too technical sometimes and debate things exhaustingly in a vacuum.
;-)
There was no way that Brosnan's Bond fought Dr. No back in '62 so it's obvious that there was never one continual timeline after Moore left...
And BTW, can we please remember IFM..?
I think the timeline is really pretty simple. From 1962 to 2002 we had a floating timeline. A messed up timeline with wierd inconsistencies and Bond magically getting younger at certain points, but still one timeline.
Then CR was a reboot that started a new timeline. Although SF has left us with a timeline very similar to the old one so it doesn't make much difference anymore.
Ever? If you haven't seen it yet then I would. The action scenes are pretty bad and the sex scene with Mayday is just cringe worthy but there are things to enjoy.
Moore is still enjoyable outside of the action scenes, Walken is fantastic, the score and theme song are great and even though the plot really isn't very good at all (imo), the script does have some great lines.
I can tell you are a rookie. We have had threads close in literally under two minutes time.
Plus a speculation that Bond never had kids because he got "his balls whipped", thown in for good measure.
God, I love this site. :-)
But to the (original) question. I think the series should reboot - and by that I mean a complete 'start over' with Bond's first mission as a "00" - every time a new actor is brought on.
It would give the actor playing Bond more freedom to create his own version of the character, unfetted by the past. It would also allow the producers to change tone (i.e. gritty, funny, techy, etc) more freely with each new Bond. And it would change the fan emphasis from "how is the new guy going to carry the baton from the old guys?" to "what exciting direction are they going to take the series in next?".
Why would a thread "close" unless it was off topic or using unacceptable language (e.g. obscenities)? What's wrong with this topic, why would it close?
The original myths were tales of heroes, told over and over again by anyone who had heard of, and was fascinated by, these characters. Inconsistencies and contradictions developed organically, as the tellers of the tales came and went. Over time, the "definitive" versions of these tales became the ones that most resonated with the audience. The end result was the product of many voices over hundreds of years.
I see Bond in much the same way. He looks like Connery, he looks like Craig or Dalton, Moore or Brosnan. His M is Judi Dench; his M is Bernard Lee. His first adventure was chronicled as "Casino Royale," his second as "Quantum of Solace"...and then some time went by. LOTS of time. Craig DID look substantially older in "Skyfall" than he had previously, now didn't he? "You've been at this long enough to know how the game is played." Long enough for "Doctor No" and "Goldfinger" and many, many other adventures to have occurred in the interim between QoS and SF. Long enough for him to have an Aston Martin with machine guns installed, sitting in storage waiting for one more use. Long enough for him to have married Traci, buried her, and avenged her. Perhaps there was a Moneypenny in those earlier adventures -- or hey, maybe her name was Smallbone. Maybe the order in which they occurred was juggled a little in the film release schedule, so there never was a Quarrel, Jr., but only one Quarrel; maybe "You Only Live Twice" actually DID occur after "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," so the question of "Why didn't Blofeld recognize Bond if they'd already met in the previous film?" is totally moot. It's all a story we're telling to one another, after all; we can pick and choose the bits that we like, we can discard the parts we don't like. In my own personal Bond continuity, James Bond never told a tiger to "Sit!" or ran across the backs of a half-dozen conveniently lined up crocodiles. Maybe you want to excise the double-taking pigeon or leave J.W. Pepper out of Asia altogether. Hey, feel free! It's all a fiction anyway.
All I know for certain is: in James Bond's most recent adventure, he buried one M and has accepted her replacement "with pleasure." James Bond will return, now and decades from now. I wouldn't have it any other way.
I wondered why he didnt recognise him.
I am not sure it would have worked before although fyeo is abit of a reboot.
My theory: Bond in YOLT was still disguised as a Japanese (I know he was not, but it can be retconned). Something similar happens in the novel: Blofeld is not certain the man they caught is Bond, so he tests him. So in OHMSS, Bond meets Blofeld under a different disguise, the one of Hillary Bray. A fairly long time passed and the two personas, Japanese fisherman and Scottish academic, are very different. Blofeld has been through plastic surgery, so that is easier to explain.
I agree. There was simply nowhere to go on after DAD.
I should have said unless they had completely ignored DAD as if it never happened, then maybe, maybe they could have carried on with another movie in the same continuity.
Why would Short Round have to be in Raiders to make Temple a prequel? That makes no sense to me. You think he follows Indy around everywhere? No, he is just a sidekick in that film and yes, it is a prequel. Temple takes place in 1935, Raiders in 1936. They spell that out in the opening scene of each movie.
There is absolutely no question whatsoever Temple of Doom is a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. None.
I also feel this way. The only difference was that there was no actor change after MR. Bond needed to be grounded again and like MR a too OTT film like DAD had caused that to happen. SF was considerably lighter in overall tone than QOS but like in 1979 there was no need to also change the actor. I would be remiss in stating that in no way am I intending to compare QOS or SF to the above mentioned turkeys [-X
I don't see why they would change the year of Tracy's death for LTK. Dalton was actually considered for the role of Bond for OHMSS in 1969. And only eight years earlier the producers had reminded everyone of the year of Tracy's death in FYEO when Bond visits her tombstone.
I heartily agree Major. After AVTAK, Daltons take on Bond was the polar opposite of Moores. There was no need to reboot the series (though I believe it was an idea that MGW does mention in the making of TLD doco) , they just tailored the story and the script to fit the style that Daltons Bond would portray.
Quite happy to have Craig as Bond, but there was never a need to reboot. Not sure what it's achieved?