13 replies to this topic

[Batfreek1]

Hello all, this is my first time posting here and I've tried VERY hard to find the answer, but can anyone please tell me if Casino Royale now means that the Daniel Craig 007 is no longer Sean Connery's 007? They make a refrence in the film to 9/11 so that must clearly mean that Sean's 007 is not Daniel's and vice versa.
I got started watching Bond when I was stationed in Korea after Die Another Day came out on DVD, so I am fairly new to the mythos (trying to buy as many DVD's as I can now I completely love the movies).

If anyone can help clear this up or continue the discussion, please help me. Thank you all.

PS
GREAT SITE!!

[00Twelve]

There are several threads on this subject if you look around, particularly in the "General Bond Film Discussion," "Casino Royale," "Bond 22," and "Bond 23" forums.

Opinions vary on whether this means an entirely new continuity for Bond, and many folks here have well founded reasons for their point of view. Hope you like it here, as it's the BEST James Bond forum there is, bar none. Welcome aboard, Batfreek!

[Mister Asterix]

[mra]I

[K1Bond007]

Hello all, this is my first time posting here and I've tried VERY hard to find the answer, but can anyone please tell me if Casino Royale now means that the Daniel Craig 007 is no longer Sean Connery's 007?

Casino Royale is a reboot of the franchise. By definition Sean Connery and Daniel Craig cannot be the same James Bond (i.e., of that continuity) nor can any other Bond actor and Craig be the same. To make it somewhat more confusing though, everytime a new actor takes on the role, Bond is essentially retconned. Meaning that previous facts are (typically) changed or altered to suit the new direction. This is not the same as a reboot though.

An example here would be to say that the 1997/2004 Special/Ultimate Editions of the Star Wars Trilogy is a retcon (this is the one where they throw in Jabba the Hutt into A New Hope and Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker in Return of the Jedi, etc etc). Batman Begins is a reboot of the Batman franchise making Batman 1-4 null and void to the continuity. It's a completely new timeline and narrative framework.

You're free to believe whatever you want though. Some choose to ignore certain aspects so that it's all in one continuity, but it's clearly not logical.

[Publius]

Hello all, this is my first time posting here and I've tried VERY hard to find the answer, but can anyone please tell me if Casino Royale now means that the Daniel Craig 007 is no longer Sean Connery's 007? They make a refrence in the film to 9/11 so that must clearly mean that Sean's 007 is not Daniel's and vice versa.
I got started watching Bond when I was stationed in Korea after Die Another Day came out on DVD, so I am fairly new to the mythos (trying to buy as many DVD's as I can now I completely love the movies).

Yep, you pretty much nailed it. As others have said, Casino Royale is a "reboot" of the Bond series in the same way Batman Begins was one for the Batman movies. The thing that probably makes it most confusing is the return of Judi Dench as M, Bond's boss, but you can just think of her as playing the same character in an alternate "universe" or chronology. Seems like a stretch at first, but you have to remember that this is the same franchise where an actor who plays a villain Bond kills has been known to return a few years later as an ally, or vice-versa, and several times over the years at that.

And heck, although this is by far the most explicit break with past Bond films, there have been numerous implicit reboots (I've argued that The Living Daylights and/or GoldenEye was the most clear prior to CR) and contradictions of continuity before (Bond met his 60s nemesis Blofeld for the first time on two separate occasions, in back-to-back movies no less!). Not many people really believe that the same Bond who fought Dr. No in 1962 battled Gustav Graves in 2002. It's best not to worry about continuity unless the films start trying to tie themselves to each other, which might happen for the first time ever with the Daniel Craig era, if the (relatively plausible) rumors of a story arc are true.

[Loomis]

Welcome to CBn, Batfreek1.

Hello all, this is my first time posting here and I've tried VERY hard to find the answer, but can anyone please tell me if Casino Royale now means that the Daniel Craig 007 is no longer Sean Connery's 007? They make a refrence in the film to 9/11 so that must clearly mean that Sean's 007 is not Daniel's and vice versa.

There's also a reference to 9/11 in DIE ANOTHER DAY. Does this mean that Brosnan's 007 isn't Sean's 007, either? Frankly, I think that if you're prepared to suspend disbelief on such a colossal scale as to take Brosnan's Bond as being the same as Connery's (and Lazenby's, and Moore's, and Dalton's), then you can do the same with Craig's, reboot or no reboot.

There's really no limit to how you can "fanwank" Craig and CASINO ROYALE into the continuity of the series, and it'll doubtless be a popular, half-serious sport among Bond fans for many years to come. It's actually only M's "I knew it was too early to promote you" line that stands in the way of seeing CR as a straight sequel to DAD, with Craig's 007 the same guy as Brosnan's, and even then the fanwanker can make short work of this line by pretending that M is referring to, oh, let's say a promotion of many years ago that she's still for some reason kicking herself over, in spite of having watched her underling save the world in four Brosnan outings.

And then there's the codename theory. And the theory that CR is actually a DR. NO prequel that depicts events of the '50s or '60s as though they were taking place today, as though Bond himself were recalling them and past and present were jumbled in his mind with things like laptops and mobile phones intruding on his memories (CR's occasionally very retro visual style helps this theory a lot).

Really, though, any meaningful continuity was chucked out of the window in the '60s. When GOLDENEYE was released, I never felt that Brosnan's Bond was the same as Connery's, or really felt the need to feel that way. But he was still Bond. Same series, different takes on the character, is how I've always seen it. For me, CR is BOND 21, not BOND 2.1. Nothing's really changed.

[Jim]

Duddunt really matter.

[plankattack]

Welcome to CBn, Batfreek1.

Hello all, this is my first time posting here and I've tried VERY hard to find the answer, but can anyone please tell me if Casino Royale now means that the Daniel Craig 007 is no longer Sean Connery's 007? They make a refrence in the film to 9/11 so that must clearly mean that Sean's 007 is not Daniel's and vice versa.

There's also a reference to 9/11 in DIE ANOTHER DAY. Does this mean that Brosnan's 007 isn't Sean's 007, either? Frankly, I think that if you're prepared to suspend disbelief on such a colossal scale as to take Brosnan's Bond as being the same as Connery's (and Lazenby's, and Moore's, and Dalton's), then you can do the same with Craig's, reboot or no reboot.

There's really no limit to how you can "fanwank" Craig and CASINO ROYALE into the continuity of the series, and it'll doubtless be a popular, half-serious sport among Bond fans for many years to come. It's actually only M's "I knew it was too early to promote you" line that stands in the way of seeing CR as a straight sequel to DAD, with Craig's 007 the same guy as Brosnan's, and even then the fanwanker can make short work of this line by pretending that M is referring to, oh, let's say a promotion of many years ago that she's still for some reason kicking herself over, in spite of having watched her underling save the world in four Brosnan outings.

Really, though, any meaningful continuity was chucked out of the window in the '60s. When GOLDENEYE was released, I never felt that Brosnan's Bond was the same as Connery's, or really felt the need to feel that way. But he was still Bond. Same series, different takes on the character, is how I've always seen it. For me, CR is BOND 21, not BOND 2.1. Nothing's really changed.

Oodles of "fanwanking" aside, Loomis has pretty much nailed it on the head. If continuity is your thing, think of each actor within his own universe. And at the end of the day, they're all James Bond. Makes sense? Of course not, which is why ultimately it's not a bad idea not to worry about it too much at all. You'll find if you stay at CBn long enough, that's there plenty to analyze in each film without going anywhere near the continuity.

Welcome to CBn Bat. Oh yeah, and Loomis actually does talk alot of sense on many occasions

Edited by plankattack, 16 March 2007 - 09:36 PM.

[Batfreek1]

Thank you all for the very kind words!! I have been looking for this answer for some time now and it seems that its stillup in the air. That's ok though, it gets people talking.
I liked how some of you tied it in to Batman movies (I am a MAJOR Batman nerd=) so that helps me out a lot.
Thank you all again.

[Batfreek1]

I can't take credit for this idea, but what do you all think about the possibility that with the "007" rank you also get the name James Bond? I like the "twist" however, I don't know how it could really work out like that. Just a thought and I'd love to hear your guys/gals' thoughts on the matter.

[Aziz Fekkesh]

Welcome, Batfreek1! It occurs to me that I might not be equipped to welcome anyone as I've only just joined today, myself. I've been enjoying this site since well before production on CR began - it's a fantastic site and I'm very impressed by the thoughtfulness and enthusiasm of the participants.

I was going to mention a scene in Diamonds are Forever which I feel has some bearing on the subject, but if you haven't seen all the films yet (and I envy you for that - I'd gladly part with a Faberge egg [had I one] to see any of them again for the first time) I wouldn't want to ruin the story for you. Perhaps it's not saying too much to observe that Bond's behaviour during the pre-titles sequence seems directly related to the conclusion of the previous film, yet Moneypenny's request of Bond for a certain souvenir from Holland betrays either ignorance of same or a callousness which would be entirely out of character for her.

For every scene in which continuity among the films is reinforced there's another scene or circumstance of the production that interferes with said continuity - six actors as Bond, three as M, three as Moneypenny, technological breakthroughs or global catastrophes presented in one film and forgotten in another (whatever DID happen with that Solex Agitator, anyway?), the absurdly prolonged real-time longevity of the character, etc. It doesn't bother me in the slightest - I've been hooked since the opening bars of that Wings song played over that visual of flaming torches at the beginning of my first Bond movie, viewed in an armed forces movie theatre in the Far East when I was ten years old. Thirty-four years later the character has become for me a sort of Spirit of Pop Culture Past, representing each decade in turn but being trapped in none of them. For me, BOND is the continuity - it's our culture that's continually being rebooted.

This is a doubly special "Bond" day for me - I've joined CB.net and I'm once again a Bond series dvd completist: I was greeted upon arriving home from the office by the sight of my Casino Royale disc box protruding from the mailbox.

Welcome to the World of Bond - a world which, for me, is never enough. That next film will always be eagerly anticipated by this fan of Fleming escapism.

AF

[Aziz Fekkesh]

That's a concept which, I believe, was explored in the second of the three "Casino Royale"s - the spoof film from the 60s with Peter Sellers and David Niven. I saw it on TV during the late Cretaceous and can remember almost nothing about it except that James Bond was retiring(?) and a new agent was being groomed to replace him AND inherit his name.

I remember the film being something of a muddle and haven't felt inclined to see it again. Perhaps it's the reason Austin Powers seemed so strangely familiar to me at the time of it's release.

AF

[HildebrandRarity]

The only continuity that one can be ensured of in the world of James Bond is within each film itself.

Even Ian Fleming contradicted himself when it came to James Bond.

No point losing sleep over something that spans 45 years, especially when you're dealing with someone who's supposed to be in the 34-44 age range.

[jaguar007]

I have a much easier time believing that Daniel Craig is the same person as Sean Connery than I do believing that Pierce Brosnan and Sean Connery are the same (although Roger and Pierce could be). Perhaps Craig is the illigetimate love Bond of Sean Connery and Timothy Dalton