My Theory on James Bond
We’re getting a new James Bond film, with a brand freaking new guy playing James Bond, later this year. Yipee.
If you’re like me and kind of lost interest in what James Bond does along about when Timothy Dalton took over, you probably won’t care about this new film either. But I like the old school James Bond films, they’re fun and have their silly kitsch factor about them. And go ahead and make fun of me, but after Connery my favorite Bondie is George Lazenby. Yes, I like On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, ‘cause the movie rokkks, man. It’s got one of the better story lines and it’s the deepest you ever get into Bond’s character, since he gets married and all. And then she dies, which is gold, man.
But I’ve got a theory about all this James Bond stuff.
It started out with the last Bond film, Die Another Day. It was the 40th anniversary of the Bond juggernaut and they had a scene where the then-current Bond, Pierce Brosnan, was with John Cleese’s Q, and in the scene they’re walking through Q’s workshop and they have a lot of different gadgets and weapons that Bond used over the decades. Bond picks up the shoe dagger from From Russia with Love and looks at it like he has no idea what it is, just this quizzical look. He puts it down after pondering it a moment, but it sparked something in me. And I think I figured out who “James Bond” is.
Another thought — in the new film, Casino Royale, new Bond, the butt-kicking Daniel Craig, is shown earning his two zeros the only way that he can earn them — by assassinating two people. Later on Judi Dench’s M speaks with Bond. Now, if this were some sort of origin story, as it’s being purported to be, shouldn’t M look a little bit like Bernard Lee, who played him for decades before he died? If we’re going waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back to tell how James became who he is, why is M a woman? I don’t think MI6 from 1964 would want anybody else but Moneypenny.
Because there are many James Bonds, and the name is a pseudonym for someone else hiding behind the persona.
And it’s backed up by the line said by Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service -
James Bond: [to the camera)) This never happened to the other fellow.
It makes sense. If Daniel Craig has to earn his ‘00’ title then Judi Dench can be there, since Daniel Craig’s “James Bond” is circa 2006, not 1964. And it explains why Brosnan can eye a dagger shoe like a dork.
It totally makes sense. And you know me, I’m never wrong. Ever!