The "Batman Begins" comparison is almost completely accurate and valid but it's a tad different because "Batman Begins" is the beginning of a new continuity and a new series whereas "Casino Royale" is still considered "Bond 21" (and the as-yet-untitled next film is in pre-production as "Bond 22").

"Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" aren't "Batman 5" and "Batman 6".

The books were a great read during the Cold War but may appear dated by today's standards. J.F.K was known to be a fan of the books. I reread one recently and did enjoy it although at times I felt the time warp. Having said that it does make sense to try to follow their publishing schedule as sometimes plot elements, characters, etc. continue into the next title.
1953(!!!!) Casino Royale
1954 Live And Let Die
1955 Moonraker
1956 Diamonds Are Forever
1957 From Russia With Love
1958 Dr. No
and so on.
My recommendations.

That doesn't really mean much. All it says is Casino Royale was the 21st movie with a character named James Bond made by EON studios.

Look at it this way, James Bond is more of a concept than he is one man with continuing adventures. Sure, he'll adapt to fit his era now and then, but he's timeless. He's been around for 45 years in movies. He's had missions through the Cold War and is still active today and as young as ever.

Yeah but "Casino Royale" is really the first film in the series to "reboot". People always say "well continuity was never a big issue in the Bond series anyway" but throughout all of the previous 20 films they were constantly doing things to remind the audience that the Bond they were currently watching was the same Bond that they'd been watching before regardless of actor.

For example, the death of Tracy occurred in Lazenby's film yet it is implied that Connery's Bond is after Blofeld for revenge of Tracy's death and her death is also mentioned in films featuring Moore, Dalton and Brosnan. Furthermore there are scenes in both "OHMSS" and "DAD" where Bond is familiar with gadgets from his previous mission.

My point is that there is a very clear distinction between "Dr. No-Die Another Day" continuity and "Casino Royale" continuity but they are still considered part of the same series and that's not entirely comparable to the "Batman" movies where you can look at them and say "these four are a series and these two are another completely unrelated series".

It's weird, the best comparison you can make with the "Bond" series is actually comic-related. Reboots and various other continuity-cleanup events frequently occur yet the numbering system often stays. In the DC universe there is "Pre-Crisis" and "Post-Crisis" continuity yet the old titles like most of the Superman and Batman books retain their original numbering. That's basically what's happened with the Bond series. "Casino Royale "is the 21st Bond movie made by EON Productions but it's the first "Post-Crisis" movie.

If you'd like another comics analogy, just think of CR as "Ultimate James Bond".

I thought I read somwhere that the Bond music theme is not in this movie. Is this correct? The lack of it made "Never Say Never" feel off-kilter way back when.

while the movie was better then recent bonds, i didnt care for it, too long and way overrated. and did anyone spot how much sony products there were?

He isn't Bond yet, simple as that. He isn't an established badass, he's a newbie that makes a ton of mistakes (and they show). Hell, Bond driving a standard rental got a laugh out of me.

This is the impression I got as well. I've never been a big Bond follower, but even I grasped that this Bond isn't going to be the Bond everyone knows.

Of course, if the next one is the same way, then I was simply justifying a poorly thought out character.

When I saw Bond driving a Ford I nearly spit my beer. Sony and Ford must have contributed greatly to the budget of this movie. Jaguar, Aston Martin, Ford - all owned by Ford Motor Co. (they just sold Aston Martin). I'm suprised that the sucurity discs Bond viewed weren't Blu-Ray.

Where was "The Stunt"? Bond movies have "The Stunt" this had some guy jumping off walls, I saw this in a Coke ad before a movie once. And the truck chase was right out of Raiders of the Lost Arc, I was waiting for Bond to go under the truck.

I did not care for this Bond movie much either.

You can hear riffs and parts from the Bond theme throughout the film. One most notable example is when he arrives in the Bahamas. Otherwise, you don't hear it in its full glory until the last scene. And it's quite effective too.

They were.

If you thought there were a lot of product placements in "Casino Royale," you haven't been paying very close attention to Bond movies over the years. "Moonraker" has to be the worst offender (remember the car chase on a switchback highway, with the lingering shots of billboards at every curve?), but even the Brosnan Bonds are bad. There was a minor uproar when Bond started driving non-British cars because of an advertising deal with BMW.

Bond has traditionally driven Aston Martins, so at least "Casino Royale" got him back to his roots, carwise.

The only time I remember hearing the Bond theme before the very end was when he wins the poker game in the Bahamas that gets him the Aston Martin.

As for the movie itself, I loved it. But I've always been a fan of the "real world" Bonds like From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, For Her Thighs Only, and Licence To Kill.

I'd like to see Pierce Brosnan in a Bond movie again... Getting his ass kicked by Daniel Craig's Bond while Brosnan makes quip after quip...

a.) anyone who refers to a porn movie as an "adult" movie probably watches too much porn.

b.) 20 Bond movies somewhat wore out the Bond formula. "Die Another Day" was essentially an admission, with the trip through the prop locker, and the re-use of the set-up from the golf match in Goldfinger and the diamond satellite. The audience that would appreciate the familiarity is a shrinking (aging) segment of the movie audience.

There's not much further to take the franchise in terms of self-referential campiness. "Austin Powers" effectively took that to its logical conclusion, and Bond has to go back in the other direction. And, 20 films in and hemmed in by other big action franchises, a Bond film can hardly expect to differentiate itself on the strength of its set pieces. Giving Bond his sixth boat chase isn't going to electrify audiences.

I think making it smaller, meaner and more real was the way to go. Bond's one-liners should highlight the fact that he is a professional killer who finds death amusing, rather than being used to lessen the impact of what is going on. I think "Yes, considerably." in the opening sequence of "Casino Royale" was the best Bond one-liner in decades.

It's always the comics fans who care about "continuity." There is none. If filmmakers cared, they'd make it fit together. There was some idea in the early films of a story arc where Bond goes after the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. lieutenants and then would have his showdown with Blofeld, but the connections between the movies that you're citing are mostly just self-references, rather than a continuous storyline linking the movies together. Even if you ignore that James Bond is six different guys, there's no way you could tie the movies into anything like a chronology. Time passes in the world, but the character stays the same age. He performs incredible, logic defying heroics every couple of years, but his career never advances. The world changes, and he stays the same age.

What's more, the series is more or less "rebooted" every time they change actors in the lead role, and post "A View To A Kill" and post "License to Kill" were both very much "crises." There was a six year hiatus between the last Dalton Bond and Brosnan's first appearance, and the reinvention of the character was very much the idea. "Casino Royale" is the first Bond movie since "Diamonds are Forever" to really relate chronologically to the other films, in that Bond's first mission as 007 must come before any of the others. But the case you're trying to make is weak.

Yeah, I love how the Bond theme came on full blast at the end

Loved this one and I'm glad we're starting fresh. The only thing I miss are the girls on the opening credits.

Holy crap! Just from the pictures I've found, that looks like a porno.

She's got a 'fro below.

No, you're wrong, and I have to bring up the whole Tracy issue once again. Like I said, it's mentioned in relation to both Dalton and Brosnan.

As for your split between "A View To A Kill" and "The Living Daylights" that is a valid turning point in the series because between "Dr. No" and "A View To A Kill" Bond more or less aged at a normal rate (as did the other characters like M, Moneypenny and Q) whereas Dalton appeared as Bond with absolutely no mention of why he (and Moneypenny) was mysteriously younger than the rest of the cast. To that I have to bring up comics again (which is odd because I'm actually not much of a comics reader).

Spider-Man has been around since the 60's so as a character he should be IN his 60's by now but he is pretty much the same age yet the Spider-Man comics are always set the current era. That's exactly what happened in the Bond series up until "Die Another Day".

You were seeing a single agent portrayed by different actors who never really aged in any way that affected the story, and even though each and every Bond film stood alone and never relied on knowledge of the events of the previous films there were always several reminders that this was the same version of the character.

The continuity in the pre-"Casino Royale" films was never too complicated but it was there.

That logic seems a tad faulty to me since:

1. None of the Batman films ever had numbers in their final titles.
2. Batman Begins did have a working title of "Batman 5" according to IMDB

I think the Batman analogy works even better than thought since between Batmans 1-4 they went through 3 actors for the main character, there were some significant shifts in tone and character in some of those films, some minor characters changed, continuity wasn't always 100%, but ostensibly all four films were of the same series.

The last film in both series, meanwhile, both presented a "re-boot" of the series, even though numbered as the next during production, and told the story of how the characters began.

What scandalUMD said...to add a little; i read in an article that the producers also felt other franchises were doing their job better. I believe they specifically referenced the "borne identity" series and "Alias." Unfortunately I can not remember where i read this. But the point is the Bond series had become a bit of a joke and Brosnan seemed to overestimate his importance to the series, so this seemed like a natural creative choice. It's funny too because Die Another Day was being promoted as a edgier bond, with the torture stuff at the beginning, but it just reverted back into cartoon effects and cheese ball story.

Well, I don't know much about how comic books keep a running storyline in a world that changes in real time with characters who do not. But my understanding is that they have special editors whose entire job is to spot inconsistencies in the storyline and maintain consistency among the various storylines.

There's nobody doing that on "Bond," and the Broccoli family is more invested in maintaining adherence to the formula than in coalescing the 20 film series into any sort of coherent running storyline, and "Casino Royale" is a break because it's a break from the formula, not because it's a break from some sort of continuity.

There is no rational way to draw a connection between "Goldfinger," "Octopussy," and "License to Kill" that is part of any meaningful story arc, or any series of events that could describe the exploits of a person. Bond isn't merely ageless; he's entirely static as a character.

Any developments or changes in his life are wept away to return him to square one by the next film. People who have never been mentioned before show up from his past to drive the storyline of a particular film. His lovers vanish never to be heard from again. These films aren't a series of events; they have become, if anything, a series of variations on the same story.

The films are helmed by different directors who generally don't take any interest or make any effort to tie the films together. The books were loosely chronologically tied together, but the films were made in a chronology different from the books, and "Casino Royale" was never made until now precisely because it dealt with Bond's start as a secret agent, and also because there was some kind of snafu over rights.

If you ask me, comics would be a lot better off if they could shake free from "continuity" and really be allowed to function as literature, which is more concerned with themes than with semantics.

Casino Royale was made before now, and in fact was adapted first, as a TV episode of an anthology series in 1954.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_...vision_episode

The film rights to Casino Royale were then sold in 1955, although nothing was made of it until after EON had bought the rights to all other Bond novels and had started making Bond films. Then Columbia Pictures produced a James Bond spoof using Casino Royale in 1967.

So the most recent Casino Royale is a remake. The rights eventually ended up with EON, which decided that it provided the perfect opportunity for a "reboot" of the franchise. They probably would've adapted the novel sooner as part of the "official" series had they had the rights to it, considering they ran out of original Ian Flemming source material around when Brosnan took over as Bond.

I'm not sure what literature you're reading, but pretty much all the novels in a series I read take continuity fairly seriously.