52 replies to this topic

[Skylla]

 

The longer I think about this, I guess I prefer to take it like the film The One with Jet Li. Every actors Bond lives in his own universe. Because no one could hit Sean Connery hard enough to look like Pierce Brosnan 24 years after DAF....or shrink and bleach Brosnan to look like Craig. The same goes for saying 62 until 02 is the same timeline: you never could explain the transformation from Moore to Dalton without Rhas al Ghul´s Lazarus pit.

I've never found it particularly taxing to separate each actor into his own block of films, although Roger Moore's reaction to any sort of Lazarus pit would clearly have been memorable...

 

Well, looked almost dead to me prefering to make that quiche. Felt like resurrection when Dalton fell on that boat at the beginning of TLD...

[billy007]

You mentioned Ras a Ghul,so consider 62 to 02 as a compressed time-line, say 12 years. A practice DC and Marvel use constantly.

It's only been 12 years since Fantastic Four went on space flight that gave them their powers

 

Before DC's  "New 52"" timeline began Clark Kent moved to Metropolis and became Superman app. 12 years ago.

 

Craig's Casino Royale is a re-boot. all references to past (I.e. DB5) are respectful homages.

[ChickenStu]

You know - you go nuts if you try and justify the continuities in your head. I learned a long time ago to just take each Bond film as it is. They are only movies after all. If there is a reference to an earlier adventure I'll simply accept it as a tool to tell the current story. Seriously - I'm just happier that way. 

[AMC Hornet]

So let me get this right: It's CR then QOS, then GE, then DN -(etc)-> SF-> Spectre --(#25, 26, and on and on..), then NSNA?

 

Watching the Films in Book Order, from a 2015 perspective:

 

Casino Royale

The First 007 adventure, starring Daniel Craig as James Bond and Judi Dench as his boss, M. We start by witnessing the two assassinations that earn Bond his 00 licence, then his going beserk in Madagascar. Apparently38 is too young and reckless an age for an SBS commando to be promoted to this sort of work. I’m looking forward to finding out more about the organization behind Le Chiffre.

 

Live and Let Die

Roger Moore replaces Craig as Bond, with a much mellower take on the character. Bernard Lee replaces Judi Dench as M, and we are introduced to M’s secretary, Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell). It’s unlikely that Mr. White is working for Mr. Big’s organization, unless the joke is in Mr. White – a white man – working for a black villain? And what was with that hairbrush – why didn’t Bond just text Quarrel?

 

Moonraker

Ah, Moneypenny mentioned a ‘Q’ in the last film, and now we get to meet him. Who hired this Jaws guy to go after Bond, before Drax hired him, someone from Mr. White’s organization? And who’s this guy in the red pajamas, talking to Col. Scott?

 

Diamonds are Forever

Sean Connery replaces Roger Moore – couldn’t they have found someone in better shape? I don’t see what all the excitement is about. Don’t know why he’s after this Blofeld fellow either, but he seems to have put paid to him after three attempts. Strange, making such a fuss over one little laser satellite, after all the action on Drax’s 200 m space station.

 

From Russia with Love

Connery must have hit the gym after seeing the reviews of his first film. Ah, there’s that guy with the red pajamas again – so he works for this SPECTRE organization. Perhaps Mr. White works for SPECTRE too. Looks like Blofeld survived that bashing he took in DAF. Seems quite a comedown, stealing a mechanical coder after all the high-tech goings-on two films earlier. Are Sylvia and Miss Caruso supposed to the same character? She does mention that the last time she saw Bond he left for Jamaica. Who’s this Dr. No that Kronsteen mentions Bond killed? Perhaps he was the guy with the plaid socks at the beginning of CR.

 

Dr. No

Ah. But how did Kronsteen know in advance? At least now we know what SPECTRE stands for – why didn’t Bond? Why do Sylvia and Bond introduce themselves at the Chemin table, like they've never met? What’s this about Bond using a Beretta for the last ten years? He’d already been using Walther products, including the PPK. The plot concerns one experimental missile on a TV screen? Seems the budgets have shrunk considerably since MR. And what a thing to say to Quarrel! How could they have written such a line in these enlightened times?!

 

Goldfinger

Do they even keep gold in Fort Knox anymore? Very topical, having North Korea backing the villain. Goldfinger doesn’t need to explain what a laser is – we’ve all seen them before.

 

From A View to a Kill

Roger Moore is back, looking even longer in the tooth than Connery did in his first film. Robert Brown replaces Bernard Lee. So now Walter Gottell – whom we last saw as Morzeny in MR and FRWL – is playing the head of the KGB. Still, why was he talking to Col. Scott in MR? Exciting ski scene – a first for the series!

 

For Your Eyes Only/Risico

Like Connery, Moore was able to shape up a bit after his previous entry. Whether that was really Blofeld in FRWL becomes moot, as he’s disposed of for good this time. Why have we never heard of this 'Theresa Bond' before now? The ski scene in AVTAK must have been so well received it’s repeated here, only longer.

 

Quantum of Solace

Finally, Bond goes after Mr. White and the organization responsible for Vesper’s death (Spoiler Alert: it isn’t SPECTRE). Don’t know why he took so long to get to it, but at least they brought Daniel Craig back for this one – it wouldn’t have made sense for Connery or Moore to do the avenging. Judi Dench also returns as M.

 

The Hildebrand Rarity (filmed as Licence to Kill)

Introducing Timothy Dalton as 007- a good choice after Daniel Craig. However, I question the wisdom of having two dark, gritty revenge tales in a row, this one about avenging Felix Leiter. Strange, too, making Krest a minor character and killing him off halfway into the film. Robert Brown returns as M and Caroline Bliss replaces Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny for one brief appearance.

 

Thunderball

Connery is back, along with Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell. SPECTRE also returns, stealing atomic bombs in order to ransom NATO for one hundred million pounds. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just host another poker tournament? And who’s the guy with the cat? Is Blofeld supposed to have survived that chimney drop? And shouldn’t Felix have a limp?

 

The Spy Who Loved Me

Moore returns, and so does Jaws, gone bad again and working for Stromberg. Even cooler ski scene than in FYEO, made better by keeping it short.

 

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

George Lazenby replaces Moore for this outing, which features endless ski chases. Seriously, two movies in a row? So Blofeld is back, in the guise of Telly Savalas – get used to it.  Bond loses his bride in this one; no surprise there, as he'd already lost one wife named Theresa. That 'all the time in the world' epitaph in FYEO proved quite prophetic. I guess we’re in for another gritty revenge story next.

 

You Only Live Twice

Or not. Seems the only characters Connery’s Bond is interested in getting his hands on in this film are Ling, Aki, Helga and Kissy. I suppose this is what happens when you replace your lead in the middle of a story arc. Blofeld clearly suffered after he “branched off” in the previous film – so much so that he felt it necessary to introduce himself to Bond again. Did they really have to make Donald Pleasance look so much like Dr. Evil? I suppose it will be up to another actor to finish Blofeld off later. Pretty unimpressive spacecraft, after the ones in MR. Still, a fitting ending for Connery’s reign, as he saves the world and floats off with Kissy.

 

The Man with the Golden Gun

Blofeld will have to wait, I guess. Moore is back again and looks even better than before. The stakes aren’t as high this time, and neither is the budget. What’s all this talk about an ’energy crisis’? We own Iraq now, don’t we? And after Bruce Willis was promised $70 million for a hit in The Jackal, $1m a shot seems like pretty small beer.

 

Octopussy & The Property of a Lady

Age has caught up with Moore again, but the film is an improvement over the previous entry. I’m assuming Maud Adams is playing a different character. Like with YOLT, Moore’s final appearance in the series ends well, with Bond floating into the sunset with a suitable partner.

 

The Living Daylights

Timothy Dalton returns, along with Robert Brown and Caroline Bliss (in expanded roles) for the last time, ending his involvement in the arms of Maryam D’Abo. A bit of a jolt after two Moore entries in a row, but this is what kept the series fresh – and confusing.

 

Don’t know what to make of the rest; perhaps Pierce Brosnan’s four should be lumped in with Never Say Never Again as ‘unofficial’ films, since Ian Fleming didn’t have anything to do with them. Same for Skyfall, although if you were going to include it, it would have to come somewhere after Thunderball, since there’s the Aston Martin. As for SPECTRE, perhaps it should come between DAF and FRWL.

 

Or, if you really want to mess with your head, try reading the books in film release order.

[Stuart]

AMC Hornet, well done.  I smiled, nodded, and laughed at various points; sometimes all at once.  Now, my neck hurts.

[Guy Haines]

If, as is strongly hinted elsewhere, it turns out in SPECTRE next month that there is some kind of past link between 007 and the villain of the piece (Who may or may not turn out to be a certain villain well known of this parish) then we may have to find a way to revisit this scene from YOLT;

Blofeld (for it is he) "James Bond. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ernst Stavro Blofeld"

Bond; "I know you are, Franz!"

[AMC Hornet]

AMC Hornet, well done.  I smiled, nodded, and laughed at various points; sometimes all at once.  Now, my neck hurts.

"Sorry about that, chief."

[Double-Oh Agent]

Good job AMC Hornet. Very amusing.

[ChickenStu]

 Now, my neck hurts.

 

Your NECK hurts? What about MY BRAIN?!?!     

[AMC Hornet]

 

 Now, my neck hurts.

 

Your NECK hurts? What about MY BRAIN?!?!     

 

Management assumes no responsibility...

[deth]

No, I don't really dwell on that, I just go with enjoying the individual movies.

 

 

Then why bother dreaming up this half-baked theory in the first place?

[glidrose]

Pure genius, AMC, pure genius. Quibble, tho': you should have included CR'54 and CR'67 - with the obligatory swipe about lack of originality remaking the same story, predicting what CR #4 will be like, and then cheering the innovation of filming a different book - LALD - instead. Likewise, NSNA should follow TB with the obligatory quip wondering if the producers are stuck in a new rut making multiple versions of this story as they did CR.

But apart from that top marks!

Now, my neck hurts.

 
Your NECK hurts? What about MY BRAIN?!?!     

You have one?

[ChickenStu]

Pure genius, AMC, pure genius. Quibble, tho': you should have included CR'54 and CR'67 - with the obligatory swipe about lack of originality remaking the same story, predicting what CR #4 will be like, and then cheering the innovation of filming a different book - LALD - instead. Likewise, NSNA should follow TB with the obligatory quip wondering if the producers are stuck in a new rut making multiple versions of this story as they did CR.

But apart from that top marks!
 

 

Now, my neck hurts.

 
Your NECK hurts? What about MY BRAIN?!?!     

 

You have one?

 

 

I suppose I asked for that one, didn't I?   

[Professor Pi]

If you haven’t seen SPECTRE or read Darren Franich’s Entertainment Weekly article, go no further...

[Professor Pi]

I’m going to get flak for this …

 

The James Bond canon can now be explained in one continuous timeline.  It wasn’t intended by the filmmakers, and you don’t have to subscribe to it, but enough evidence exists to justify the theory.  And no, it’s not the Codename Theory, which Skyfall destroyed by showing Bond’s parents’ tombstones in a Daniel Craig movie.  Nor are there any time travel devices or outlandish timelord theories.  But it can explain the Aston Martin DB5 occurring in the seven movies it does, the seven different actors playing Bond (yes, I’m counting Barry Nelson in 1954’s Casino Royale), Judi Dench playing two M’s, not to mention the male actors, the different time period settings and geo politics, and even canonizing Never Say Never Again and … going way out on a limb here … 1967’s Casino Royale.

 

Still reading?

 

First off, Daniel Craig is James Bond.  His first mission was 2006’s Casino Royale, followed by Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and most of SPECTRE.  Craig’s is a haunted, tortured James Bond.  His adventures are real, even though his movies have callbacks to Goldfinger, Spy Who Loved Me, OHMSS, Live and Let Die, GoldenEye, TWINE, and others.  Except these meta homages are not callbacks.  They are seeds in Craig Bond’s mind that are planted for imaginary missions, retold in his mind to block the psychological trauma from losing his true love and failing to protect his maternal figure, reimagining his failures as dreamlike fantasies as if they were James Bond movies.  Because they are, hallucinated in a dying fever dream while being tortured in Franz Oberhauser’s chair.

 

Men want to be him, including him.

 

“I wish I could set you free, but your prison is in there,” Camille points to Craig’s head.  It’s one thing to have your balls wacked, but another to have drills probing the memory centers in your brain.  Will Bond remember?  His latest love interest’s very name has clues to the answer.  Madeleine Swann’s Proustian name origins refer to involuntary memory recall.  

 

The first dream Bond has is 1954’s Casino Royale.  He recalls Vesper Lynd as Valerie Mathis, in part because his mind still can’t come to terms with losing Vesper, or his friend Rene Mathis, whose body he threw in a dumpster in Quantum of Solace.  It’s recalled monochromatically, like 2006’s CR pre-titles sequence.  Unable to reconcile the reality of his failures, he envisions himself as an American card player and his friend Felix Leiter as a white Brit.

 

Then comes Doctor No.  An archenemy greeting him and his blonde girlfriend with hotel rooms and drinks.  And introducing an organisation called SPECTRE.  He’s now rightfully British, and Felix American.  M is the father figure.

 

The brute henchman Mr. Hinx manifests itself as Red Grant on a train in From Russia, With Love.  Blofeld haunting the background machinations all the while.

 

In CR, Daniel Craig notices a 1964 Aston Martin DBV in the Bahamas.   A car nut, he loves it.  He wins it in a poker game.  He brings it back to England where Q-Branch plays with machine guns and ejector seats, just not exploding pens.  His valet parking of “Helmut’s” Land Rover gives his mind enough data to construct the Goldfinger movie as a dream mission.  His witnessing Fields’ oily death manifests itself in Shirley Eaton’s gold paint.  Not the first time a callback becomes a seed.

 

Thunderball.  DBV.  Girlfriend without attachments.  SPECTRE  defeated (albeit, temporarily.)  JB funeral Craig’s manifestation of the Lucia Sciarra funeral scene.  SPECTRE boardroom scene reimagined with Largo.  Junkanoo.

 

You Only Live Twice.  The friggin' scar.  That goddamn cat.  Crater, hollowed out volcano, whatever.  Is Helga Brandt Monica Bellucci?  Who knows?  Who cares?  It’s Monica Belluci for Chrissakes!

Hans is Mr. Hinx. And Red Grant,  And Odd Job.  And later Jaws.  

 

Finally, Bond’s mind is ready to handle Vesper.  Via Tracy.  On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.  So he visualizes himself somewhat diffrently.  Blofeld returns.  Lots of snow.

 

DAF is the followup to YOLT.  Some bit about rats.  OHMSS follows DAF.   Watch it.  Think about it.  It makes sense.  OHMSS/FYEO is a a Bond double feature.  Raymond Benson argued that the For Your Eyes Only PTS should have been a dream anyway.  "I trust you had a pleasant ... fright!" 

 

Craig casts himself as Moore in LALD, only this time he is Baron Samedi, dispatching death.  More travel by train.  Silver thumbs now a claw.

 

Scaramanga is Bond’s manifestation of Silva/Trevelyan in TMWTGG/Skyfall/GE.  "Secret agent? On whose side?!"

 

TSWLM/MR is a manifestation of Mr. Hinx as Jaws, in a train again, combined with some scifi about a meteor.  Moonraker a wild fantasy from a few comments about a meteor.  Or maybe a Connery movie about a meteor. 

 

Octopussy becomes a symbolic manifestation of SPECTRE’s tentacles.  And Major Dexter Smythe/Oberhauser.  Plus trains in tunnels.  AVTAK?  What if Trevelyan/Silva were KGB?  Zorin!  He’s blonde, right?  So's Stacey.  And Madeleine.

 

Proto-Craig Dalton is Bond in TLD/LTK.  More blondes and snow.  “He was married once.”  All manifestations of Bond resurrecting his failed Vesper/Tracy relationship.  Failed assassination attempt shows reality disrupting dreams, recalling Day of the Dead mission.  He finally remembers what Felix looks like, at least in one movie.  But still can't save him, sort of. 

 

Brosnan’s tenure of GE/TWINE/TND/DAD trying to Spark Notes summarize the previous 30+ years and three decades of Bond lore.  Something about where female M’s predecessor keeps the cognac.  What if Silva and Bond worked together?  Trevelyan's plot involved computer hacking.   "I might as well ask if the vodka martinis silence the screams of all the men you killed, or if you find forgiveness in the arms of the women you saved, for all the ones you haven't."  Paris Carver.  More chair torture, only this time Bond prevails! 

 

Die Another Day a meta dream within a dream of all the other adventures, recalled from 1962 on, through each decade CraigBond has been alive.  Who's that emerging from the beach water?  Q aged so much he finally retired.  "The world changed while you were away."  Wait, the villain from the graves is blonde?!  He's got my parachute!  Attacks on Vauxhall building from TWINE further realized at the end of SPECTRE.  Barrel roll stunts in cars, boats, helicopters.   Renard kind of looks familiar ....  Blofeld crawls a lot like Mr White when shot in the leg.  “God, I miss the cold war!”

 

Then Bond finds himself retiring as Connery in the Bahamas of Never Say Never Again.  He finally remembers Felix is black, but doesn't remember he can't walk.  It is 1983 afterall.  Someone named Largo again.  M went from Mallory to Messersvy to Mawdsley to Mansfield back to male parental figure again.  Haven't I killed Blofeld yet?  "Finish it!"

 

If Bond dies, it’s in the dream like psychedelia of 1967’s Casino Royale, an odd full circle coda to his dreamlike adventures. If not, well, who knows what the amnesiac state of Shatterhand’s Garden of Death will bring.  "Why not stay dead?"

 

"Tempus fugit."

[AMC Hornet]

And I criticized other posters for taking the 'timeline' too literally.

[Mr. Arlington Beech]

I’m going to get flak for this …

If you haven’t seen SPECTRE or read Darren Franich’s Entertainment Weekly article, go no further.

The James Bond canon can now be explained in one continuous timeline.  It wasn’t intended by the filmmakers, and you don’t have to subscribe to it, but enough evidence exists to justify the theory.  And no, it’s not the Codename Theory, which Skyfall destroyed by showing Bond’s parents’ tombstones in a Daniel Craig movie.  Nor are there any time travel devices or outlandish timelord theories.  But it can explain the Aston Martin DB5 occurring in the seven movies it does, the seven different actors playing Bond (yes, I’m counting Barry Nelson in 1954’s Casino Royale), Judi Dench playing two M’s, not to mention the male actors, the different time period settings and geo politics, and even canonizing Never Say Never Again and … going way out on a limb here … 1967’s Casino Royale.

Still reading?

First off, Daniel Craig is James Bond.  His first mission was 2006’s Casino Royale, followed by Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and most of SPECTRE.  Craig’s is a haunted, tortured James Bond.  His adventures are real, even though his movies have callbacks to Goldfinger, Spy Who Loved Me, OHMSS, Live and Let Die, GoldenEye, TWINE, and others.  Except these meta homages are not callbacks.  They are seeds in Craig Bond’s mind that are planted for imaginary missions, retold in his mind to block the psychological trauma from losing his true love and failing to protect his maternal figure, reimagining his failures as dreamlike fantasies as if they were James Bond movies.  Because they are, hallucinated in a dying fever dream while being tortured in Franz Oberhauser’s chair.

Men want to be him, including him.

“I wish I could set you free, but your prison is in there,” Camille points to Craig’s head.  It’s one thing to have your balls wacked, but another to have drills probing the memory centers in your brain.  Will Bond remember?  His latest love interest’s very name has clues to the answer.  Madeleine Swann’s Proustian name origins refer to involuntary memory recall.  

 

The first dream Bond has is 1954’s Casino Royale.  He recalls Vesper Lynd as Valerie Mathis, in part because his mind still can’t come to terms with losing Vesper, or his friend Rene Mathis, whose body he threw in a dumpster in Quantum of Solace.  It’s recalled monochromatically, like 2006’s CR pre-titles sequence.  Unable to reconcile the reality of his failures, he envisions himself as an American card player and his friend Felix Leiter as a Brit.

 

Then comes Doctor No.  An archenemy greeting him and his blonde girlfriend with hotel rooms and drinks.  And introducing an organisation called SPECTRE.  He’s now rightfully British, and Felix American.

 

The brute henchman Mr. Hinx manifests itself as Red Grant in From Russia, With Love.  Blofeld haunting the background machinations all the while.

 

In CR, Daniel Craig notices a 1964 Aston Martin DBV in the Bahamas.   A car nut, he loves it.  He wins it in a poker game.  He brings it back to England where Q-Branch plays with machine guns and ejector seats, but not exploding pens.  His valet parking of “Helmut’s” Land Rover gives his mind enough data to construct the Goldfinger movie as a dream mission.  His witnessing Fields’ oily death manifests itself in Shirley Eaton’s gold paint.  Not the first time a callback becomes a seed.

 

Thunderball.  DBV.  Girlfriend without attachments.  SPECTRE  defeated (albeit, temporarily.)  JB funeral Craig’s manifestation of the Lucia Sciarra funeral scene.  SPECTRE boardroom scene reimagined with Largo.

 

You Only Live Twice.  The friggin' scar.  That goddamn cat.  Crater, hollowed out volcano, whatever.  Is Helga Brandt Monica Belluccii?  Who knows?  Who cares?  It’s Monica Belluci for Chrissakes!

Hans is Mr. Hinx. And Red Grant,  And Odd Job.  And Jaws.  

 

Finally, Bond’s mind is ready to handle Vesper.  Via Tracy.  On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.  Blofeld returns.

 

Scaramanga is Bond’s manifestation of Silva/Trevelvyan in TMWTGG/Skyfall.

DAF is the followup to YOLT.  OHMSS follows DAF.   Watch it.  Think about it.  It makes sense..  OHMSS/FYEO is a a Bond double feature.

 

Craig casts himself as Moore in LALD/TSWLM, only this time he is Baron Samedi, dispatching death. Moonraker a wild fantasy from a few comments about a meteor.

 

TSWLM/MR is a manifestation of Mr. Hinx as Jaws, combined with some scifi about a meteor.  And maybe a Connery movi about a meteor.

 

Octpussy becomes a symbolic manifestation of SPECTRE’s tentacles.  And Major Dexter Smythe/Oberhauser.  AVTAK?  What if Tevelyan/Silva were KGB?  Zorin!  He’s blonde, right?

 

Proto-Craig Dalton is Bond in TLD/LTK.  “He was married once.”  All manifestations of Bond resurrecting his failed Vesper/Tracy relationship.  Failed assassination attempt shows reality disrupting dreams.

 

Brosnans’ tenure of GE/TWINE/TND/DAD trying to Spark Notes summarize the previous 30+ years and three decades of Bond lore.  Somethign about where female M’s predecessor keeps the cognac.  Attacks on Vauxhall building from TWINE further realized at the end of SPECTRE.  Die Another Day a meta dream within a dream of all the other adventures, recalled from 1962 on.  “God, I miss the cold war!”

Then finally, Bond finds himself retiring as Connery in the Bahamas of Never Say Never Again.  If he dies, it’s in the dream like psychedelia of 1967’s Casino Royale, an odd full circle coda to his dreamlike adventures.  If not, well, who knows what the amenesiac state of Shatterhand’s Garden of Death will bring us.

 

I like this theory... and I don't really care about the Dallas comparison, after all, those series writers didn´t historically invented this kind of plot device. The only problem that I do see with a theory like this, it's how can it be explained when a well awakened Bond appears with a new body (portrayed by the successor of Craig in the role)?? ......A plastic surgery like they initially envisioned for explaining the appearance of Bond in OHMSS, I don´t know... 

[larrythefatcat]

Well... there's gotta be *some* explanation as to why Q would make a comment about returning the DB5 "in one piece" to Bond in 'Spectre' if he never issued it in the first place.

 

Maybe the reasoning behind that would also explain why/when an ejector seat was added to the DB5 between 'Casino Royale' and 'Skyfall'... it seems the majority of the GLARING plot/continuity holes are DB5-related in the most recent Craig films!

[Mr. Arlington Beech]

Well... there's gotta be *some* explanation as to why Q would make a comment about returning the DB5 "in one piece" to Bond in 'Spectre' if he never issued it in the first place.

 

Maybe the reasoning behind that would also explain why/when an ejector seat was added to the DB5 between 'Casino Royale' and 'Skyfall'... it seems the majority of the GLARING plot/continuity holes are DB5-related in the most recent Craig films!

I think the DB5 from the Craig era is Bond´s own car (because he won it in Bahamas), but as he owns it as a product of doing his job- working overtime actually, he took the chance to bring it to Q-branch for MI6's professional customization.

[tdalton]

Well... there's gotta be *some* explanation as to why Q would make a comment about returning the DB5 "in one piece" to Bond in 'Spectre' if he never issued it in the first place.
 
Maybe the reasoning behind that would also explain why/when an ejector seat was added to the DB5 between 'Casino Royale' and 'Skyfall'... it seems the majority of the GLARING plot/continuity holes are DB5-related in the most recent Craig films!

It would have had to have been Q's predecessor who did the modifications on the DB5 if that's the case, as Bond and Q clearly meet for the first time in Skyfall, all the while his car has been in storage.

Personally, I think that this is just an oversight or, if you like, a plothole in the script. They were clearly looking to incorporate a classic line from the past, as that's their MO these days over at EON, and didn't think to make sure that it made at least some sense.

[Mr. Arlington Beech]

 

Well... there's gotta be *some* explanation as to why Q would make a comment about returning the DB5 "in one piece" to Bond in 'Spectre' if he never issued it in the first place.
 
Maybe the reasoning behind that would also explain why/when an ejector seat was added to the DB5 between 'Casino Royale' and 'Skyfall'... it seems the majority of the GLARING plot/continuity holes are DB5-related in the most recent Craig films!

It would have had to have been Q's predecessor who did the modifications on the DB5 if that's the case, as Bond and Q clearly meet for the first time in Skyfall, all the while his car has been in storage.

Personally, I think that this is just an oversight or, if you like, a plothole in the script. They were clearly looking to incorporate a classic line from the past, as that's their MO these days over at EON, and didn't think to make sure that it made at least some sense.

 

Sadly, I think that’s the MO of EON mostly since the beginning of the Bond series, and not just in these days. But as a fan, you can always find ways to explain some things, well, maybe not all the things.

[hoagy]

The producers and directors, etc. have a long tradition of doing things simply because they feel right for the film being made at the time.

 

Examples:

 

Lazenby breaks the third wall (no need to say which film, he made but one) with a comment "This never happened to the other fellow !"  That still blows my mind.  I struggled with it when I first saw it, thinking it was a Cinderella reference - which, yes, it was, but it also was an in-joke between the new fellow and the audience.  It made a little sense in the story, but it made more sense as a joke between Lazenby and the audience.  Were it meant moreso as a Cinderella reference, after all, the line could have been more explicit, perhaps with a reference to glass, the slipper, a prince, something...but it did not.

 

The Mustang Mach 1 comes out on the wrong wheels in DAF.  The take filmed on the correct wheels had gawking street folks, and there was no CGI back then to eradicate them.  They re-shot, and goofed the wheels !!  Bad day for the continuity checker.  Anyway -- they just went with it with only the slightest of acknowledgement - they show Bond and Tiffany inside the car, sort of shifting their bodies.  Of course, the alley was too narrow for the car to come down and miraculously rise onto its other two wheels (I've actually seen it written that the interior shot was meant to indicate a shift, but it makes no sense at all.)   They simply left it.  Hey, we know you all love James Bond, you're happy to see Connery back, so just enjoy it....and we did.  Many people never noticed it, something film-makers know.

  (Were this a George Lucas production, I supposed we could have gotten a re-release with the original take, with the gawkers CGI-ed out, years after the first release.)

 

The Aston won by Bond in the Bahamas in CR has Left Hand Drive...the one he brings out of storage in SF has Right Hand Drive, and tricks and weapons.  Yes, so the steering and interior could have been changed, not to mention the installation of guns, etc.  But such an explanation was not even bothered with.  I recall reading that Sam Mendes said he was well aware of the continuity issues and just said, basically, the heck with it !  We're going with this 'cause it feels right and that's it !  The film's critical reception and humongous grosses indicate it was not much of an issue, if at all.

 

Not only are there eras of Bond film continuities and histories, but there are non-matches even within the same film or within an actor's "run."  As I said -- each film was made on its own, one at a time, and so be it.  Even with the grand drama and woven stories of the Craig films, they're each just meant to be enjoyed.

[Professor Pi]

And I criticized other posters for taking the 'timeline' too literally.

 

And I never did before I read Darren Franich's article.  But I do enjoy thinking about it like this.