I preparation for No Time To Die I have been re-watching the Daniel Craig Bond films. It’s the first time I have watched them all back to back. A few things sprang to mind watching them.
- Casino Royale stands alongside From Russia with Love as the best films about Bond, rather than the best Bond Movies, in that they can be appreciated on their own merits away from the franchise and its baggage.
- Quantum of Solace is the misunderstood and underappreciated masterpiece that I always suspected. A direct sequel to Casino Royale, it takes virtually nothing other than its title from Ian Flemings novels, but in its tone it is probably the closes in style and tone to the source material.
- Roger Deakins should have won the cinematography Oscar for Skyfall, he was robbed by a CGI spectacular.
- Spectre is a better film than I gave it credit for, despite the Blofeld reveal that was even worse than I remember.
But, on thing stands out over all of this. There is a missing film between Quantum of Solace and Skyfall.
Let me explain; Casino Royale gives us the Young upstart. Quantum of Solace is a direct sequel pick it up moments after Casino Royale’s epilogue. A slightly jaded, almost broken man working through the loss and apparent betrayal of Vesper, coming out the other side, moulded rather than healed, the complete Bond, cold, cruel, detached, but able to appreciate, if not enjoy life. Something akin to the best of Cornery, Dalton or Brosnan, but more importantly the character seen on the pages of Fleming’s books.
But then Skyfall has an older Bond past his prime, fighting for relevance, we are missing a movie. We need to look at M (Judi Dench) aka Basil Exposition for to explain this. It was M after all who on her first screen meeting with Bond (Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye) called him “a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War“. In Casino Royale (2006) just after giving Bond his 00 status, his licence to kill, she told him “I knew it was too early to promote you” but just six years later in Skyfall (2012) she said “You know the rules of the game. You’ve been playing it long enough“. Future M, Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) tells Bond “It’s a young man’s game.” Craig’s Bond has always been on his way up, or past his best.
The speculation for No Time to Die is that Bond has retired and his 007 codename has passed to Nomi (Lashana Lynch). This in itself could be problematic, as I can’t see Bond being retired, by the end of the film this means they have to find a way of giving him back his 007 code. If Nomi is indeed 007, how will this pas back to Bond? Kill, demote, or incapacitate her, or even worse something akin to 006 Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean). Let’s not forget, she is potential not only the first female 00, but the first none white one. Her fate is far more significant than that of 006, 002, 004 (The Living Daylights), and 009 in (Octopussy). 
I’m getting off track; the Daniel Craig movies are the best Bond movies, and I don’t want to see the character turn into the Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan versions of the character, who had far more misses than hits in terms of the quality of their movies. However, I would have liked to have seen Craig have a film as an established character, not one on the way up or down, and one where he gets to have a little fun with the part, think: You Only Live Twice (1967), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), or GoldenEye (1995). Sadly this will not happen, but we may get to see the other thing I want to see, Bond coming out of retirement, sadly it won’t be an older Bond; Timothy Dalton, or Pierce Brosnan but it’s still an idea with real millage. One thing is certain,
James Bond WILL return!
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