Let’s kick things off with a big old spoiler warning. There will be spoilers here for No Time to Die, there will spoilers here for the previous four movies in Daniel Craig’s time as James Bond, and will likely be spoilers here for every Bond movie that has come before that. So stop reading this if you haven’t yet seen the latest Bond movie and still want to be surprised by what happens in it.
No, Mr Bond, I Expect You to Die!
If you’ve seen No Time to Die, you’ll know that Daniel Craig’s tenure as James Bond comes to a pretty definitive end. James Bond dies. After being “poisoned” by Safin’s bioweapon, rendering him unable to ever come into contact with Madeleine or Mathilde without instantly killing them, he makes the ultimate sacrifice for queen, for country, and for love.
Bond’s death is a franchise first. But one that makes perfect sense given Daniel Craig’s narrative arc over the last five movies.
Remember that Casino Royale was essentially a reboot. In that one, we meet a James Bond who had just received his OO status. Over the course of that movie, and in the ones that followed, Bond was reimagined as a man who was manufactured to be a weapon, but was always looking for a way out. He was always searching for his happy ending. (Hell, he “retires” in some way or other in three of those five movies, only to be dragged back into yet another scheme!) Craig’s Bond, while presenting a hard and unforgiving front, was nevertheless a far more sympathetic, and thoughtful, and vulnerable version of the character. He falls in love. He’s haunted by his past. His missions have been far more personal, motivated by revenge, and driven by his own private demons.
Unlike previous installments in the franchise, the Craig movies weren’t standalone adventures. Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre, and No time To Die were an attempt to tell one interconnected story about the character. They didn’t always succeed, but this final movie manages to rewrite and retcon enough of their missteps in order to give Daniel Craig a truly satisfying farewell. Bond’s death in No Time to Die felt like a fitting and appropriate end to this narrative arc and Daniel Craig’s time as the character.
But Is It James Bond?
Now I know what you’re thinking. James Bond doesn’t fall in love. James Bond isn’t soppy and sensitive. James Bond can’t die. Only he does. He is. And he can. Despite sometimes being elevated to superhero status, one of the most compelling things about Bond is the fact that he is, in fact, human. He is well trained. He is highly skilled. Sure, he occasionally fights bad guys in space, but he is still very much one of us. Ish.
The popular image of James Bond has always been that of a martini drinking, womanizing cad, as ready with his gun as he is with a quippy one liner. But Bond has always been far more complex than that – always evolving, always moving forward. Change is something that is baked into the character. (How else could the franchise survive almost 60 years?)
Timothy Dalton’s first outing as the character, which came when the world was in the grips of the AIDS epidemic, was far more monogamous than his predecessors. Pierce Brosnan’s Bond was described by Judi Dench’s M as “sexist, misogynist dinosaur…” and a “relic of the Cold War.” And George Lazenby fell in love and even got married.
Daniel Craig’s version is, in fact, and amalgam of all those versions. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service first gave us a loving and delicate Bond. Licence to Kill paved the way for the darkness and grit that we got in the Daniel Craig movies. And GoldenEye painted him has a blunt instrument long before M says it out loud in Casino Royale.
So What Does It All Mean?
How can James Bond be dead? What does it mean for future installments in the franchise? Why was there a title card at the end of No Time to Die that read: “James Bond Will Return”? How?
One way of looking at it is that No Time to Die is merely the final chapter of this Bond story that began in 2006 with Casino Royale. It is something separate from the ones with Sean Connery and Roger Moore. If we can accept that Craig’s Bond in that movie was just starting out as 007, then by extension, it is also an acknowledgment that his version stands apart from say Brosnan’s and Dalton’s.
James Bond has never been just one character. There is no way that Roger Moore’s Bond and Sean Connery’s Bond are the same person. How can we even begin to reconcile the cold grit of one with the flippant campness of the other. It is a fact acknowledged by the producers and filmmakers, sometimes with tongue-in-cheek, like when George Lazenby says at the beginning of his movie that “this never happened to the other fellow,” or more implicitly when they decide to completely reboot the character like they did in Casino Royale.
These sorts of self-contained arcs are something that is very prevalent in comic book storytelling. Superman and Batman have died many times in many different stories. And it helps to not think about their adventures as taking place in just one continuity, but rather as different examples of how these extraordinary characters, with their own unique quirks and qualities, respond in a variety of situations. Death in these stories isn’t an end, but rather a narrative device that is used to test the moral fortitude of our heroes.
James Bond Is Dead, Long Live James Bond!
Over the next couple of years, we will be inundated with rumors about who the next James Bond will be. Every actor who looks good in a tuxedo will be put forward as a possible replacement. There will be dozens of think pieces on why the next Bond should be Black, or Indian, or a woman. The cycle of speculation begins again as Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson decide on the future of the franchise.
Now I can’t say I really care if the next Bond is Sam Heughan or Dev Patel. I believe that any actor who decides to take on the mantle will no doubt rise to the occasion. For me, what they decide to do with the character is far more interesting than the person playing it.
Since 2006, we’ve had a dark and gritty James Bond. Now that it’s come to an end, maybe it’s time to go back to the charm and camp of those Roger Moore years. Maybe it’s time to do something different and have some fun with the character again. There was always a heaviness to the Daniel Craig movies. But as we struggle to come out of the other side of this pandemic, I think it’s definitely time to embrace the more escapist side of James Bond. More thrills. More spills. Skipping over the backs of crocodiles. Jumping a car off a broken bridge with a corkscrew flourish thrown in for good measure. That sort of thing.
Whomever the new Bond is, and whatever the form the character takes, the one thing that needs to happen is a complete reboot. There needs to be a new M, and a new Q, and a new Moneypenny. All of those parts need to be recast, if only so they don’t undermine the emotional impact of having those characters eulogize Bond at the end of Not Time to Die.
Also, just give Lashana Lynch her own spinoff already. We spend far too little time with Nomi in No Time to Die, but she is most definitely a character that we want to see more of.
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