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By definition it's not going to be a different character.
I'll amend my statement.
The next film will feature a new James Bond, who is the SAME character that Daniel Craig played, but because Craig's Bond is dead, then the next film will take place in an alternative universe. It's like the character died, but there's another James Bond, who is the same character, living in another universe.
But there aren't two cinematic James Bonds, okay? There's only one, and he can move between different 'incarnations' (as in 'universes'). He's a bit more like Dr Who now.
So, the next movie will feature the character called James Bond, who is the same person Daniel Craig played, but he's allowed to be alive again because he's in a different timeline, and a different incarnation of the same person. But still the same character.
As has happened for every previous film? (Maybe excepting QOS.)
In any case, James Bond Will Return.
I didn't realise it at the time, but the people who were on here who were most accepting of the 'different Bondverse' thing, were people who watched a lot of batman and superhero stuff. And when I looked at the Dr Who thread for the first time a while ago, I had a bit of a 'eureka' moment. Quite a few people who were happy to point out my lack of understanding of the 'timeline/alternative universe' situation are Dr Who fans. The time-travelling regeneration bloke. Who'se a woman now, I think.
See, I've never understood why Bond movie fans on here were so accepting of the ending of NTTD, yet elsewhere (on fb) people were mostly up in arms about it. I think people here are much more into movies than most people, and they're much more in tune with these current trends of 'reboots' and 'timelines'. Me, I don't watch TV, I rarely watch movies and certainly don't watch movies with super-heroes in. I used to read the comics when I was a kid, but I've no interest these days.
So when I come on here and keep seeing Batman mentioned in the same breath as Bond, it's always a bit annoying. I can definitely see comparisons with modern movies like Bourne and Mission Impossible. But Batman?
But some people would see the cinematic James Bond as a super-hero like Batman, or a sci-fi hero like Captain Kirk. And if they approached the films that way, (rather than as action-dramas based on a literary character), then they'd be more accepting of the Bondverse idea.
I still say EON fundamentally damaged the series by killing him off, and adapting sci-fi rules to a real-world film series. And I know the idea of Bond being the same person as in 1962 is ludicrous, but as I say, Brosnan sniffed the shoe. It was always fun to think it was the same character being portrayed through the years, for me that was part of the magic of a James Bond film, which has gone now. And the way forward is, the next Bond will be the same character, but a different James Bond. Or should that be the same James Bond, but in a different world?
I don't know.
To me, seeing Bond on the same level as a hero like Batman is more the kind of thing a non-movie person would say to be honest! They're all just movies, why wouldn't they all play by similar rules? If not Batman then Robin Hood, King Arthur, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes etc. - all iconic British heroes which arguably Bond has joined the ranks of, and they've had many different versions and even died in movies before, only for another, revivified version to pop up a year or two later (I think Holmes has died anyway? He's certainly got very old and retired etc.).
I think most people on the street would be absolutely fine with Christopher Lee's Dracula being destroyed and yet Gary Oldman's Dracula appearing many years later. Anyone who then goes on about arbitrary rules like 'but they were made by the same producers' or 'they had the same theme tune' is rather outing themselves as being more into movies! :)
Dr Who is actually not a great comparison because -apart from two Peter Cushing movies in the 60s- on TV it's actually always kept inside the same continuity and, unlike Bond, the Doctor has always been the exact same person who can remember everything that we've see happen to them, right from 1963.
Besides, even before Craig retired, I knew Bond was going to he rebooted again. I’m not bothered by this.
The only change of actor which decidedly put an end to most of this was when Craig came on. It was a reboot in clear view to everyone, and an entirely new timeline (no longer "floating" as before), and it thankfully also put a full stop to it at the end to clarify that the next James Bond would be yet another new approach to the same character. It was as if Scrooge McDuck had been reborn as a 21st century capitalist who had got rich on oil or uranium in the 1960s or '70s, instead of still reminiscing about his exploits in Alaskan gold fields before 1900 and safeguarding the first penny he earned, along with thousands of tons of cash (remember cash?) in his money bin. And the Beagle Boys would be computer hackers now.
But I'm sure if someone has problems with just accepting those different Bond vitae and timelines as they are, they'd find a whole lot of more stuff that gives them reason to disbelieve in the movies. And worrying about it takes away most of the enjoyment.
To be fair, Roger was born in the 20s! :)
Totally agree about the Commander thing: really in anything other than an immediate post-war situation as the novels were written in I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense.
I agree. The clever ones are the people who can just shrug it off and say "they're only movies". And I was never bothered when Dalton took over and suddenly Bond was twenty five (or whatever) years younger than he was the two years before. I don't know why that was allowed, in my mind, in a way the death of Bond isn't allowed.
I think it's because killing a character off is a bit too much of an obvious thing for me to go along with. I was okay to imagine garter-grabbing Dalton was thinking about Tracy, and even shoe-sniffing Brosnan was thinking about Kleb.
As I've said before, if anything's possible, nothing matters. And killing off a character only to make the next movie in a 'different universe' where he's alive again seems dishonest, in a way that getting a younger actor to play the same part isn't.
'Alternate universe' Bond happened a long time ago. See: James Bond Junior circa 1967. Or better still, when cinematic Bond made its debut and turned out different from the Fleming novels.
Bond died long before the Craig era. See: Every single time I've played GoldenEye 64 level 'Cradle'. 😅
Bond has already returned since his death in NTTD. See: On His Majesty's Secret Service; Cypher; comics.
I get where you're coming from, but to me something like Robin and Marian starring Connery and Audrey Hepburn works very well as an ending to Robin Hood's story, and I don't find it undermined by subsequent Robin Hood films at all.
I don't get the idea that 'nothing matters', because in NTTD it mattered very much, and I can't worry about another film to the one I'm watching- NTTD was the only film that mattered whilst I was watching it. Any later movies are different movies, and they'll have the same stakes they ever did. Let's face it, if we're talking about 'different universes', both Connery's and Moore's Bonds are dead in their respective 'universes' now too, and that should never stop a new Bond coming along.
I’d like to think that the smoking and drinking caught up to them in the end in their respective ‘universes’
You’ve said it yourself, “they’re only movies”.
Yes, that's been said to me lots of times on here when I've moaned about NTTD.
Funnily enough it's always said by people who have a lot more post counts than me, which sometimes makes me think these movies might not be as irreverent to these people as they'd like to think.
Some people like to talk a lot about these movies they see as so artistically disposable, don't they?
I'm also not sure that thinking that they work in a certain way is to say that they're artistically disposable either- that's two different things.
"They're only movies" isn't an argument when you've been here ten years with ten thousand posts under your belt, or whatever.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think there’s something quite cool about a character like James Bond being able to simultaneously adapt while still keeping those fundamental traits which make him the same character. It was the case when Craig took the role. This was clearly a different Bond story - logically it wasn’t a prequel to the Connery films (far too modern for that) but it was still a James Bond adventure. You can’t really grasp the film (presuming you’d watched the previous Bond films) without accepting it’s ’different’ in that way. Still, the character himself was still recognisably a version of the cinematic Bond I’d come to know despite the change in actor and style. I suspect it’s the same when older fans first saw a new actor take the role in a new film. It’s not so much a case of ‘don’t think about it’ as much as it is a case of hopefully going along with the film you’re watching on a basic emotional level (ie. Being able to engage with it if you can).
I don’t think we’re in Marvel or comic book territory with ‘alternate universes’. It’s just an extension of what Bond has always done. We’ve already had so many different books, films, comics, video games (all of which require you on some form to accept those ‘differences’ even if it’s the same character). NTTD hasn’t even harmed the series. I think ordinary viewers are expecting and will happily watch a future Bond film, and the character at his core will be the same.
No-one is saying to toss it all off; they’re just saying that they appreciate films in a different way. You can talk at length about something and still understand how it works- you’re seeing a contradiction there where I really don’t think there is one. Films are an entertainment, a diversion, and talking about them is too. Talking about something you like doesn’t mean that thing has to be treated with a sacrosanct devoutness- there are plenty of conversations poking fun at the films and games around here as well as debates about the content.
Yes, I am curious where this idea that Marvel have invented the concept of film continuity (or non continuity) when alternate adaptations of the same characters have been around since the start of cinema. Is Mickey Mouse in Fantasia supposed to literally be the same mouse who lived through Steamboat Willie? :D
Audiences on a basic level have always understood and tacitly agreed with continuity changing from film to film; you don’t need to be a movie buff or superhero fan to follow it. As you say, even Bond fans have always got this: film and book Bond are two different characters and yet the same character.
I think it’s less that Marvel invented this trope, but more the fact that they popularized this “alternate timeline” concept so much that some of the casual audience members think they can apply that kind of logic to all different films/franchises, including 007.
I mean, when it comes to Marvel/superhero films we’re entering the realm of time travel, hopping ‘universes’ etc. In those you’re able to bring back previous actors who had played, say, Spiderman or Batman and have a concrete logic in featuring them and recent actors all in the same film.
What Bond did/presumably is doing with the next one is much simpler, less ‘head scratching’, and quite frankly an older practice in storytelling. It’s simply starting a new story (or series of stories) with the same character in a contemporary setting. Sure, the Bond theme, gun barrel and superficial iconography carries over, but there’s no conscious effort to ‘connect’ the previous incarnations in the way Marvel does. It’s just about carrying on these stories featuring the character. I think if the next film was set in the 50s then we’d be creeping slightly into that realm of ‘timelines’ or whatever with such an inorganic change in setting, but even then the official continuation novels have hoped around Fleming’s time period quite a bit. So there’s a difference.
I would have much preferred discussing NTTD ending with Bond and Paloma in a yellow dingy but here we are 😅
I agree that is the more level headed approach that should be taken for Bond. 007 as a franchise carried on for over 40 years before Craig because of that approach I’d say; each film was an individual installment that stood on its own two feet, with few call backs. But I also think that perhaps some audience members who aren’t as savvy to how these franchises operate as much as we are, may show some slight confusion over how Bond could possibly come back. They could be completely ignoring the concept of the “reboot”, or may be ignorant in how it’s practiced.
A few have asked me: does that mean they've ended the series?
I reply, no, they're in the process of launching a reboot.
And that's the end of that topic.
Audiences get it.
So did you expect to see Felix on one leg forevermore in the series?
If you can accept that the Bond of the novels and the Bond of the films exist in different worlds (and surely you do?), then why do you have to believe in sci-fi for two films to be set in different worlds?
If I'm talking about this too much let me know; some folk get upset if you talk about stuff too much on here so I genuinely want to make clear that there's no animosity here and I'm just interested in the concepts involved.
Same here, that’s usually how the topic goes for me when I talk to friends on the subject, but then I’ll log onto here and see someone post that the Bond who died at the end of NTTD is the same exact Bond we’ve been following in the films since Dr. No. I don’t think it’s as cut and dry to some folks unfortunately.