James Bond (film)/WMG

The films are adaptation are not sequels to each other but instead straight adaptations from the books
This is why there is a loose continuity between the films and why the actor playing bond changes as no two films actually share the same continuity instead there just continuous film adaptations of different books like Interview with the Vampire and Queen of the Damned have diffrent actors and almost no shared continuity but come from the same book series.
 * Some still have continuity between each other, such as Dr. No and From Russia with Love, The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, and Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.

"James Bond" is simply a name picked at random (the author of a book on West Indian birds, in fact) that is adopted by every agent to hold the post of 007
Sort of like The Dread Pirate Roberts. Note that Bond tends to give it out freely and is almost never referred to by his code number. This is supported by the original film version of Casino Royale, where the first James Bond -- now retired and tending to his roses -- complains to a government official about the "homicidal sex maniac" running around Europe using his name. This was what the director for Die Another Day wanted to do to get Pierce Brosnan and Sean Connery (the then latest and first Bonds, respectively) in the movie together, but Executive Meddling prevented it. And for good cause.
 * But all the Bonds have links to each other:
 * Lazenby is seen fiddling with Connery-era gadgets like Grant's watch.
 * Roger Moore visits the grave of the Lazenby Bond's wife, Tracy Bond.
 * Timothy Dalton's Bond is known by Felix Leiter to have had an abrupt marriage.
 * Brosnan's Bond noticeably references this in The World Is Not Enough.
 * It's not impossible to retcon these into the theory. Lazenby received Connery's watch as part of his cover (to pass down certain objects between the agents to keep up the impression that they're one guy). Moore could have visited Tracy's grave as a mark of respect to his short-lived predecessor. Perhaps the man who became known as Dalton's Bond, like the man who became Lazenby's Bond, was also married at some point. As was Brosnan's. Also, any knowledge of previous missions the current Bond has could simply be something he read about in reports and profiles.
 * It's also possible that not every new actor indicates a new Bond. Perhaps there have been no more than three James Bonds. Exactly when number one retired is another question.
 * Or maybe four. Never Say Never Again isn't exactly in the main continuity; it just isn't exactly outside it either.
 * Three Bonds works. The first Bond is played by Sean Connery, George Lazenby and Roger Moore -- his age is fairly consistent throughout (born circa 1930) and the links between these three are much more solid. The second Bond is played by Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan -- again, the age is fairly consistent (born circa 1950) and the callbacks to previous Bonds (the "abrupt marriage" referred to above) are ambiguous enough that it's not necessarily the same person. The third Bond (Craig's Bond is canonically born in 1967) is played by Daniel Craig, and this is the first time we explicitly see that it's a new person. This also allows Daniel Craig's Bond to be in the same continuity as the others.
 * This article does a fairly good job pointing out why this theory is flawed, and how Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, and Brosnan are the same Bond. Lazenby is clearly familiar with Connery gadgets, and Connery is seen at the beginning of Diamonds Are Forever to be tracking Blofeld in revenge for the death of his wife (Also, if he was different, why would he come back?). Moore was recognized as James Bond by a friend from his Cambridge days in A Spy Who Loved Me (Set way before Dr. No), and is shown to be delivering flowers to his dead wife and finally killing Blofeld in revenge. Dalton was still called "James Bond" even after he quit in Licence to Kill, and they never send a replacement "James Bond" after him. If he was playing a different guy, they would refer to his real name, and not his code name, after he quit. GoldenEye's prologue takes place "9 years ago", before The Living Daylights, making Dalton and Brosnan the same Bond. Thus, all the pre-Casino Royale Bonds are the same guy.
 * Lazenby's Bond could be familiar with Lazenby's gadgets since Q Laboratories likely provides gadgets for all MI 6 agents and not just this one guy. Revenge for the death of Tracy could be a sort of respect deal, like maybe Connery's Bond respected Lazenby's or was even friends with the guy, and there's also the fact that Blofeld is the leader of an extremely dangerous terrorist organization and therefore a person who should be killed at any given opportunity (like this one). Moore's could have simply been recognized, though not called by name (I gotta admit, I haven't seen the flick in a while), and his leaving flowers for Tracy could be a sign of respect for his predecessors as well as understanding the symbolism inherent of how being Bond means you're not allowed to get too close to anyone. As for killing Blofeld ... again, Blofeld was the leader of an extremely dangerous terrorist organization and therefore a person who should be killed at any given opportunity (like this one), and besides, Blofeld started it. Despite Dalton's license being revoked, MI 6 still codenamed him "Bond" since they had no one else at the time to take up the mantle (keep in mind that there was a six-year gap between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye, meaning it took six years for the new Bond to step in) and it was just a convenient codename for other spies to use in code communication. The last one is this troper's famous "plot hole" to explain: the prologue of Goldeneye does indeed take place one year before the events of The Living Daylights, but remember that in the prologue the mission ends in disaster and Bond is deeply scarred by what happened. In the scene after the intro, set nine years later, Bond is being checked by a government worker to see if he is fit for duty. The timeline goes that after Moore resigned (due to old age, presumably?), Brosnan stepped in as the new James Bond. However, after the failed mission in 1986, he was unfit for the highly stressful and demanding job of James Bond and Dalton replaced him. MI 6, remembering the trouble they had finding a new Bond to suddenly take Lazenby's place (Connery had to come out of retirement before they discovered Moore), kept Brosnan on a watchlist. Once Dalton's license was revoked, they simply put the Bond program on hold or even canceled it, seeing it as a failure. Six years later, the new M (Judi Dench) revived the Bond project and Brosnan was finally well enough to become the fifth Bond - James Bond.
 * Never Say Never Again is not offically canon, and thus could be another Bond. Casino Royale was specifically stated to be a "reboot". The only thing connecting the two timelines is the fact that Judi Dench plays M, which the makers actually stated was simply because Judi Dench was such a recognizable M that Rule of Cool won over continuity.
 * Lazenby refers to "the other fellow" (albeit in a Fourth Wall-breaking moment). Clearly his Bond isn't Connery's.
 * The most notable evidence is that he and Blofeld don't recognize each other after being together in You Only Live Twice. While Blofeld is known for changing his appearance via plastic surgery, there's no such evidence for Bond. The actual reason was that they adhered too closely to the novel which takes place prior to the two meeting face to face.
 * Could also be a case of I Know You Know I Know, where both Bond and Blofeld are simply trying to out-gambit each other, with Blofeld trying to see how much Bond knows, and Bond trying to uncover a deeper plot.
 * Connery's Bond later shows up in The Rock.
 * Also, take the example of the new Casino Royale: Craig's Bond is explicitly new on the job, but M is the same as she was for Brosnan's.
 * Problem with that, though, is he's referred to as "James Bond" before he's officially made a Double-0.
 * It might simply be procedure at MI6 to screen potential James Bonds by first granting them the name and then assigning them the official number only after they've proven themselves in the field.
 * The other problem with trying to fit Craig's Bond into any kind of continuity is that Casino Royale is a franchise reboot.
 * Franchise reboot, but the exact same M as the last Brosnan films? Riiight....
 * Yes, "riiight". Reboots don't have to be complete wipes of everything single thing that came before to be reboots.
 * Not the same M, just the same actress.
 * Very possible. Brosnan's era M refers to Bond as a Cold War relic and chastises him for it, whereas Craig's era M states that she misses the Cold War.
 * That's not necessarily a discontinuity, it may simply be "the grass is greener". If you consider the year each film was written/produced as the year it's set in, all of Brosnan's stories happened before 9/11. (Die Another Day just squeaks under - it was produced throughout 2001 and released in 2002). Casino Royale is the first one explicitly set after that. You might miss the Cold War too, an era (in Hollywood History) where the good guys and bad guys were much more clear cut and the politics considerably less messy. Different era, different sentiments, like a person who longs for cooler weather at the height of summer and dreams of summer in the middle of February.
 * The filmmakers actually said that because Judi Dench was such a memorable M (anyone who went into the James Bond series during the Brosnan era will definately recognize Judi Dench as M) that they included her anyways. Rule of Cool won over continuity.
 * Fun fact: there are three Bonds who look like Sean Connery. (The first one, the one between Lazenby and Moore, and the one in "Never Say Never Again.")
 * At least one of which was really Henry Jones, Sr.
 * Or it could have just been Connery's Bond who was convinced to come back for a couple missions.
 * This actually works very well, for the skip between "Twice" and "Diamonds." He retired and was replaced, but the new man fell in love, got married, and his wife was murdered, forcing his resignation. Without time to train a new man, they bring back the old one, who was friends with his temporary replacement (perhaps having trained him), and who was on one last revenge mission to avenge his friend's loss before reporting for duty.
 * This would make Miss Moneypenny seem a lot less insensitive, when she asks Connery for a diamond (engagement) ring. Not very nice for a guy who's wife just died.
 * The name "Felix Leiter" serves the same function in the CIA.
 * There are also multiple active "Felix Leiter"'s in the CIA at any given time. David Hedison's Felix Leiter was active between Live and Let Die and Licence to Kill, but Bond worked with John Terry's Felix Leiter during the events of The Living Daylights as Hedison's Leiter was busy elsewhere during most of the Roger Moore era. This gives the CIA the ability to disavow a Felix Leiter who gets captured.
 * If deniability is the name of the game, there would need to be at least three active Felix Leiter agents; two (or more) in the field and one who works at Langley and is always accounted for.
 * The only rub is that Hedison's fiance/wife referred to him as Felix. Would he really marry under a cover name?
 * Judging from the last two films, hiding the true names of MI-6 personnel may be standard practice for the agency. Casino Royale portrays Judi Dench's M as being quite upset that Bond has discovered her name and home address. Quantum of Solace, meanwhile, reveals that "Rene Mathis" is only a cover name for that character, though he apparently continued to use it after his "retirement" from MI-6.
 * Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, and Brosnan were all the same person. The apparent lack of aging (or at least very slow aging) is justified by a sliding time-scale, similar to that of the Pre-Crisis DC Comics. Craig, on the other hand, assumed the identity upon the former's retirement, which explains why M & Q look so different than they did at the start of the series.

Judi Dench's version of "M" is an older Emma Peel from The Avengers.

 * At least,.

James Bond is a family business
The reason there appear to be several James Bonds with different appearances is that they are all branches or generations of the same family. In the UK there are many aristocratic families that have hereditary rights or duties; why not a whole family of spies? The family traditionally names its sons James. Due to the evidently hereditary sex drive of the Bonds, there is always a plentiful supply of new James Bonds to take over the role when the current holder of the title retires or dies. The existence of "James Bond Junior" (who is also a spy) in the spin-off cartoon would seem to support this idea. - Just realised this also explains why successive Bonds have the same family motto ("The World is not Enough") even though they appear to be different people.

Lazenby and Dalton played the same Bond
Extending on the theory that there were multiple agents named James Bond, Most callbacks from Dalton's era are to Lazenby's interpretation of Bond. Thus I hypothesise that these two actors are portraying the same Bond, who is not the same as Connery or Moore's Bond. Still undecided about these johnny-come-lately versions.

Daniel Craig's Bond worked at a construction site earlier in his life.
How else would he be able to drive a bulldozer, Know what lever unhooked the crane pulley, and lower a scissor lift? He even recognizes a steam pipe and shoots it to spray a mook. (At around 7:44 in this video.)

Daniel Craig's James Bond travelled back in time and became Sean Connery's James Bond.
It's quite clear that Casino Royale is intended as an origin story for James Bond. It shows how he became a 00-agent, acquired his taste for tuxedoes, won his Aston Martin, and found a name for his Vesper martini. However, there are two problems that mean Casino Royale does not work as a straighforward prequel. Firstly, the film is clearly set in the 2000s, whereas Dr No, the very first Bond film, was set in the 1960s. Secondly, the character of M is played in Casino Royale by Judi Dench, who also played M in the last four Pierce Brosnan films.

There is only one way that Casino Royale could be James Bond's origin story while still fitting into the same continuity as the previous twenty films: time travel. That's right – at some indeterminate point in the 21st century, Daniel Craig's Bond travels back in time to the 1960s, arrives a couple of years before the events of Dr No, and becomes the Sean Connery Bond. Over the following decades, he goes on to become the George Lazenby Bond, the Roger Moore Bond, the Timothy Dalton Bond and the Pierce Brosnan Bond. This makes Casino Royale a sequel in the chronological sense, but a prequel in the sense of character development, as it shows how Bond acquired the iconic characteristics he displayed throughout the previous films. This circular timeline makes it comparable to such time-travel stories as Terminator Salvation.

How and why did Bond travel back in time, you ask? Well, who can say? Perhaps our hero's temporal displacement was the result of some villain's elaborate scheme. Maybe MI 6 had something to do with it – that would explain why they recognised their agent from the future. Hey, maybe Bond even volunteered to be sent back. In any case, this would mean that, during the events of Casino Royale, the ancient time-travelling Pierce Brosnan Bond is still out there somewhere, perhaps enjoying a well-earned retirement.

Needless to say, this theory is fully compatible with the one which postulates that James Bond is a timelord – in fact, it is enhanced by it, as it would explain the whole 'time travel' aspect very nicely.

Die Another Day is All Just a Dream
More specifically, Bond is captured in Korea but doesn't escape from the torture. He's abandoned by British intelligence, who make the right decision to give him up rather than trade him for Zao - something Bond himself points out is MI 5's standard operating procedure. He DOES break, but rather than spew information, he goes into a dream world of his own creation, explaining why Die Another Day is so over-the-top in comparison to other films. The references to previous films are his memories, both of himself and of the Bonds before him, working their way into his dreams.

Assuming the James-Bond-as-Time-Lord theory correct, the whole movie is the "Dying Dream" which takes place as Brosnan regenerates into Craig. Why does it seem so incoherent, though? ANSWER: He's fighting in the Time War, and is in danger of being erased from history. Desperate, and determined to exist, Bond frantically claws at anything he can remember—his missions, his allies and enemies, his gadgets, and other things—in an attempt to preserve his timeline. The focus on "living to die another day," and the DNA-regeneration clinic, is Bond's subconscious forcing him to trigger the process.
 * I see your WMG and raise you a slightly more elaborate version:

Other critics have used words like "self-congratulatory" and "self-indulgent" against it. That's the whole point: the film we're watching is Bond's "happy place" where he's trying to escape about the horrifying traumas of this particular regen. (Think "Allan and the Sundered Veil," the short story from "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1.) I imagine him being skewed and stretched in all directions as he plummets through the Nightmare Child, actually...

He ends up coming out of it quite unstable, and he has to be retrained and re-earn his rank of 007. It was so bad, in fact, that having blond hair was the least of his worries!

The Central American Nation in Octopussy is the same as Isthmus in Licence to Kill
James Bond could have been part of a British false flag operation to cripple the country's military so that Western-backed revolutionaries could take over the country, maybe even with Sanchez's help. However, this all goes wrong by Licence To Kill, where we see that the dictator for life has been replaced by another dictator for life, backed by the drug overlord Sanchez.

Bond has to kill someone to drive a car.
In one movie Q is berating Bond for destroying yet another car when he says "You have a license to kill, not to drive." Therefor Bond has to use the several thousand pound vehicles as weapons to justify their use.
 * The actual quote is "...not to break the traffic laws." So, perhaps if he's killing someone he gets a sort of diplomatic immunity to parking tickets?

Mr. White is the new Blofeld
He has lived through two movies (and is thus going to appear in at least three movies) as a Bond villain. He has lived through an entire movie after James Bond put a bullet in him. No one save Blofeld has done the first (Jaws managed maybe one and a half before the Heel Face Turn), and no one has ever managed the second. There is no way these feats are performed by, and that much slow buildup given to, a character whose importance is anything less than 'epic master villain'. It is likely that Mr. White was not the seniormost director of Quantum during "Casino Royale" (although the importance and nature of his activities suggests that he was Deputy Director of Operations or similar); but the vacancies Bond has caused in Quantum's command structure and is likely to continue causing in future movies should place him in the highest leadership position fairly quickly.
 * As for the 'Deputy Director of Operations' speculation above: Mr. White's role in "Casino Royale" is to arrange an introduction for Le Chiffre to one of Quantum's terrorist clients, and then to dispose of Le Chiffre and recover Quantum's financial losses when Le Chiffre proves unreliable. These are activities normally performed by mere field agents, and mere field agents do not get to attend Board of Directors meetings. For that matter, Quantum doesn't need Le Chiffre's financial network; Dominic Greene's own corporate fronts were far more extensive money laundering and financial fraud operations. So the only way Quantum's involvement in "Casino Royale" makes sense is if Le Chiffre is being considered as a candidate member of Quantum's hierarchy. This is entirely probable, as Le Chiffre (had he not been fatally addicted to dipping into the till) would have been an excellent recruit for such - and supervising the final field test of and then cleaning up after the failure of a candidate for a senior management position is something that would logically be handled personally at directorate level.

James Bond is a Time Lord.
And, in his Dalton incarnation, is the new Lord President of Gallifrey.
 * Actually, this makes perfect sense. It explains the different appearances AND all the continuity nods to past Bond movies. This might also be a reason why they rebooted the franchise: Daniel Craig is a new Bond because the old one had reached his regeneration limit (which means that Connery wasn't his first incarnation and that "James Bond" actually is a code name, but for different Time Lords, who, as we all know, can regenerate twelve times).
 * I was just thinking this as I watched my first Daniel Craig Bond movie. Glad to see someone else is on the same wavelength.
 * Perhaps James Bond is a British super-soldier made from a combination of DNA obtained from The Third Doctor when he was banished to earth and the original Sean Connery James Bond. The dates correspond quite well. It explains his longevity, changes to appearance and personality. Also his general tenacity to improvise and survive. Previously they kept their memories but the British government after Dalton went AWOL decided to wipe it with Bosnan. That’s why Brosnan's bond is relatively unburdened with the history with the wives. More recently he has been regenerated and memory wiped into Daniel Craig. Perhaps the coincedence with Dalton and Rasssilon is the side effect of some Morphic field.
 * A different interpretation of the dates match: Connery's James Bond is an alternate version of the Third Doctor, and the other Bonds are his subsequent regenerations . When the Second Doctor is forced to regenerate, he is given a choice of several faces- in an alternate timeline, he chooses Connery instead of Pertwee. During his exile on Earth, he joins MI 6 instead of UNIT.
 * It's shown up as fanfic before.

Daniel Craig's James Bond is using a Fob-watch
Expanding from the above theory we can assume that at some point his memory got erased some time before Casino Royal however that movie came out in 2006 a year after the Time War was reviled this means during the gap between Die Another Day and Casino Royal he was off fighting the time war at some point though he realized that he was going to die there turned himself human and sent himself back to earth this is why he does not remember anything from the past movies and is also why a lot of the wackiness has gone out of his character since then.

James Bond is Telekinetic
...and, by extension, so are all other 00 agents. This is why James Bond, |Alec Trevelyan, and other 00-agents are by and large capable of dodging immense amounts of bullets and performing dangerous stunts without injury. They're not dodging the bullets: they're pushing them out of the way.

"Ernst Stavro Blofeld" is an alias used by whoever is the current head of SPECTRE.
SPECTRE does not tolerate failure. In fact, they have a habit of killing people who fail in their set tasks. This is why Blofeld looks different in every movie, and why he doesn't recognize Bond when they come face to face in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
 * Blofeld and Bond never really saw each other face to face until On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Remember, Blofeld wasn't directly involved in any of those schemes. It was one of his henchmen that was running the show in the previous movies.
 * In Diamonds Are Forever, Blofeld appears to be able to surgically alter doubles so convincing that he's not even sure if he's the real Blofeld

The stories are sexed-up accounts to justify Bond's outrageous expense reports.
"M" has to justify James Bond blowing millions of pounds at casinos in the Caribbean. She says "Well, he stopped a... a.. death ray. Mr. Prime Minister, let me have my tech guy "Q" explain it to you. It's very complex."
 * Except for Bond being a ridiculously good gambler who always walks away with more money than he started with...
 * In her stories he's a great gambler. In real life, he could be awful.
 * They also have to justify the property damage he commits.

There is a real 00 project. In Real Life.
The whole series of books and films exists to distract people. The 00s exist. They are nowhere near as fantastic, highly sexed, or suave as depicted (that is added for entertainment value), but they are real. The reason they have remained hidden is that anyone who comes across evidence of them thinks he has just stumbled across a film script, book excerpt, or fan material. (People who investigate too closely might become vulnerable to that license of theirs...)
 * The British government must have some kind of a hit team on call. They did back in the Troubles.
 * Alternatively, there is a real-life 00 project, but it has nothing to do with the books and movies; the agents involved are just James Bond fans who named their organization after the franchise as a homage.
 * If so, Fleming's fictional "00s" may have came about due to the very probable "James Bond is actually semi-autobiographical" theory below.

The movies and books are a government-sponsored simulation
In the movie and book universes, in the 20th century, there was a 00 agent named James Bond who did have all the adventures of the books and the movies. Now, in a futuristic cyberpunk age, a totalitarian government is putting new agents on an elaborate Virtual Reality training to make an army of "James Bonds". That's why Bond looks different in different movies: each actor is one of those new agents training in Virtual Reality to "be" Bond.
 * Why would a totalitarian government want such a loose cannon? Seems more the sort of guy a resistance would be after.
 * The simulation has been hacked. This explains why he can be shot from close range with a machine gun and evade every bullet.
 * Either this or the Metal Gear and James Bond universes are one and the same.

At some point, Blofeld & Oddjob will return.
Furthermore, one will have his brain transplanted into the other's body. Given the terrible pun names we've already been subjected to, this isn't too far fetched.
 * ...What's so punny about "Oddfeld"?
 * Only he will be renamed Liefeld.

If they ever somehow met, Bond could defeat Dio Brando.
After all, Dio would soon find that, against Bond, Za Warudo Is Not Enough.

... * Brick'd*

James Bond is intentionally a high-profile 'spy'
He is, in fact, MI 6's troubleshooter, and not a normal spy. He is only sent in when there is known to be someone operating who needs to be uncovered and stopped, not to do the more normal spy work of gathering information. As such, his preferred operating procedure is to enter the situation and make sure people know he is there, while doing some minor information gathering. The point is to panic the opposition by having them think that 'James Bond' is closing in on them, and have them react and try to take him out. At which point he is expected to use his skill in escaping and surviving, and trace back the attack to find the target he is after.

James Bond is a Vampire
This is a pet theory I've had for years. Why doesn't Bond age? How does he keep surviving explosions and gunshots 'n' stuff? And what happens to the women he beds between the movies? The answer is obvious. James Bond (and all other 00 Agents, for that matter) is a vampire. Faced with supernatural threats, MI 6 decided to fight fire with fire by acquiring vampires and using them as spies. The reason Bond's various bedmates seem to vanish after the end of every movie is because he DRAINS them. One of the few inversions is Tracy (from OHMSS) who Bond actually fell in love with. Another thing: why does Bond only drink a shaken Vodka Martini? Because (for some odd reason) it's capable of sating his vampiric bloodlust. The other 00s are obviously vampires as well: how else can you explain Alec/Janus/006 surviving a 300-foot fall at the end of Film/Goldeneye? Finally, I think similar reasoning can be extended to other villains as well, most notably Jaws (obviously a bizarre vampire or invincible zombie), Baron Samedi (an actual voodoo spirit) and Oddjob (whom I strongly suspect is some kind of Golem).
 * more specifficly, he could be a white court vampire (as in the dresden files), as they feed on sex and have few to no suppernatural powers other than the general superhumanity (speed stength etc).

James Bond is a robot from Futurama
He only needs to drink alcohol for sustenance. He can eat food, but he doesn't have to. He doesn't need to sleep, but he can when he wants to.

Q is a time lord.
And his workshop is his TARDIS. its chameleon circuit actaully works, so it shows up disguised as a room in a building wherever it needs to be, this allows him to be their to kit out James Bond on location, and do the same for other agents at the same time.

James Bond is this universe's equivalent to Keyser Soze.
One of the most frequently mocked aspects of the character is the idea of a world famous secret agent; every criminal and terrorist organization knows about him. But they don't know who he is, just his name, and that he leaves a trail of death and destruction behind him wherever he goes, and just about no one who sees his face lives to tell the tale. This also explains why they never just shoot him. "How do you shoot the Devil in the back? What if you miss?"

Pussy Galore is Bisexual.
Having (questionably consensual) sex with one man, even Bond, isn’t going to ‘cure’ someone of lesbianism - Pussy was probably bisexual.

The Boothroyd in Dr. No is Q's son
His father could have just been sick or away that day.