 The James Bond franchise is celebrating its 60 year anniversary on the big screen. And if you look at the original source material, the novels, they've been around for almost 70 years. But of course, we aren't looking at an elderly 007 on the big screen. And yet, it is commonly accepted that it was supposed to be the same character we're looking at from 1962's Dr. No all the way to 2002 in Die in Harday. And the franchise took a full reboot for Daniel Craig's Bond films starting in 2006. A separate universe that ended with no time to die. So in a way, you could say so far, the Bond films have two universes. The first 20 films and the 5 Daniel Craig films. But how does this work in the continuity? How did we get 5 different faces in the first 20 Bond films? And how did Bond never age throughout those 40 years? It is commonly accepted that this is just the way it is. Bond simply is a timeless hero. And the franchise has always prided itself in constantly renewing itself and moving along with the times. All of those 20 films are separate Bond adventures. And up until the Daniel Craig Bond films, continuity never played a big part of the movies. Or did it? Well, if you take a closer look, there is a lot more continuity than you think in those first 20 movies. Sean Connery took on the role of Bond at the age of 31. And technically, in terms of age, the Bond character did grow older all the way to the 14th Bond film, A Few to a Kill, for the simple reason that Roger Moore is older than Connery. Thus, age-wise, the continuity works for the first 14 films. The series took a soft reboot bringing on Timothy Dalton, who is a lot younger and they did it again with Brosnan after that. Because this doesn't work with the whole age thing, mostly casual Bond fans subscribe to the idea that James Bond is a code name. And I say that these are mostly weekend Bond fans who don't know much about the franchise, because you will find that there is pretty much no die-hard Bond fan around that subscribes to that idea. Here's how their theory goes. James Bond is just a code name, an identity taken with the 007 title. When, say, Agent Sean Connery retires and, say, Agent Lazerbee takes over the mantle, he then takes over the name James Bond, and so on and so forth. According to them, this would explain why Bond looks different with every actor and doesn't age every time a new actor is brought in. While you can say this is an interesting theory, this really doesn't hold up. We see Lazerbee has shared memories of the previous adventures he's been on, while it was actually Connery's Bond who went on these adventures. The filmmakers deliberately put these in to remind us he is, in fact, the same character. Furthermore, Bond gets married to Tracy, who is killed at the end of the film. If James Bond was just the code name, Roger Moore's Bond wouldn't visit her grave in For Your Eyes Only. Another reference put in there to remind us he is still the same guy. We also wouldn't have had any of these lines. Because if Bond was a different man every time, taking on the code name of James Bond, why would all of them have lost their wife on that one moment? Furthermore, there is this reference. It would be a bit of a stretch to think that Brosnan and Lazerbee's Bond happened to share the same family motto if they were two different guys taking on a code name. Furthermore, if you get the code name James Bond when you become Agent 007, then Agent Nomi would have been called James Bond in No Time to Die when C briefly was 007. James Bond retired from the Secret Service in that film, so if it was a code name he would no longer be called James Bond. The same holds for Timothy Dalton as soon as he gets his license revoked. So the code name theory doesn't work and, again, is just something casual moviegoers like to hold up. But official continuity doesn't always hold up either. In Honor Majesty Secret Service, Lazerbee gets this infamous fourth wall breaking line. This is one of the worst moments in the franchise for me and only feeds into that stupid code name theory. Why would Lazerbee clearly reference Connery if he is the same guy? It's a clear, stupid, fourth wall breaking joke that was an off-camera joke with Lazerbee constantly saying the line whenever he had to do something that Connery never had to do. So director Peter Hunt thought it was funny and had the line placed in the movie. In the same movie they do remind us again that he is in fact the same character with all the memories of Connery's Bond films. More problems arise, however, when Lazerbee's Bond and Blofeld don't recognize each other, and they clearly supposed to have already met in the previous Bond film. This is because Honor Majesty Secret Service is a very fateful adaptation of the novel and in the novels, which do have logical continuity, this was supposed to be the very first instance that Bond and Blofeld meet each other face to face. Because they wanted to film this novel as fateful as possible, the filmmakers didn't bother with any sort of continuity, which does harm the overall continuity and again feeds into the stupid codename theory. But as mentioned, he is the same character in the first 20 films. He has the same family motto and lost the same wife. So how do we explain him getting younger later down the line? The fact is, we simply don't. The Bond films are what they are and aren't meant to be examined in continuity, at least not until the Craig Bond films take place in a separate universe in which Bond happened to become 007 in the modern day, instead of during the Cold War, and lost Vesper instead of Tracy. But even in the Craig films, there are continuity problems. Like how Bond wins his DB5 from a villain in Casino Royale, but then later on in Skyfall, it turns into the gadget laden DB5 from Goldfinger, including the ejector seat, the license plate, and the steering wheel on the right side instead of on the left when he won it in Casino Royale, so there will always be minor continuity problems. So what if I told you, I have my own way to view the Bond continuity, make sense of the aging problem, fix the continuity issues between Majesties and Connery's films without subscribing to the codename theory. How you ask? You know how we all easily accept that Daniel Craig's Bond films take place in a separate universe? He is a James Bond that goes on different adventures to the Bond in the first 20 films. What if we just view every Bond actor's tenure as a separate universe? So instead of two continuities, you have six universes. This fixes most of the problems I brought up so far in the video. We can all accept that there happen to be multiple incarnations of Batman and Spider-Man, all of which are called Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker, and all of which meet similar characters in different ways. None of these are codenames, or how there are multiple incarnations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, each living in the sewers of New York with the same names and a rat as their senpai called Splinter, battling their own incarnations of the evil shredder. Why not view the Bond films in this way? This would explain why Lays and Bees Bond doesn't happen to meet Blofeld until this film. And his Bond just happened to go on Doctor No and from Russia with love like Avengers in his universe too. It's not that hard to imagine his Bond lived through similar adventures as well. Roger's Bond and Dalton and Braston just happened to have lost their incarnations of Tracy too at some point, in the same way the turtles have their own incarnations of April O'Neill. There is no codename involved. This would also explain why Roger's Bond meets characters like the Minister of Defense and General Gogol all the time and there are no such characters in Connery's universe. And how in Connery's universe you can have this line. About 10 kilos in a blonde case, brown like your eyes. Keep it technical. Well most other Bond's have blue eyes. I mean if every Bond has his own universe all of this is no problem. Or why Dalton's Bond happens to be younger in his universe and why his money penny is unique to his movies too. The same holds for Braston. His universe happens to take place in the modern MI6 building and he has his own money penny too, as well as a female M. You could bring up how Judy Densis M shows up in Craig's universe too, which is even officially supposed to be a separate universe. But that is easily explained too. Judy Densis clearly played two different M's. In Braston's universe she is shown to be the new head of MI6, brought on after the Cold War, which is brought up in numerous moments in GoldenEye. She is shown to be the new one and they mention the predecessor. Her incarnation of M in the Braston films is supposedly called Barbara Motsley. Her incarnation in the Craig films is supposed to be a seasoned head of MI6 who had been playing the game for years and was the head during the Cold War already as heard in this line. This clearly is a completely different incarnation to the M she played in the Braston movies. In Craig's universe she is officially called Olivia Mansfield. Judy Densis just happened to have been asked to play M in both universes because she is a great actress. So by viewing it as 6 separate universes, a lot of the continuity problems are solved without having to subscribe to the code name theory. While not official, my solution here honestly works for me to make sense of most of these problems. So, in the future we would just start the tenure of the 7 bond actor, likely getting his own separate universe and continuity once again anyway. So, this theory can always hold up. What do you guys think? Hope you found this video informative and fun. Please leave a like, subscribe if you liked this video and, if you want to go the extra mile, consider supporting my channel on Patreon. Not only will you get amazing rewards, you will also collectively work towards the next Patreon goal of releasing the big top 25 bond films. Thanks a lot for watching and see you guys in the next video.