After a five-year wait, we’ll be getting the creatively titled No Time To Die next year, which is already hyping fans up. James Bond 007 has been active onscreen for almost sixty years now, making it perhaps the longest-running series there is in cinematic history. What’s even more incredible is that the series has retained tropes that don’t really make sense.
There’s always a formula with James Bond films, something that has been specifically carried forward due to its tried-and-tested success. This also has led to several plot points being be ignored, as the filmmakers simply don’t bother to come up with explanations. For you to understand further, here are 10 things about 007 that don’t make sense.
What Happens To His Former Lovers?
The new James Bond movies with Daniel Craig have done a good job at explaining why the women he hooks up with aren’t around him, but the original continuity baffles the mind with the disappearance of Bond’s past women.
At the end of each film, James would be shown romancing his main love interest, only for that woman to go unmentioned the following movie. Pierce Brosnan’s Bond mentioned that his relationships didn’t work out, but it seems highly unlikely that James had a relationship with each of these women and they all broke up with him.
Bond And Blofeld Not Recognizing Each Other
Blofeld was the main antagonist of the earlier James Bond films, with the villain having numerous appearances across movies. This is why it’s laughable for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service to suggest Blofeld didn’t who Bond was.
The two had come face to face in just the previous movie in You Only Live Twice, where Blofeld had ordered Bond’s death, only for Blofeld to come across Bond again and have no clue who he was! The actor changed from Sean Connery to George Lazenby, but in-universe it was the same person, making Blofeld look like a total goof.
M's Hatred Of Bond
Out of every M, there has been, it was Judi Dench’s version who has become the most iconic. One of the reasons she had such great chemistry with both Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig was because her character despised James Bond, leading to entertaining exchanges between the two.
While Skyfall was an amazing movie, it didn’t align with this established characterization, as here M came across as something of a motherly figure to James instead. This retroactively brings up the question as to why M disliked James in the first place, seeing as Bond cared for her enough to cry at her death.
Silva's Plan
Silva was shown as having masterminded the plot to get M killed so he could have his revenge on her, but it was based on impossible to predict scenarios to be achieved. Here are the bizarre things that needed to happen.
For one, Silva needed the mercenary Patrice to die at Bond’s hands, hope Bond would trace back to the casino and happen upon Severine on coincidence, who would lead him to Silva, who himself wanted to be captured! Finally, he would have to pray Q would inadvertently release Silva’s virus so he could escape...and then lead Bond to a subway station to have a freaking train dropped on him. None of this can be planned and would have to be left to fate.
Women Falling For Him When They Claimed They Wouldn't
There have been a sizable amount of women Bond has charmed upon first meeting itself, where the same woman would claim that she had no intention of falling for his moves.
More recently, we’ve seen women like Vesper, Strawberry, and Madaleine all assert themselves on Bond as being resistant to his charms, only to give in soon enough. Surely, Bond can't be that smooth of a guy. Strawberry in particular interacted with James because her job was to turn him away back to London; she achieved nothing other than falling for him, which also led to her death.
The Ending Of Moonraker
This might be a ridiculous point to talk about, but in this case, Bond's ability to charm a woman was such that he was able to defy the laws of biology. Moonraker’s ending saw Bond and the Bond girl for the film, Holly Goodhead, in an embrace before heading back to Earth.
Here, the joke was that a camera on their shuttle caught them in the act while the higher-ups were disgusted with Bond’s antics in space. However, Bond being close to Holly really can’t be possible considering they were literally floating around. You’d think the director would’ve used this joke in a more realistic scenario.
Bond's Plans After He Got Married
Since James doesn’t even bother to use an alias when conducting his spy activities, it’s understandable that he got tracked down by Blofeld and his henchmen, which resulted in his wife Tracy’s death.
Even though Bond could have retired, it goes without saying that Tracy’s death was on the cards. Bond was still at odds with Blofeld, and him getting married only made his wife an easy target. It didn’t make sense for him to think he could be out of the spy life, which means he basically caused Tracy’s death this way.
Bond's Magical Regenerative Abilities
An early plot point in Skyfall was that Bond wasn’t able to meet the criteria for fieldwork due to his lagging skills after the incident that happened at the beginning of the movie. We were shown James struggling with stuff like shooting accurately and fitness tests, with the implication that this would be a factor later on.
However, the second half of the movie totally ignored this development and Bond was never more skilled than seen here. He mowed down scores of men on his own and killed Silva off with an accurate flinging of a knife from a considerable distance away as if he were Batman. So, was it magic that caused this sudden regeneration?
Blofeld's Grand Scale Plans
To put a long story short: Blofeld turned out to be James’s brother, and some personal issues caused the former to hold Bond in perpetual contempt. This might have been okay, but it turned out everything from Casino Royale onwards had purposefully happened on Blofeld’s part - he orchestrated things in a way that he would get Bond.
However, that’s just not the case, as James was never placed specifically on a mission and him being assigned to these cases was the decisions of his superiors. Even the villains of these earlier movies had no clue that Bond would step in to challenge them, which means the only logical in-universe explanation is that Blofeld had to hope and pray Bond would be assigned to his missions on a pure fluke.
What Is Up With The Monologuing?
Seriously, why the heck do all the villains have to tell Bond what their plans are before killing him? It doesn’t make a lick of sense as to why anyone would want to waste time telling their schemes to someone who’s just going to die the next moment.
And yet, every Bond villain has so many opportunities to kill the guy, but choose to keep him alive in order to monologue for no reason. It would make sense if they only planned to incapacitate him, but these guys hoped Bond would be killed; any sensible person would shoot Bond, since there’s no point in talking to him.