Of course, we do see some continuity between movies, mostly tying into the person that impacted Bond’s personal life the most severely - Blofeld. Encountered originally by Connery, widows Lazenby, and the wife’s death avenged by Moore in For Your Eyes Only.

There's also Dalton reacting sadly to a mention of him ever getting married in License To Kill.
The relationship with Felix Leighter also has some continuity between the films.

* The Bond films have sometimes even rebooted without changing actors: witness the shift from Moonraker to For Your Eyes Only during Roger Moore's tenure. In general, each significant reboot has been made possible by returning to Ian Fleming's original works: OHMSS, FYEO, TLD and CR are all truer to Fleming's vision than the films that preceded each of them. (OHMSS "gently ignores" YOLT by pretending that Bond and Blofeld have never met before.)

* Lazenby's Bond might have hinted at multiple Bonds, but the movie itself insists on his being the same man: the credits sequence has flashbacks from the previous films, and Lazenby even pulls souvenirs from From Russia With Love and Thunderball out of his desk. It would make little sense for him to store another man's mementos or look on them with such recognition. I've always chosen to believe that all the Bonds were indeed one man, even if that means keeping the concepts of time and space relatively loose.

if you became holder of license 007, you became "James Bond", creating the illusion of the immortal, ageless guardian of the UK.

In such a scenario, only if a 00 died a permanent death that could not be dispensed by vaguary, would the new holder of the license number have a new name.

Of course, we do see some continuity between movies, mostly tying into the person that impacted Bond's personal life the most severely - Blofeld. Encountered originally by Connery, widows Lazenby, and the wife's death avenged by Moore in For Your Eyes Only. One could even make the case that the female villain from The World is not Enough affected Bond in strange ways, because she appeared to be a dark mirror of his martyred wife.

It hit such ridiculous points, with the ice castle and the invisible car that it just became way too silly.

None of which was more ridiculous than anything else in any other Bond movie... and no one had a problem with them.

I think much like with Superheroes and Star Wars etc, people forget that it was never as realistic or mature as they remember it being when they watched it as a kid.

I mean I had more problems accepting Brosnan catching up to the plane mid-air in Goldeneye than I did anything in Die Another Day.

I wasn't alive at the time, but from what I've read, Sean Connery's Bond was about as big as it is possible to be. There had never been anything like it before. I vaguely remember a quote along the lines of"there were three Bs in the 'Sixties, Bond, Beatles and Batman."

Of course, Harrison Ford was very good in Raiders, but no-one is irreplaceable.

And no, I don't think that Le Carre's novels are "just" a reaction to Bond, but there's no question that the genesis of the idea was rooted in Le Carre's disdain for glamorous, flashy spy novels and a desire to show something less romantic and more realistic.

And last but not least, novel series like the Executioner and the Destroyer, and comics series like the Fourth World are all kind of hampered by a lack of access to the materials. If someone wants to start buying me Jack Kirby omnibuses, I'd be happy to read them, but I do feel I need to become familiar with a lot of the source material (either by amount or percentage for the shorter-lived series) before I do a column about it, and I feel like I stick my foot in my mouth often enough even when I do read/watch/listen to the stuff I'm writing about.

My question is, why haven't other Hollywood studios aped the Bond franchise? Why did Paramount allow Indianna Jones to get old with Harrison Ford, when Josh Brolin (among others) could have filled his boots just as ably (and probably for a smaller salary).

On television, 'Friends' is probably the most financially successful sitcom of all time, but the network allowed it to deteriorate from a bright, breezy show about twenty-somethings into a creepy incestuous story about nearly-forty-somethings who couldn't maintain a normal relationships. It would have been easy as pie to write out Ross, Phebe, et al over a period of time and introduce new younger characters, so that after say ten years, you had an entirely new cast.

And the great thing is, if your replacement isn't deemed to be a success (such as George Lazenby's Bond or George Clooney's Batman), then you can just drop them and try again.

Seriously?

It hit such ridiculous points, with the ice castle and the invisible car that it just became way too silly.

Casino Royal was a good restart, taking us from Proto-Bond to Bond. The problem with QoS was that it droppe us right back with Proto Bond.
He had no charm, no inner smile....the film was embarrassed of it's own heritage (note that "Agent "Fields" ' name is never said, though the credit reveals it to indeed be "Strawberry"). She sleeps with Bond for no real reason, yet later M tells us it's becuase he charms women to thier death., ignoring that they forgot to film that.

I've never exactly been a fan, but on an academic level Jack Kirby in the DC Universe, and its subsequent results, has always been a curiosity to me. Any chance "Fourth World" might be on the docket?

And second, once Le Chiffre dies, there’s a long stretch of the movie that just seems to sort of meander aimlessly. The audience knows that Vesper has to be a traitor, because the movie hasn’t ended and it’s the only possible remaining plot twist, but the film takes so long in getting to that point that it’s a recipe for frustration for anyone who’s good at anticipating the plot.

Don't know if you've read the book - and the second half of the film follows the book very closely, with the only changes being good changes - but the film actually feels as though it has direction after Le Chiffre dies compared to the book, where Vesper isn't exposed until she kills herself and reveals it in a suicide note.

I think the film makers thought we'd either expect the government would come and force him back, or that there would be an attempt on their lives or something.
I think they totally misjudged how long we'd all been sitting in our seats by that point, and forgot a basic rule of making a film in that once things start moving, you've got to keep them moving.

And second, once Le Chiffre dies, there's a long stretch of the movie that just seems to sort of meander aimlessly. The audience knows that Vesper has to be a traitor, because the movie hasn't ended and it's the only possible remaining plot twist, but the film takes so long in getting to that point that it's a recipe for frustration for anyone who's good at anticipating the plot.

Oh, and I wanted a car chase scene.

Also, Le Carre novels are a reaction to Bond films?
Outrage!
There's a bit more to his work than that...

they’ve changed lead actors five times, and nobody except George Lazenby noticed

Interestingly enough, it was Lazenby who didn't want to do another film, as he had felt secondary to special effects whilst shooting, and ignored during publicity for the film.
As an aside, in a similar way, it was Dalton who decided not to come back for Goldeneye.

Surprised at Chris McAree: yes the first 20 mins were wonderful, but the rest was pretty good too. Very true to the book too, which is a bonus.

LTRFTW. I pretty much agree with everything you've just said about the Bond films. Albeit, I'd argue that each new actor has seen a reboot of sorts. After all, I've heard directors, actors, producers and even Bond-girls (nearly made a bad Freudian slip just there!) telling us that the "new" film with which they are involved is taking Bond in a completely new direction, since the early Roger Moore days.

Funnily enough, as a long time Bond fan I've been rather underwhelmed by the last two episodes. It's nothing against Craig; he's a damn fine actor, and I'm rather glad that Q department seems to have faded away somewhat with the demise of the late Desmond Llewelyn, it's just that other films seem to be doing the job so much better at the moment. Jason Bourne, I'm looking at you!

I remember being treated to tickets to see Casino Royale by my then girlfriend, shortly after release, being blown away by the first twenty odd minutes, and spending much of the remaining film just wanting to get away! The Quantum of Solace doesn't even have a twenty minute period I could recommend.

But then again, given both films runaway success at the box office, what do I know?

(And I swear I never noticed the "Q only gives Bond the gadget that he needs for THAT PARTICULAR SITUATION" thing as a kid until, of all things, the abysmal James Bond Jr. animated series beat it into my head. Funny how you don't notice bits of a formula / engine (here, the line is so blurry that you can argue either) until they're presented five times a week.)

Of course, in that TLD the action scenes were easily comprehensible without a healthy dose of Gravol, which is something I couldn't say for Quantum of Solace. ENOUGH WITH THE FREAKING SHAKY-CAM!

In their place are openers with a narrative purpose (in Casino Royale it was to efficiently explain this Bond had just gotten his 007 license, and how; in Quantum, it was used as a bridge between the last scene in CS and Quantum's first).

Technologically, they've slipped in state of the art equipment and assumed the audience would recognize what it is. For instance, apparently the computers in MI6 are alarmingly close to those used in "Minority Report," and none of the staff needs to be brought up to speed on how to use any of it.

The old gags are still there, just used to serve other story/visual needs more effectively.