Personally i’d go with the end of YOLT (novel). Bond loses memory. Then Bond actor 7 has to be un-brainwashed by Molony in Bond 25, remembering who ‘Bond’ is; perfect soft reboot.
But if he’s played by a new actor, Molony won’t know who he is, either. 
Whatever they end up doing for Craig’s last, I would prefer his successor start over with a clean slate. Not another “origin” film – Lord no – but his own continuity, free of Craig’s “baggage.” If nothing else, Craig’s Bond has been very clearly shown to have aged in real time (or faster!), and I seriously doubt Eon wants to hire a 50-something replacement.
Yes, no reboot for Bond 7 please.
Then again… it probably will be 16 years since CR - and studio chiefs love reboots.
I wish Bond 7 would just enter the office and everybody would treat him as the usual 007.
Yes, if it’s good enough for Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton and Brosnan, it’s good enough for the next guy.
With the exception of Laz – who cleaned his desk drawers of Connery’s souvenirs – and a couple passing references to Tracy, there was historically little effort made to tie the Bonds together. For all intents and purposes, they are all unique interpretations of the same character. There is no reason to believe Roger Moore’s Bond once fought Goldfinger, that Connery’s Bond developed a taste for cigars in 1973, that Dalton’s Bond ever swung from a vine and did the Tarzan yell. Yes, Roger lost a wife named Tracy, but did she look like Diana Rigg? Dalton lost a wife, too, but do we even know her name was Tracy? Did Connery’s Bond necessarily get married at all? Yes, there’s that collection of vintage gadgets in DAD, but who’s to say 007 used them all, or when? Maybe they were used by other agents, or by Brosnan on missions we never saw.
Craig has been allowed his own story arc – for better or worse – and if they want to wrap it up with some sort of finality, then fine. But the next guy shouldn’t be impacted by any of that. He should, as you say, just walk into the office, fully formed as a grown-up, competent spy ready to do the job, and we should be left to speculate on what his previous career looked like. Again, I bring up the Batman analogy; Bale’s Batman gets a complete story arc from newbie to vet to broken-down wreck to happy retiree and does it all in a world where he’s the only superhero, then Affleck comes in with a whole new backstory in a world filled with other super-types. If there’s going to be “story progression” and “character development” forced onto 007, then handle it the same way: give each new actor his own sandbox to play in, then scrap it all and start over with the next.
Just skip the origins. Nobody wants to see a “raw and inexperienced” Bond, any more than they need to see a Robin Hood who hasn’t learned how to hold a bow. Or a Darth Vader who hasn’t yet turned evil. (Ahem) Bad enough we’re getting stuck with “young” Han Solo and soon an “origin movie” for The Joker. Some characters work better and have more power if we DON’T see them before they were fully formed.
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I think they’ll probably reboot it each time from now on, but I’d like it if Bond 7 continued on from Pierce Brosnan!
I totally agree. The same man but different. I liked the reboot and thought it worked well, but don’t need to see another. I’d like to see B25 “end clean” with no lingering after-effects for the next guy.
Honestly, aside from the PTS to CR, where expositional dialog establishes the kills we see as being Bond’s “first two”, there’s not much to signify a “reboot.” Yes, Craig’s 007 has more of an attitude problem and less “polish” than the other Bonds, but that could be explained away as an artistic choice rather than his being “under construction.” For all the fuss over CR being a “reboot,” not much is done with it, and a viewer could be forgiven for not realizing one had occurred at all.
We still don’t really know what makes Bond a killer at heart, or why he chose to take on the job, which is fine by me. Some things don’t need exploring. We don’t need to know that his parents were killed by enemy spies, or that he was bitten by a radioactive Corgi. He’s Bond, period. Sure, Vesper taught him how to wear a tuxedo and order a drink, but neither of those things make Bond who he is, and it’s not like they transform him overnight from scruffy brawler to erudite sophisticate. By the next movie, he’s back to casual clothes and rough-edged manners. To the extent CR is a reboot, it’s for “meta” reasons: if Dench is his first boss, then there was never a male “M,” for example. If he doesn’t know about “Shaken, not stirred,” then he can’t ever have said the line in previous movies. Whatever. For me, none of that qualifies as a reboot on the order of what was done with Star Trek, or over and over again with Spider-Man. Or even the kind of “young Bond” proposal on the table for TLD before Cubby nixed it.
Which is why I dread Bond 26. They might really give us an origin, then.
I concur that when Bond #7 appears, he should be 007 taking care of business much as was done with Dalton in TLD. As discussed above, if they choose to go the YOLT route, which as much as I like it, the amnesia angle, while greatly appreciated by the core fans, has been done and capitalized as the basis for the Bourne franchise.
Hell, why not just do a fully contemporized take on YOLT right up to the end and then as a nod to the past, go with Craig and Kissy snuggled up some place cozy while M is trying to locate him. If the rest of film is as well adapted and executed as CR was plus everyone knowing going in that it’s Craig’s last, why not end it old school with just a nod and a wink?
Again, just my two pence.
They may do now but I think audiences growing tired of them, I know I am.
My problem with the amnesia, apart from the Bourne angle, is that much of the story elements were already covered in Skyfall – Bond suffers an injury, is gone for a significant period, returns, and has to pull himself back together. Too much of a retread for my taste.
I’m certainly not advocating a reboot, just a neat opportunity for the new Bond to have his ‘I’m Bond’ moments for the audience to enjoy. It also hasn’t been done before in terms of recasting Bond, which may well be exciting for audience and actor alike. It gives a new spin on the ‘I’m your new Bond’ tropes that have been done to death.
The timeline and story/character arc established by CR should remain, at least in terms of not being repeated; Bond Begins has been done far too well and too recently (even at 16 years) to be retold just yet.
And i believe the audience will happily suspend disbelief on the de-aging front for Craig’s replacement being a decade, or so younger. Such discontinuities are virtually part of the formula.
I understand the apprehension of many here and the desire to simply recast and get on with it. But personally i’d love to see Craig go out on a true(ish) adaptation of YOLT, a la CR with it’s nail biting, cliffhanging final moment. Though it does seem counter intuitive for Craig to end on a cliffhanger, it’d surely be seen as an auspicious and classy exit, rather than the tame ‘everything’s wrapped up and i quit’ ending of Spectre, which garnered little praise.
And what a way for a new Bond to make his entrance - off of such a cliffhanger - the audience would be salivating as to how it will unfold.
*Btw, Bourne is a totally different angle on amnesia. It’s pitch is that he doesn’t know who he is throughout the first movie and his ongoing quest thereafter is to remember everything. Bond’s amnesia is compounded by brainwashing after the fact, but is short lived. After the failed assassination his treatment by Molony involves being told exactly who he is. Thereafter it’s the usual cinematic treat of having Bond rediscover the tropes, but with an intertextual logic that didn’t exist for Lazenby, Moore etc.
It bares far more resemblance to the Manchurian Candidate than to Bourne. Saying that Bond’s amnesia shouldn’t be done because of Bourne is like saying Bourne shouldn’t have been done because of The Manchurian Candidate. And i think we’d all be the poorer without the first 3 superb Bourne movies on our shelves.
If the ending of SP “garnered little praise” I think it’s because it brings an uncomfortable truth to light: There’s no way to end Bond’s journey.
Logically, the odds favor Bond ending up dead, and sooner than later. But do we want to see that? No. Then there’s a lower probability he’ll “find the right girl” and settle down. Do we want to see that? No. There’s the outside chance he’ll live long enough to get moved from active duty to a desk job, maybe running MI-6. Do we want to see that? No.
Bond only works one way and that’s the way it’s always been done (until SP): He succeeds in the mission at hand (albeit sometimes at a cost), the credits roll and we’re promised he’ll “be back.” It’s an open-ended legend, with no end determined. He goes on for 50 years and we accept it. He starts getting old, they give him a new face.
Only one person had the right to create an ending for James Bond, and that person’s been dead since 1964. And even he learned how hard it was to write off 007, after trying it twice.
Craig’s Bond has already bent the rules to the point where I’m willing to let him have an “ending” in the same way Nolan’s Batman got an ending, and for the same reason: he’s different enough from what I consider the “REAL” character that it doesn’t matter. Of course it makes a bit more sense with Nolan since all 3 films are part of one director’s vision, whereas Craig’s era’s a hodge-podge of directors like all Bonds.
As for amnesia, I agree it shouldn’t be jettisoned just because Bourne did it. The point of Bourne is that he doesn’t know why everyone’s after him or why he’s so good at killing them all, and neither do we. Is he a good guy or a bad guy? We don’t know. That story hook is impossible with Bond; even if he doesn’t know who he is, we do.
I love the Manchurian Candidate (and would have liked to see Laurence Harvey play Bond), but it doesn’t end so well for old Raymond, does it? I think it’d be hard to win over audiences with a movie that features a Bond who’s “not himself” and doing the bidding of the bad guys as their brainwashed pawn for the bulk of the film. It’d be a good chance to put Moneypenny or some as-yet unknown MI-6 agent in the “hero” role, but making Bond the “heavy” in his own film is probably one “daring move” Eon will never be ready for.
I agree, Bond shouldn’t be the heavy for the whole film. As i said i’d love to see it adhere to Fleming’s plot line, meaning Bond is only an assassin for Russia (or Spectre, or whomever Eon wish it to be) in the opening act of the story.
In movie terms this would translate perfectly to the pre-credits sequence: We start with Bond entering MI6. It becomes clear that he’ been missing for some time. Bond says he has information for M’ ears only. When the meeting is allowed he attempts to assassinate M, but but fails (thanks to a super fast bullet proof glass partition that instantaneously protects M.
Cut to main title sequence and song.
It’s terrific intro for a new Bond imo, free of the ‘hear we go again’ reactions.
After the main titles Bond is in treatment with Molony. After the treatment the script is free to play with the notion that may not be fully recovered - does a secret ‘trigger’ still exist? But he is certainly not the film’s ‘heavy’. He’s our protagonist and hero from the point the assassination fails and the treatment begins.
His mission is of course to track down those who brainwashed him. The question is will they still have any control over him. It may even be a nice twist to have MI6 pretend Bond succeeded, putting M into hiding and having Bond escape, in order to have his brainwashers come to him thinking he’s still there man. The complexity that Craig will relish as a excellent actor he is, is the self doubt in wondering if he really has been cured, or if a trigger is indeed hidden within him.
Of course this deviates from Fleming’s story, in which Bond goes on the trail of Scaramanga once Molony ‘fixes’ him.
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Not sure if I’m on board with this, but what the heck, I’ll aid you anyway.
Remember that in SP, we’ve already seen Blofenhauser (or whatever) drill into Bond’s brain. Then Bond ends up staging a ridiculously easy escape from the SPECTRE base and blows the whole thing up without breaking a sweat.
Suppose it turns out there was more to it than just the “drilling” and Blofeld has planted the means – either in terms of a miniaturized gadget, a hypnotic suggestion or just surgical damage to a key part of Bond’s brain – to control Bond at a later date? And the “escape” was easy because Blofeld planned it that way (albeit minus the explosions that left him scarred). So Bond rides off to a “happy ending” in the Aston Martin, but then Blofeld escapes, triggers whatever it is in Bond’s brain (possibly just rendering him helpless to allow for a more thorough brainwashing) and then Bond is controlled by Blofeld.
And “robot” Bond kills Madeleine himself. 
Of course, then you’d have to explain why Blofeld uses Bond to try and kill M, when he could cause more damage over time as a “sleeper agent.” Maybe because it’d be the ultimate indignity for Bond?
Or take use of the long gap to have had Bond be a sleeper agent for a while, hes only “activated” in 2019 when there is something Oberhauser/Blofeld wants.
Gotta say: I love both ideas!
This idea of Blofeld having done more to Bond in that dentist’s chair than was revealed had occurred to me too.
But why all the mayhem in that awful, film-ruining final act in London. If Blofeld can now control Bond, then why allow Bond to tell M about C’s betrayal - Blofeld’s existing asset in UK intelligence?
Why the panto of capturing Bond and trying to demolish him along with Maddy and the MI6 building at Vauxhall Cross? Blofeld was shocked and dismayed at Bond having survived to shoot down his helicopter.
These are the reasons i decided against this. However, it is a tempting notion to retrofit that last act as a ruse of some kind if only to rescue Spectre as a movie.
But this whole switcharoo (brain washing happening at the YOLT, instead of afterwards) would also make the story of YOLT moot, skipping straight past it to the opening brain washed conceit of YOLT. Then again… By swapping the order it might make the dark, kaleidoscopic nature of YOLT’s story even better…! Dear oh dear, choices, choices…Who’d be a writer, hey? 
I’ve often thought that the best way to improve Spectre is to simply cut to end titles after Blofeld’s lair explodes and Bond flies away. It would also allow Bond 25 to reveal that Bond had been secretly brain washed/implanted by Blofeld and was allowed to escape.
But, since this isn’t really possible without a time machine, then the writers will need to find another way to explain the the events of the final act in London, somehow making sense of Bond already being Blofeld’s unknowing puppet throughout those scenes in which they tried to kill one another.
If the writers intend this and have figured out how to plausibly retrofit Spectre, then having a brainwashed Bond kill Maddy is a very powerful shocker of an inciting incident and something i’m sure Craig would love to get his teeth into as an actor.
While they’re at it Bond may as well break out Blofeld from prison too.
But seeing as how Eon have struggled to have a script written without plot holes, it’s a tall order for them to start with an idea that comes fitted with already existing plot holes. A shame, because the twists it would allow would be a ride.
And i really want to see that ending, with amnesiac Bond heading off to the bad guys, thinking he’s one of theirs because of a headline he saw on a piece of newspaper he was using as toilet paper. That is some beautiful effing writing from Fleming; a simple, everyday thing leading to a huge, twisted corner turn in the story. Man was a genius.
I like the idea of a cliffhanger. In hindsight, the pretitle sequence of Skyfall would’ve made a great ending for Craig. I can envision the new Bond being introduced by M looking up at the person walking into his office and saying “Welcome back 007, I hope you’re feeling better. We have a new mission for you.” That’s it, no rebooting or big hubub - just a welcome back.
There’s a very easy way to do it: Have everything after the chair torture be a dream of Bond’s. He never got out of the chair, Blofeld never got those stupid scars, the fight in London didn’t take place (it makes no sense, anyway) and that ridiculously easy escape from the “volcano” hideout was a dream Bond assembled from playing too many video games (or watching old Bond movies). And he didn’t turn pacifist and decide to traipse off with Madeleine to run a B&B on the site of the old Skyfall lodge (or grow flowers in Holland, or whatever they’ve got planned). For that matter, the “reveal” that Oberhauser is Blofeld – and his freaking “half brother” or whatever – is also part of Bond’s hallucinations as the brainwashing takes place. What kind of idiot would change his name to something as lame as “Ernst Stavro Blofeld”? Why not “Joe Sexybod” or “Maximilian Superbrain”?
Bond shows up in the next film with everyone astonished to learn he’s still alive. Blofeld is still on the loose. Bond is his pawn.
Not that we need to bend over backwards. Sure, it’d be hard to reconcile the end of SP with a “brainwash” scenario, but considering they’ve already asked us to believe that ridiculous hogwash about the events of CR, QoS and SF all be “orchestrated” by Blofenhauser, they obviously don’t care much for our intelligence. Compared to that tripe, it’d be a relatively minor affront.
With Bond waking up, going to the bathroom only to find Blofeld in the shower. If Waltz doesn’t return, may we please have Patrick Duffy for that one?
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