After the release of No Time To Die, Daniel Craig will finally be replaced as James Bond, but the franchise can continue the continuity established during his movies in the role. James Bond has been through 25 screen adventures, and in that time the suave spy has been played by six actors. There is not a lot of consistency between Bond outings, with some efforts being campy, escapist affairs while others are dark and self-serious.
Few other cinematic franchises could veer between a movie as dark as 2006’s Casino Royale to an outing as goofy as Die Another Day. However, the lack of a singular consistent backstory or lore in the 007 series has made this tone shifting possible. That said, viewers are beginning to expect consistency from long-running franchises, and keeping the Bond backstory established by Craig’s time playing the spy could let the series achieve this.
There is no denying, particularly after the countless delays faced by No Time To Die’s release, that 007 is overdue for a new face. However, the next adventure in the franchise should confirm the popular fan theory that "James Bond" is a codename and keep the Craig-era canon as a result. The Craig movies were some of the first to delve deeper into Bond’s childhood, his formative years as an agent and his backstory, and this would all be a wasted effort if Craig’s spy is written out of existence when he is replaced. A better approach would be to fix the James Bond franchise by bringing back more escapist fun to the espionage adventures, but keeping the elements established during Craig’s tenure both to ground the action in something resembling reality and to give the series some consistency between installments.
In an era when most of the major franchises are fantasy/sci-fi focused (Marvel, DCEU) or are so over-the-top they might as well be (Fast & Furious), Craig’s Bond kept the grounded elements of his early movies in the role even as Spectre and Skyfall got campier and more escapist. Admittedly, by the end of Craig’s era, the revelation that Blofeld was secretly Bond’s half-brother was a lot goofier than the more serious likes of Quantum of Solace, and few moments from the actor's later Bond outings could match the brutal impact of Casino Royale’s torture scene. However, this is all the more reason for the franchise to hold onto Craig’s lore, as villains like Christoph Waltz’s iteration of Blofeld would be a perfect fit for more fun, self-aware versions of the spy.
The new James Bond should not become an unflappable superhero, but should instead hold onto the (comparatively) realistic tone of Craig’s movie while still having fun with the spy movie tropes of the franchise. Turning the series into a Mission Impossible-style adventure franchise would mean keeping this relatively believable - or at least, not explicitly sci-fi or fantasy - tone while pulling off the ambitious stunts audiences are now accustomed to. To avoid seeming like a relic of a bygone era, the next Bond must fuse Fast & Furious-style fun with a more grounded milieu, and borrowing the sort-of-real world used in Craig’s Bond adventures would go some way to achieving this balance.
If there is one thing that the rise of fandom culture has created, it's an environment wherein creators can make sprawling, ambitious franchises where numerous movies, TV shows, and spinoffs can intersect in the same timeline. One need only look at the MCU to see that most audiences want projects that connect and play off each other, and spinoffs can both deepen the themes of the original movies and fill in plot details that would otherwise be left ambiguous. This makes the idea of Craig’s Bond existing in the same universe as his replacement an appealing one, as it would let the series build on characters established during the actor’s 007 tenure. The Bond franchise could even create spinoffs, John Wick-style, to give the series new life on the big and small screen. With an immediately recognizable supporting cast including figures like Q, M, and Miss Moneypenny, there is no reason the Bond movies could not benefit from the popularity of cinematic universes by extending the franchise to give more key supporting characters starring roles of their own.
Perhaps the most appealing element of keeping Craig’s 007 continuity alive is the fact that, until now, no Bond actor has been able to interact with one another as the two can not exist in the same canon. Fans have long theorized that the reason for 007’s changing face is that James Bond is a codename and the man given this title changes every few years, but the movies have avoided spelling this out for decades. Die Another Day originally confirmed the codename theory with a planned cameo wherein Brosnan’s Bond met Connery’s retired spy briefly, but the moment was misjudged and would not have been at home in the 2002 Bond outing. The winking joke would have been too much in the already-silly movie, but it would be perfect for bridging the gap between Craig’s Bond and the next iteration of the character.
A Craig cameo could establish that Bond is a codename and that the new outings take place in his canon (allowing them to carry over villains and supporting stars) in one fell swoop, while also ensuring the backstory set up for Craig’s 007 is not jettisoned entirely. The problem of Spectre’s corny Blofeld twist could be fixed by revealing Blofeld is only the half-brother of Daniel Craig’s Bond - since the series would now be conceding there are multiple agents with the codename - and other actors like Pierce Brosnan or Timothy Dalton could also cameo in subsequent outings. It is another reason that keeping the Craig-era continuity despite replacing 007’s star would be a good move for James Bond’s first post-No Time To Die cinematic outing.
source https://screenrant.com/james-bond-26-needs-craig-canon-continuity-why-explained/
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