What scenario could spark Bond's return?

With hoping the series doesn’t dare feed into the much expected death of Bond’s loved one following the capture of Blofeld, what situation do you think would be paramount enough to spark Bond’s return to the service (assuming he is taking time away following SPECTRE’s ending)?

I was thinking, with trying to avoid any personal connections at all (because it’s bloody time), what if the Prime Minister was captured? It would have to be a suit outside the walls of MI6… 007’s devotion to his country has already been proven enough to bring him back onto the rails, so something like that could work.

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I’m reluctant about using political figures for these McGuffins. Many in the audience wouldn’t mind the odd character disappearing and cinema-politicians in general are seldom made of the cloth that would make people relate to them.

Personally I would prefer if Bond just indulges his snoopy side in the doldrums of civil life and thereby stumbles about a greater scheme that makes him contact SIS.

I agree - Bond should not engage in a politically charged storyline. The adventure aspect should be played up again, with the villain rooted in reality, sure, but picking up on an realistic aspect and taking it to another level.

The best examples for me were the abduction of nuclear bombers or submarines in THUNDERBALL and THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, the bioterror in ON HER MAJESTY´S SECRET SERVICE, the drug scheme in LIVE AND LET DIE, the Cold War lunatic trying to start another world war in OCTOPUSSY, the media mogul trying to start a world war in TOMORROW NEVER DIES and the secret war for water rights in QUANTUM OF SOLACE.

I hadn’t given this much thought till now. It is a significant problem the writers and producers will have to solve. And in a way I’m not sure they can, as if it done minimally with a throwaway ‘Good to have you back, 007’ line it will be pointless and unbelievable, yet if it forms the genesis of the story I worry it won’t actually be too relevant to what the story ends up being. It might be a Skyfall (‘I need that list’) scenario where it starts off with Bond finding a lead or something but after 20 minutes that’s out the window and it’s business as usual. Who knows? I’m going to have to pace myself if we have 2.5 years of speculation lol.

Everyone likes to say Craig’s Bond is closest to Fleming’s (though I don’t see it myself). Fleming’s Bond is unable to make a relationship last, so problem solved. Just have Bond come back, say, “It didn’t work out,” and we’re back in business. It’s not like he has any marketable skills besides killing, anyway.

I didn’t see any chemistry between Bond and Madeleine, personally, so I don’t need a drawn-out plot to get them apart.

I just hope there’s no more Blofeld.

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Fair points!

Although, if Bond is to return in a “business as usual” scenario, it would have to be a Bond other than Craig’s. Character-wise, in my opinion, Craig’s Bond has been largely motivated by his ego. For him to swallow his pride, and just leave his return to the service up to “things just not panning out with Madeline” would be much unlike the path we’ve been lead down thus far.

Since it will be four years in real time between SPECTRE and BOND 25 it will be hard to establish a shorter timespan between Bond and Madeleine driving away and the new film to begin.

But who would believe that Bond has retired and lived with Madeleine for four years?

This actually makes it more credible to start with Bond being in the service again, with someone mentioning his “retirement” in a derogatory way and Bond being angry about that.

In any event, it is again a problem of time which drags down the whole Craig era. Three years after QOS Bond has become a tired, washed up agent in SKYFALL despite having started out as a 00 only a few years ago. Then SPECTRE seems to start not so long after SKYFALL - and Bond is ready to quit again, despite appearing very eager to be an agent “with pleasure” at the end of SKYFALL.

Man, this CraigBond really is a moody bastard.

Maybe a pre-title-sequence telling us in flashback why Bond is going back to work really is the solution. But the more I think about it the more I get back to that old narrative crutch of Madeleine being killed - and thereby connecting everything to a final Blofeld/Spectre-confrontation. Maybe that´s where CraigBond was headed anyway: to finally exorcise that OHMSS-element which did not work as well with Lazenby and needed to get a remake.

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Skyfall has already shown that Bond will feel compelled to return to active service if he deems the situation bad enough. They could go down that road again if they wanted. I’m opting for an attempt on Madeleine’s life at the moment though.

True.

But this behaviour contradicts LTK´s great line “This is no country club, 007!” He cannot resign and come back whenever he feels like it. I wish this would be dealt with storywise.

What about this: When Bond goes off with Madeleine at the end of Spectre he was really acting as ordered. M told him to build up the cover of the resigned agent because they knew that Spectre would try to get hold of him. Bond is supposed to draw out Spectre´s new head and henchmen, maybe even apply for a job in their ranks.

And I would really love it if Madeleine turned out to be Irma Bunt herself…

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Better yet: Turns out when Bond drove away with Madeleine at the end of SP, he was taking her to the train station so she could leave town. We never actually saw a scene where he resigned, so who’s to say he did.

And one better: the train he put her on had a car for autos and he gave her the Aston Martin, so the filmmakers can’t lean on that lazy crutch any more.

This.

Frankly, I can’t stand the thing any more. I didn’t even like the idea of Bond keeping a vintage vehicle. Since GOLDENEYE it’s as if a Bond film must have the DB5. Please no more…

I think they deliberately made SP’s ending ambiguous since they did not know whether it would be Craig’s finale in the role or not. Is Bond deliberately resigning from MI6 or he is just going for a vacation? I’d be perfectly happy if Madeleine’s fate was the same as Tatiana Romanova’s, Domino Derval’s, Kissy Suzuki’s, Kara Milovy’s et al in the sense that she’s never mentioned or heard from again and it’s left totally up to the imagination of the viewer. I’d still like for the series to keep the DB5 though.

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Exactly. And why is there this lack of confidence in one of the most successful Bond actors?

When Roger Moore was Bond they deliberately went the other way and nixed most of the typical ingredients.

I hunger for another Lotus…

Well, if not a Lotus then something fresh at least. There are numerous alternatives that convince not just on an aesthetic level but also with regards to performance. Digging out the same old vehicle - a veritable museum piece by now - time and again to me speaks less of tradition but a lack of imagination.

… and the desperate attempt at making Craig “the real Bond” who has to have that car.

To be fair, even Brosnan got the Aston Martin in GOLDENEYE - but they did not make such a fuss about it.

For my taste, putting it in SKYFALL again (after CR) was fine. But to resurrect it in SPECTRE was unneccessary. It would have worked much better if they had killed off Dench-M AND the Aston Martin to lay the groundwork for a new path.

I agree about the car. If anything, the way it was used in SKYFALL was a fitting end to its lineage. It’s saves Bond’s skin one final time before going up in flames…

I wouldn’t mind at all if the next Bond wasn’t driving an Aston, in fact. I love the cars, but the latest model they used I wasn’t crazy about.

It doesn’t work in Skyfall, either. Craig’s Bond cannot have the tricked out Goldfinger DB5, full stop. He might still have the one he won in CR, but why would he have a lethally-equipped antique car in his personal storage? Why would Q branch outfit an antique, and even if they did, why would they let Bond keep it? Do the Marines get to bring home armored personnel carriers and rocket launchers? (“Good job on that last campaign. Here, have a bazooka as a souvenir.”)

If it IS his, why would Q branch have it in the shop in SP? Is that another perk of working for MI-6? They fix your car for you? I remember how peeved Bernie Lee’s “M” was when he thought Q was fixing Bond’s personal wristwatch; he must be rolling in his grave, now.

But wait, it must be his personal car because he presents it as the perfect way to go “off the grid” in SF. MI-6 can track all their vehicles, but there’s no tracker in his personal car. Which has machine guns and an ejector seat.

But wait, M knows about the ejector seat, so this can’t be her introduction to the car, so it must have been equipped by Q-branch. But if so, why did they leave out the tracking device, and why did they let Bond stick it in a garage they don’t control?

But wait, it MUST be government property because Q “jokes” he didn’t tell Bond to “bring it back in pieces” in SP. So that’s why he’s fixing it. But then Bond comes back and asks for it, possibly having LEFT the service, and Q hands it over.

I guess somebody, somewhere gets a thrill out of seeing this thing shoe-horned into Craig’s films, but it’s more a source of headaches to me than thrills. It makes no sense.

Then again it did give us that scene in SF where it blows up and the normally stone-faced Craig just about pops his eyeballs out with an “Oh, HELL NO!” rage face that had the audience I saw it with laughing out loud. And I’m pretty sure that’s not what Mendes was going for.

The DB5 turned into a Discworld artifact, a Schroedinger device both destroyed/mint condition and Bond’s/SIS property.

I just think it’s interesting that not only do they lean heavily on this crutch (look, he’s got the DB5, so he must be James Bond) but now, in re-building it from scrap, they’re admitting their complete dependence on it, and suggesting that without it, there can be no 007. That’s pretty amazing to me, and not in a good way. Even Star Trek replaced the Enterprise a few times, but the Bond series is strangely hooked on not just a DB5, but one specific DB5. A car which, again, cannot even logically exist in the current timeline.

Hope we get a new guy in the next one and he drives a Lotus. Or something, anything else. Okay, maybe not a Honda Element.

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Keeping with their attempts at gritty realism, they’ll force Bond back into duty when some bureaucrat, who we later learn is a mole within the British government for Blofeld, sees that Bond didn’t fill out his retirement paperwork correctly, meaning he never officially retired, at which point he drafts Bond back into the service. Bond is then sent on a seemingly unrelated assignment to assassinate some guy, but as we find out later, this was assigned to him at the behest of Blofeld, who detests Bond’s target because the target broke one of Blofeld’s toys as a young child, causing Blofeld to make a vow to avenge his beloved toy one day. The matter is further complicated when Bond reaches the target and sees that he is the son of Kincaide, who babysat him on occasion while Kincaide had to leave the Skyfall estate on business. Bond kills both Blofeld and the target, eliminating everyone that had any connection to his past.

Or so he thinks… :wink: