103 replies to this topic

[Call Billy Bob]

I don't see it as being too hard to have a "floating timeline." With each new actor (up until Craig, when they rebooted), they simply update the dates that some things happened - like when Dalton became Bond, I consider everything that happened previously to be shifted up 10 years or so. Comics do this all the time - it's how superheroes who've been around since the 40's never age. You just retcon the timeline and shift dates up.

[RMc2]

Continuity and Bond films = only really there within an actor´s tenure.

 

The exeception of this rule: Connery - but only because he came back for one film.  If one forgets about OHMSS coming between YOLT and DAF, the rule above applies again (with Bond chasing Blofeld in the PTS not because of Tracy´s death but because of Blofeld´s escape at the end of YOLT).

 

Why did Lazenby find Bondian stuff in his drawer in OHMSS?  - Because the producers desperately wanted to tie him into their success story with the previous Bonds.

 

And why did Sir Roger flinch at an allusion to Tracy in TSWLM and why did he lay down flowers at Tracy´s grave in the PTS for FYEO and kill Blofeld?  - Because that was another attempt at constructing some kind of continuity.

 

Okay, but why is Judi Dench M for Brosnan and Craig?  - Because she is an Oscar-nominated actress EON and SONY did not want to let go.  Simple as that. 

 

Oscar-winning actress...

 

Perfect summation of continuity's role in Bond films, SAF.

 

Apart from Connery's first five films (and arguably DAF, as you make clear), the series never seemed to have an interest in solid narrative continuity at all until now, the Craig era. Even then, little things like the Aston Martin in SF call it into question. Outside of actors' tenures, I'd argue that OHMSS-TSWLM-FYEO form their own little trilogy, but it's nowhere near a tight-knit continuity across those three films.

 

Each new actor has brought his own reboot to the series, but only Craig actually reset the clock. I want to embrace the Craig films as a new continuity, not a set of prequels. But I think EON and Mendes wanted us to be free to imagine that a few of the earlier Bond adventures happened between QoS and SF - if we so choose.

 

But my position: yay for the reboot! New timeline!

[DaveBond21]

Yep, interesting thread and the last 20 replies shows that everyone has slightly different theories, meaning that nobody can impose their view on others.

 

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[SecretAgentFan]

 

Continuity and Bond films = only really there within an actor´s tenure.

 

The exeception of this rule: Connery - but only because he came back for one film.  If one forgets about OHMSS coming between YOLT and DAF, the rule above applies again (with Bond chasing Blofeld in the PTS not because of Tracy´s death but because of Blofeld´s escape at the end of YOLT).

 

Why did Lazenby find Bondian stuff in his drawer in OHMSS?  - Because the producers desperately wanted to tie him into their success story with the previous Bonds.

 

And why did Sir Roger flinch at an allusion to Tracy in TSWLM and why did he lay down flowers at Tracy´s grave in the PTS for FYEO and kill Blofeld?  - Because that was another attempt at constructing some kind of continuity.

 

Okay, but why is Judi Dench M for Brosnan and Craig?  - Because she is an Oscar-nominated actress EON and SONY did not want to let go.  Simple as that. 

 

Oscar-winning actress...

 

Perfect summation of continuity's role in Bond films, SAF.

 

Apart from Connery's first five films (and arguably DAF, as you make clear), the series never seemed to have an interest in solid narrative continuity at all until now, the Craig era. Even then, little things like the Aston Martin in SF call it into question. Outside of actors' tenures, I'd argue that OHMSS-TSWLM-FYEO form their own little trilogy, but it's nowhere near a tight-knit continuity across those three films.

 

Each new actor has brought his own reboot to the series, but only Craig actually reset the clock. I want to embrace the Craig films as a new continuity, not a set of prequels. But I think EON and Mendes wanted us to be free to imagine that a few of the earlier Bond adventures happened between QoS and SF - if we so choose.

 

But my position: yay for the reboot! New timeline!

 

 

I think that the Aston Martin in SKYFALL was not meant to prove that the Craig films were incorporating the earlier films.

 

CASINO ROYALE established Bond´s fondness for the Aston Martin.  So it´s just natural that Bond would buy an older version of that car, keeping it in a garage as a collector´s item.

 

Audiences, of course, were supposed to smile knowingly - but why would anyone think that Craig-Bond actually could have been old enough to drive that car during the 60´s?

[Guy Haines]

Yes, I think the idea is to smile knowingly - put in a few icons from the previous films such as the DB5 so that audiences with some recall of the films prior to the Craig years can rest assured, it is a Bond film you are watching. I try not to think of these "icons" in terms of timelines in the films since CR 2006, although an explanation of sorts was set up for the DB5 (He won it in a bet!) and for all we know the one in SF was the one from CR with new number plates which look suspiciously like the ones in GF and a "few optional extras" installed. (Which again are suspiciously like the ones from GF!)

 

Part of the enjoyment for me of these "new" Bond films is seeing how they deal with the "old" stuff we expect. Thus the introductions of the new M, Q and Moneypenny. Bond's encounters with Felix Leiter - it would be nice if they could get Jeffrey Wright back for Craig's final film. And in the new movie the reintroduction - reinvention? - of Bond's old adversary SPECTRE and possibly Blofeld. It is the same old stuff, fifty years on, but different - some respects very different - within a series of new films which are not conscious remakes.

[seawolfnyy]

Also JC, you forgot to include Tanner who filled in for M in FYEO.

I didn't include him because he was still the Chief of Staff, rather than M. I count Messervy and Hargreaves as different Ms because, in my view at least, they have different personalities. Same with Dench's two Ms, their personalities seem different and we have two sources that give us different names, Gardner's novels (though not canon to the movies, the closest we had to a name in Brosnan's tenure) and on the props in Skyfall.

It was really only meant as a joke. I do agree that Robert Brown's M was not Masservy. The personalities are too different. However, I also never really agreed with the idea that Hargreaves was the new M, after Masservy. As I said, he would have been demoted as the uniform he's wearing in The Living Daylights is a rank below that from TSWLM. I always felt it was just a new character entirely.

[RMc2]

 

 

Continuity and Bond films = only really there within an actor´s tenure.

 

The exeception of this rule: Connery - but only because he came back for one film.  If one forgets about OHMSS coming between YOLT and DAF, the rule above applies again (with Bond chasing Blofeld in the PTS not because of Tracy´s death but because of Blofeld´s escape at the end of YOLT).

 

Why did Lazenby find Bondian stuff in his drawer in OHMSS?  - Because the producers desperately wanted to tie him into their success story with the previous Bonds.

 

And why did Sir Roger flinch at an allusion to Tracy in TSWLM and why did he lay down flowers at Tracy´s grave in the PTS for FYEO and kill Blofeld?  - Because that was another attempt at constructing some kind of continuity.

 

Okay, but why is Judi Dench M for Brosnan and Craig?  - Because she is an Oscar-nominated actress EON and SONY did not want to let go.  Simple as that. 

 

Oscar-winning actress...

 

Perfect summation of continuity's role in Bond films, SAF.

 

Apart from Connery's first five films (and arguably DAF, as you make clear), the series never seemed to have an interest in solid narrative continuity at all until now, the Craig era. Even then, little things like the Aston Martin in SF call it into question. Outside of actors' tenures, I'd argue that OHMSS-TSWLM-FYEO form their own little trilogy, but it's nowhere near a tight-knit continuity across those three films.

 

Each new actor has brought his own reboot to the series, but only Craig actually reset the clock. I want to embrace the Craig films as a new continuity, not a set of prequels. But I think EON and Mendes wanted us to be free to imagine that a few of the earlier Bond adventures happened between QoS and SF - if we so choose.

 

But my position: yay for the reboot! New timeline!

 

 

I think that the Aston Martin in SKYFALL was not meant to prove that the Craig films were incorporating the earlier films.

 

CASINO ROYALE established Bond´s fondness for the Aston Martin.  So it´s just natural that Bond would buy an older version of that car, keeping it in a garage as a collector´s item.

 

Audiences, of course, were supposed to smile knowingly - but why would anyone think that Craig-Bond actually could have been old enough to drive that car during the 60´s?

 

 

I agree: my personal preference is to imagine the SF DB5 is a modified version of the CR one, as Purvis & Wade suggested in an interview with Empire. But other people (many on this forum!) seem to like the idea of Craig Bond having actually been through GF, and that's fine.

 

I still wish Mendes hadn't included it though. It distresses with the continuity nerd in me.

[Guy Haines]

I agree about the DB5 - I think of it as the one Bond won in the Bahamas casino in CR 2006, which has since been worked on by Q branch. The fact that it has an ejector seat, machine guns and the same number plates as one seen over fifty years ago in, to borrow a Connery non Bond film title "another time, another place" is just one of life's little co-incidences!

[sharpshooter]

Indeed. As viewers we know the DB5 first appeared in Goldfinger, but that doesn't mean anything to Craig's Bond. The same concept of a modified DB5 has been translated into another timeline, under different circumstances. 

[DaveBond21]

I believe it is the same car, same timeline. Just different way of acquiring it.

[sharpshooter]

It's entirely fine to think that. However I think it opens up a can of worms. Like the Licence to Kill novelisation trying to tie into Fleming's original timeline. Felix loses his leg in Fleming's LALD, and then loses another via the same method. It's just a bit odd.

[AgenttiNollaNollaSeitsemän]

I am not bothered by the Gf DB5 appearing - I like to think that sometime between QoS and Skyfall Bond had some unseen adventure for which he got the car.

[Guy Haines]

Not quite. I still think it's the car from the Bahamas. But, maybe he had it modified for some adventure between QoS and SF. But that's not really the reason it was included in SF - rather as a prop to remind the audience that even though we're in a new era, well, as they say, the more things change the more they stay the same!

[bill007]

Not quite. I still think it's the car from the Bahamas. But, maybe he had it modified for some adventure between QoS and SF. But that's not really the reason it was included in SF - rather as a prop to remind the audience that even though we're in a new era, well, as they say, the more things change the more they stay the same!

 

Agreed.

 

I am interested in the conversation that Bond has had other missions aside from the ones we see at the cinema.  Makes good sense to me.  There are years between the intervals we see in the movies.