The Last James Bond Movie

James Bond continuity is extremely difficult to keep straight. Any given Bond book, at any rate, will selectively incorporate or ignore information from any previous Bond book at will. How old is he? A teenager in the 1930s, still in his mid-thirties by 2002? However, I will make the following claim: I believe that the 20 films making up the original James Bond movie canon can be synthesised into a single timeline encompassing the adventures of a single, normally-ageing man. I am not saying it wouldn't be difficult - cultural and political references in all the movies may be extremely difficult to deal with depending on how big a difference you are willing to tolerate between the Bond universe and reality, and how much you are willing to allow the central character to age. I actually gave this as a challenge to a Bond enthusiast friend of mine and he politely declined to tackle the subject.

Be that as it may, the Bond franchise was rebooted after the disastrous Die Another Day. There is a new Bond. He started his career in 2006. There are now (at least) two Bond universes.

That means the original James Bond, the one most recently played by Pierce Brosnan, is still out there somewhere. Not dead.

The Last James Bond Movie will be titled James Bond Returns and it will be the Batman: The Dark Knight Returns of the James Bond movie franchise. Bond will be back, for the last time. He will be older and greyer. Maybe even retired, disillusioned, obsolete, unnecessary - "a sexist misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War". Yes, GoldenEye is the best Bond movie. Admit it. He will be brought back or come back voluntarily to fight something that only he can fight; to prove that he will continue to be excellent even into his seventies; to show us how James Bond would really eventually die; and then, in a shocking twist, turn out to still be alive and kicking.

Why not? This, or another Bond movie set in the 1960s. Honestly, the character really doesn't work divorced from that time period. (GoldenEye notwithstanding. Its self-awareness was one of many things which made it great.)