WMG / Skyfall

Bond: You must be joking?

For WMG regarding the entire franchise, go here.

As a WMG page, all spoilers are unmarked, as per policy!

Ambiguously Bi and Exact Words

• Silva's somewhat clumsy come-on, and Bond's response, caused some minor turmoil amongst longtime fans of the franchise. However, it makes perfect sense that Bond has had to Honey Trap male targets before. This is a man whose job involves being shot, stabbed, beaten, tortured, poisoned and subjected to even more esoteric torments. Having to get it on with another dude in the line of duty would barely merit a "meh!" from the likes of him. Especially since his libido would probably enable him to perform at least as well as straight performers who do gay porn manage to do.
• That said, this may not happen often. Indeed, it may have only happened once. Bond's Exact Words were that it wouldn't be his first time. That does not preclude it only being the second. Bond may not habitually have sex with men to anywhere near the degree he does with women. But it might have come up at least once in the course of a mission.
• He has to seduce women in the course of missions, but that doesn't mean he's not really attracted to women. It could be the same with men. He could very well actually be bisexual (but not interested in Silva because, after all, Silva's trying to kill him.)

An alternate Broad Strokes version of the pre Craig films come after Skyfall.

• Mallory is an alternate, younger version of the same M that preceded Dench's M. Also the Q in Skyfall is an alternate, younger version of the one before Cleese's Q.
• Also the Dench M isn't the same that existed in the version of the pre Craig films and is a different person.
• It also includes the movies involving Blofeld and Spectre, explaining in the trailer for Spectre that Blofeld have been waiting for him for a long time.

The Craig films take place in a different universe than all previous Bond movies.

• This troper considers it the easiest way to reconcile the code name theory with this movie: James Bond was a code name given to every 007; in this universe, the current 007 happens to have the given name James Bond. Broad Strokes and Mythology Gag seem to cover this pretty well.

The Craig films are a Space time continuum continuity reboot of the earlier films and somehow the characters have memories of the older films as if they actually existed.

The James Bond we see in this movie is actually just the Slender Man wearing a human disguise

Watch the first few seconds of the movie and try to tell me otherwise.

Kincade is the father of Kincaid

Clearly the assassin had to learn his badassness from somewhere, and anyone who can kill mooks armed with assault rifles with an old hunting shotgun is very good at killing people. The younger Kincade is just following the family of awesomeness by being proactive in his guarding, while his father is "retired" to guarding the estate of MI6's best agent.

• I like this. Someone write a fanfic.
• ...and maybe at some point of the family tree, there's another Kincade who shouts at young MI6 recruits for running through the halls

This movie will not involve the Quantum organization from the the past two movies, but instead feature an unaffiliated villain. Quantum will, at most, get a passing reference.

This puts it in line with Goldfinger, which was completely unrelated to the SPECTRE story arc that was in the other Connery stories. Not surprisingly, Goldfinger was the third Bond move, while this will be Craig's third Bond movie.

• Sam Mendes has said Quantum won't feature in the film.
• And now the movie itself is out, and there is no sign of them
  • The actor that played Mr. White gave an interview in 09 that a cut scene in Solace kills off Mr White, and he doesn't intend to return
    • The next two films clarified this some.

Quantum will become the new SPECTRE

This movie sets up the self-contained style of the pre-Craig era of Bond movies. Quantum would be a good regular villainous organization for them.

• Not this time.
• The next Bond movie is titled Spectre and it's confirmed Ernst Stavro Blofeld will be the main villain. It's possible Blofeld will change the organization's name after becoming its new leader.
  • Turns out Silva had become affiliated with SPECTRE sometime before the events of Skyfall, and that Quantum was just a faction within SPECTRE.

The new Q is I.Q. from James Bond Jr..

The glasses practically confirm it.

Blofeld or SPECTRE will make a quick cameo

Now they obviously won't be the main villains, but since it is the 50th anniversary film, it would seem fitting for them to have a cameo.

• Turns out they don't.
• Aren't there still rights issues there?
• Blofeld will be the villain in the next film. If Spectre refers to the organization, likely it'll show up too.

This is secretly also the fourth Transformers Film Series movie.

"Skyfall" is the name of the true main villain.

The film will address the long-standing multiple Bonds theory.

For those of you unaware, the theory attempts to explain Bond's long career and multiple actors by saying that "James Bond" is a cover identity passed from agent to agent. What we saw at the beginning of Casino Royale (2006) was the latest Bond earning his 00 status. Bond's comments about resurrection in this film may indicate that the film will address the theory.

• Potentially jossed already, given the producers have talked about how they tapped into the current Wikileaks concept and the unfortunately oft-occurring incidents where say, an individual within the government has allowed information to be effectively stolen. This ties in with 00 agents supposedly being bumped off, and the attempt on Bond's life ties with that. Still, could potentially happen, but I think EON generally consider the series to basically be the ongoing adventures of Bond, with Royale being the only true reboot.
• Jossed. The opposite was proven in fact: James Bond is at least Daniel Craig's 007 birth name.
• YMMV. It's established that Silva was an alias, and M knew Silva's real name. James Bond may prove to be an alias for other Bonds, just not Craig.
  • Though that still wouldn't explain why they all grieve for the same dead wife, or how, they are all friends with Felix Leiter, or how they all flirt with Moneypenny, or how he occasionally runs into people from his pre-spy days who call him by that name...yeah, if this film doesn't joss that, the other ones do.
  • Plus his parents' last name actually being Bond according to their graves, unless M16 went out of their way to change their names.
    • Kincade was an old family retainer who'd known Bond all his life, and didn't know what he did for a living. He doesn't mention government agents replacing gravestones, and calls him "James". It's pretty clear "James Bond" is his real name.
• Alternate theory: Andrew Bond, when he joined MI6, was given a fake name along the lines of "James Smith". On his first mission, somebody asked him for his name, and he instinctively replied, "Bond." However, he quickly realized his mistake, and followed it with "James Bond." The name stuck, and he decided to name his son "James".

Craig's Bond has been through 'reboot' versions of some of the older films.

• The Aston Martin is evidence that Craig's Bond has been through modernised versions of the events of the old films. We've actually seen one of these, GoldenEye.
  • He's also been through Moonraker, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and several other classic Bond films, thanks to the 007: Legends game.
  • And also Dr. No. He even appeared in this commercial.
  • They could've happened in the 6-year interim between the events of Quantum of Solace and Skyfall (Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace both happening in 2006 as the latter immediately follows the former) with the GoldenEye game remake happening in 2010. Some also might've happened in-between Skyfall and Spectre.

M, as played by Judi Dench, will die in this film.

And Ralph Fiennes' character will be promoted to the head of MI6. That character's name, according to reports, is Mallory, which'd fit the pattern of "M" being the first initial of M's name.

• Another circulating theory is that she will simply be fired.
• The former.
  • And the latter. She just dies before she can "voluntarily retire."

All other currently serving 00 agents are killed as a result of M's incompetence.

There is a prominent shot of eight coffins arranged in a line in the trailer, and there can logically be only nine 00 agents active at any one time.

• In the novels there was mention of a 0012, but it's possible.
  • Er, ????? In Fleming’s novels there are consistently 3 double-0 agents.
• Ten, if you consider the possibility of there being a 000.
• Jossed. Those coffins are the bodies of those who died in the MI6 attack. Only three infiltrated agents of the five named are mentioned as lost.
  • Also, those agents are not Double-0 agents, but undercover spies working for NATO in various capacities. Whether or not M's competence is the main problem depends on the viewer, though it should be noted Silva is a very competent and determined villain.

Raoul Silva is related to M

He might literally be her grandson, or just her son (if illegitimate, given his very Spanish real name), as he hinted in the story in his intro. It would certainly make his motive much more personal and his rage more understandable, given at one point he even tries to get her to commit suicide and take him with her.

• The "THINK ON YOUR SINS" message seems to suggest this. One anagram of that phrase is "YOUR SON ISNT IN HK".

Craig's Bond is Connery's Bond's son

He has Connery's car for absolutely no given reason, down to the gadgets and registration. The film debunks the "James Bond" is just a codename theory by showing us the actual Bond estate. But if Connery is Craig's father it would give a reason for him to have Connery's car (he didn't get it from M and it doesn't seem like Craig's style to order a car with an ejector seat and machineguns). Given the references to other Bond films (exploding pen) in Skyfall the "James Bond" is a codename theory could hold for the Bonds between Connery and Craig but for those two it's actually their name.

• The gravestone at the church combined with his fathers favourite gun tells us that James father was called Andrew.
  • Or the Craig Bond is the Connery Bond's grandson. Connery Bond retires, has a son named Andrew, Andrew grows up and names his son after his father (or maybe his father's codename), and that son grows up to be the Craig Bond. Craig Bond inherits his grandfather's old car, and joins MI6 to follow in Connery Bond's footsteps.
  • This troper is so happy he's not the only one who thought of this. Tears of joy aside, alternatively, the knife with the initials "AB" are referred to as his father's knife. This could simply mean that the knife was owned by his father, the real James Bond (Sean Connery's Bond), who in turn inherited it from his father Andrew. This also explains why the gravestone of Andrew and Monique Delacroix Bond are found on his estate: they're simply Daniel Craig's Bond's grandparents. It would also make sense thematically since Craig has drawn comparisons to Connery ... and both have faked their deaths before.
  • It was a gun, not a knife. And the fact that he has the Aston Martin, complete with its features, is most likely just a nod to the fandom. It doesn't really need an explanation.
  • Actually, it was a gun and a knife. As for the Aston Martin, he might have simply known where MI6 kept their surplus hardware locked up. Waste not want not.

Craig's Bond is James Bond Jr..

So he technically is named James Bond, but still is not James Bond. Make sense?

• That's stretching it. The cartoon always had a major flaw in that Executive Meddling realised that they couldn't make a show where James Bond had a child out of wedlock. So they said he was his nephew, but then that creates the idea that he is known as Jnr despite the fact that his father doesn't actually share his name, which doesn't make any sense. But to bring my point back to the original WMG, whilst I do not know just how often it happens, I really doubt that families name their child after one of the parents siblings (unless said sibling is dead and he is his name sake). You tend to give your child a either a name that doesn't exist in your family. Or if you do name after a relative, it is usually an older one.
  • In Medieval and Renaissance times, it was common to refer to someone's illegitimate son as their "nephew". Usually with a significant pause so that everyone knew who they really were.

M's last name is Peel

You know what I'm talking about.

• Is her name actually Emma? I just thought that was Kincade assuming Bond had introduced her as "Em".
• If that's the case, then The poor woman's died twice in the Bond series.
  • She wouldn't exactly be in rare company if she had missed her own funeral, in this setting.
• This is actually the case in Volume 3 of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
  • According to the box with her china bulldog in it, M's real name is Olivia Mansfield.

Related to the above, Mallory's former code name was John Steed

Although rumors that he once went up against a former 00 agent with a fondness for weather control are untrue.

Mallory served in the SAS.

• When Tanner is establishing Mallory's Retired Badass credentials, he says Mallory was a "Lieutenant-Colonel in the Hereford Regiment." Normally, British Army regiments are associated with counties or regions (e.g., Scots Guards or Hampshire Regiment) not towns or cities. The SAS HQ is in Hereford, and "Hereford Regiment" is a plausible nickname for the SAS.

Mallory is actually a weakened version of Voldemort in another body.

• Apart from him being played by Ralph Fiennes, it's not quite as far fetched as you'd imagine. After his supposed death from Harry, some shred of him wound up killing and possessing the body of a British soldier in Northern Ireland. He's been working up the ranks since and by the end of the movie, hopes to use Bond and MI6 as the new M to exact revenge on the world of magic.

Eve shooting Bond is going to become part of the series' rolling canon

• By which I mean that, when the 40th James Bond film comes out in 2040, whatever whipper-snappers they have playing Bond and Moneypenny will still be mocking each other with the fact that she shot him once.
  • It's probably going to be brought up every time that she says "I missed you" until the end of the franchise.
  • Hah.. "Miss me?" "Of course not, Mr. Bond."

Silva is an AU version of Bond who did break following his capture by the North Koreans in Die Another Day.

• Silva (acknowledged not to be his real name) was captured in the Far East and 00 agents are told that they can expect "No deals" to free them. Clearly, the entire events of Die Another Day were some sort of fever dream from biting on the cyanide capsule. Once he recovered and escaped, Silva/Bond came back for his Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Meanwhile, MI6 reassigned the Bond identity to another agent.
  • Partially Jossed. Bond in Die Another Day was betrayed by MI6 agent Miranda Frost, who was Colonel Moon/Gustav Graves's lover at the time. "Silva", from M's perspective, dug his own grave when he tracked down too much intel on the Chinese during the handover period, and had to practically set him up herself (and betraying him) to ensure a peaceful transition in Hong Kong. Also, there's no indication that Silva was a double-O, even though he commented that he was once her favorite.

Sévérine was the true mastermind

• Her role in events was an elaborate act right down to getting shot in the head by Raoul Silva which removed her as a target of MI6. With Silva's revenge scheme against M in motion MI6 (or at least the movie) seemed to largely forget about both Sévérine and the operatives list that started all this. With her "death" and she was able to sell her copy with minimal fuss and move to somewhere warm where nobody would look for her. Not unlike what James Bond did earlier in the movie.

The different Bond actors really ARE different characters despite what this film may imply...

• ...it's just that MI6 secretly breeds potential candidates for the role of James Bond since birth. They pick healthy new-born boys and raise them separately under the name James Bond and eventually arrange for their parents' deaths to make sure they will grow to be bitter, cold killers. That way, MI6 always has a supply of potential Bonds to be recruited in case the current Bond becomes too hard to control. This puts a very dark spin on M's last words: "At least I got one thing right". Obviously, she means recruiting Craig's Bond, but this effectively means she's secretly controlled his entire life and is the indirect murderer of his parents.

The original Q was killed or heavily wounded in the MI6 bombing.

• Given the fact that the current Q is mentioned as newly appointed literally right after the MI6 bombing, it's not hard to assume that the original Q was one of the casualties.

Think On Your Sins.

• The initials of this phrase are TOYS. Now, when villains casually discard their men, there is generally some good guy saying that they treat people like toys. What was Silva's main complaint about M?
• Not only that, but Think On Your Sins is an anagram for 'Your Son Isnt In HK'. Why would Silva write that?

Mallory was behind everything

• Mallory wanted to be M. So he tracked down Silva and gave him all the info on M16's computers and layout, and the info on the bunker, so Silva could orchestrate his Evil Plan and discredit and/or kill M, getting her out of the way so he could take over. Then when the original plan turns into a mess, he helps send Sylva on the right trail to Skyfall. The only thing I can't figure out is why he jumped in front of the bullet meant for M.
  • The shot looked like he was hit in the head, yet his injuries were merely to his arm. Perhaps Silva didn't intend to kill M then, too impersonal, and wanted only to give her a scare with rubber bullets. Mallory was hit with a nonlethal rubber bullets, albeit from a lethal range.

James Bond actually DID die

• Being shot twice in the same day, falling off a bridge hundreds of feet tall, and being thrown into a river doesn't really much room for "living." The intro scene was Bond's stay in hell. James himself said his hobby was "Resurrection." He just crawled out about a month after he died, because it is James Bond.

M is James Bond's mother

• The name on his mother's gravestone was Monique a name beginning with the letter M. Her last words were "At least I did one thing right..." which could have a very personal meaning if this is the case. Also Bond regards her as a motherly figure and M also remarks that "Orphans make the best recruits" and Bond himself stated that she "'knew the whole story"' which could imply she knew that he was her son. The grave at the estate could have been empty since she works for MI6 and therefore required absolute secrecy/invisibility in her line of work. She could have given birth to James when she was young and kept him hidden at the Skyfall estate where he witnesses her being injured which he could have perceived as her dying because he was young and afraid at the time.
  • Except, I believe, we found out M's real name (Emma) at some point in the other films?
  • Troper who posted this theory here. We never see that Emma is her real name. Kincaid only referred to her as Emma because Bond never told him what her name was other than "M". He simply pronounced the name as "Emma" because he probably didn't know what else to call her.
    • The box given to Bond at the end of the movie actually has her name on it - Olivia Mansfield. Ironic, I suppose - a woman of high rank in a "man's field" of work.

That bull dog statue is made by Nintendo

• How else does it come out of an explosion undamaged?
  • Q made it. Not the new Q, the old one. There's probably a laser in it.

The shrink that evaluated Bond was planted by Silva

• It struck me as weird why during the word association test such a strange phrase like Skyfall, besides the obvious, would be said but realizing that Skyfall is where Bond grew up and where he learned of his parents deaths it could have all been a clever ruse by Silva to ensure Bond would fail the test knowing M would lie and send him out anyways letting Silva reveal said lie to try and get Bond to distrust M.
  • Nah. Silva mentioned the shrink said that Bond had unresolved issues with childhood trauma. Obviously, mentioning Skyfall was obviously intended to test how Bond responded to his childhood. By being unable/unwilling to talk about it he failed.

James Bond is a codename as well as the real name for several 00 agents.

• There exists a "Bond Dynasty" or House of Bond. Connery Bond was really named James Bond. Craig Bond is his descendent, as per a previous theory on this page. However, many of the other Bonds in between were merely agents who adopted the name as code names. Also, for weird eldritch mystical reasons- perhaps due to Aleister Crowley's involvement with British military intelligence during World War II?- the agency likes recruiting naval officers with the same profile for the code name. Womanizing, hard-drinking, gambling, suave, with a dead wife in the history.

Silva is also an orphan, or from an abusive home.

• His attachment to M and by extension to the British Empire like a surrogate (if Oedipal) parent could happen to anyone who'd been fostered and in a way mentored by an older authority figure, but M's knowing comment about how orphans make the best agents, and the fact that his anecdote talks only about his grandmother and no other family, makes me think that he might have had an atypical family situation himself. (He does say he visits the island, rather than living there with her, but it still makes one wonder.)

Albert Finney is playing the same character as he played in The Bourne Ultimatum

• The gravestones are fake (or, better yet, those of the parents of the original Bond — and they have their dates updated whenever a new Bond is recruited). Skyfall is actually the site where the latest recruit to the role of "James Bond" was brainwashed — by Dr Hirsch — to believe that this was his name and his childhood home. The "Bond" programme has been active since the early 70s, and Treadstone was just an offshoot.

(Note that I haven't seen the latest Bourne film, so it may somehow Joss this)

The Daniel Craig Bond series is an Alternate Universe to the original canon and the new Q is this universe's version of Boris Grishenko.

Both are skinny, bespectacled hackers.

Silva didn't want to spend money on a plane ticket to the United Kingdom

• That's why he let himself be captured. Confirmed.
  • Hey, airline tickets are expensive!

This film comes after Die Another Day

• The fact that this film has Moneypenny's backstory aside, this film could fit into the old canon provided you take some things into account: firstly, that Goldeneye came before Casino Royale (because the female M first got the job in Goldeneye), secondly, that M retired between Quantum of Solace and Tomorrow Never Dies, but was reinstated. A big mix-up, of course, but just another WMG.
  • The order, in this theory is:
    • 1. Goldeneye (Boothroyd is Q, Dench is M)
    • 2. Casino Royale
    • 3. Quantum of Solace
    • 4. Dr. No (Messervy becomes the new M)
    • 5. FRWL-LTK
    • 6. Tomorrow Never Dies (Dench becomes M again after the male M retires)
    • 7. The World is not Enough (Boothroyd retires and is replaced by R, AKA John Cleese)
    • 8. Die Another Day
    • 9. Skyfall- R has retired and been replaced by Whishaw's Q, whom he trained and mentored.

The girl Bond was sleeping with at the start was the person who rescued him from the river

• The hand that grabs his while he's sinking may belong to the "real world", rather than the Disney Acid Sequence intro. Also, Bond's survival becomes a bit more realistic if you assume that he passed out on impact and had to be dragged ashore.

Silva true goal was to curse MI6 - and it worked

• In his first appearance, Silva talks about his family tricking a bunch of rats into a pit and forcing them to eat each other, until only a pair of them were left. This is actually a variant on an Oriental curse known as Kudoku. So long as the owner of the last surviving vermin in the Kudoku cares for it (Often by sacrificing lives to it), great fortune will come to him. But the moment the owner stops, he must either discard everything he gained from the Kudoku or be killed by it. Many times, people would make a Kudoku and arrange for an enemy to acquire it unknowingly, causing said enemy to not know that he needed to care for the Kudoku and thus be killed by it. At the end of the movie, Bond freely admits to being the last rat standing. Silva has turned Bond into a Kudoku, which Mallory freely accepted on behalf of MI6. Every time M sends Bond on a mission, he is unknowingly making the sacrifices necessary to appease the curse, and his organization will prosper. But the moment he stops sending 007 out to kill enemies of England, the curse will trigger, and disaster will strike.

Bond parents had been killed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld before the events of For Your Eyes Only!.

A variation of the multiple Bond/Graig-Bond is the son of the original James Bond-theory. Bond was eleven as his parents died. We don't know his birth-year but it is possible, that he became eleven in 1981. Blofeld, who survived the events of Diamonds Are Forever took a decade to plan his revenge. He killed his old retired Nemesis. But he wanted also to kill the active 007, the Moore-Bond. And this went wrong.

One of those agents Silva exposed will play into a later film.

• Just seems like good Sequel Hook territory.
• Alternately, new missions will be derived from information found on Silva's laptop, namely against the "highest bidders" for his services he referred to when he first met Bond.
• Spectre establishes that Silva may have been doing missions on contract for Spectre, since he was already rogue when he got sold out by M.

Q was working for Silva

Q's the new guy. Good with computers. Admits he can cause Chaos before his morning tea. Could have been part of all this planning - how else would Silva have been able to get into MI6 so well? He only gives Bond two items - one of which was obviously part of the plan to get Silva captured. It's Bond who figures out the password - if Bond wouldn't have said it, Q would have continued to play dumb. Now that Silva's gone, Q will stay in his job - no one will ever know what he was helping out in.

Moneypenny is a code name

The "Code name: James Bond"-theory with a spin: The four actresses who have played Moneypenny in the (EON-produced) Bond films seem to have distinct differences in personality. But considering that being the secretary of the head of British Intelligence quite likely requires Moneypenny to be privy to a certain level of sensitive information, it makes sense that she is given an alias and that her real name is on a reasonably strict need-to-know basis. And really...

At least one of the writers for this film was a fan of Get Smart

Using the car from a previous continuity for a getaway is too obvious not to be a Shout-Out on some level.

Mallory is an Alternate Universe Voldemort

After all, how better to start a bid to take over the world than become the head of MI6? From there, he can become The Man Behind the Man for the Prime Minister, just as he did with the Minister of Magic in The Deathly Hallows.

Silva is actually a QUANTUM agent

Even if they don't say it in the film, he could very well have been backed by the organization, since his plan to assassinate M likely would have worked in their favor. The fact that his last name is a phonetic pun on the English word "Silver" plays into QUANTUM's tradition of giving their top operatives color-themed names (Mr. White, Dominic Greene, etc.).

• Or at least Quantum was frequently one of those "highest bidders" that paid for Silva's services. He seems more freelance given what he says to Bond about choosing his own secret missions.
• Semi-confirmed; he was a member of SPECTRE, which Quantum was a branch of.

Silva is responsible for Q's hiring by MI-6.

Q wasn't knowingly acting as a mole, but he was conveniently predictable and easy for Silva to manipulate. Hence also "not such a clever boy" — Q thinks he got the job because of his natural talents (and is characterized with no small amount of arrogance as a result) but he only got the job because a real technological genius was pulling the strings, one who was himself hired at a young age and who may have been primarily a desk jockey before his betrayal rather than a Bond-style field agent. Silva's clearly infiltrated MI-6 deeply enough to have access to and control over records relevant to hiring/commissioning of agents. And since after Quantum of Solace, MI-6 is even more alert for potential infiltrators, why not employ someone who doesn't know they're acting as a mole?

Bond is an Immortal.

Hence how he survived being shot and drowning.

Silva was genuinely freaked out by Bond's response to his Faux Yay.

Being a skilled actor he managed to pass it off ("Oh, Mr Bond") but he sure withdrew his hands quickly. Was this just because he wasn't getting under Bond's skin (so to speak) or was it because he (Silva) got a little scared? Note Silva being homophobic doesn't actually preclude him from being gay or bisexual; he could easily be a Boomerang Bigot.

• At any rate, he might still have more hangups about "this physical stuff" than he lets on, especially after five months of torture.

Kincade is Connery's Bond.

• It would explain why the two of them share the same code name- orphan (probably) James Kincade, having grown on the Bond estate, chose Bond for use as 007. After retiring, he returned to the estate where his exploits and devotion inspired the Bonds to name their son after him. Throughout Craig Bond's life (especially after the deaths of his parents) Connery Bond groomed him to enter MI6, and since it had already been used before and no-one would suspect it was his real name, Craig's Bond didn't bother changing it after obtaining 00 status.
• Both Connery’s Bond and Kincade are Scottish- obvious, yes, but every little helps- and he’s badass- speaks for itself. Anyone who can take on trained Silvia aligned agents with nothing but an old shotgun definitely qualifies, and speaks to prior training of the seriously awesome kind.
  • This also adds awesome to the 'Jumped Up Little Shit' line- he was 007 before Craig's Bond was a glint in his fathers eye, after all, and he still got the skills.
• Not canon, but the role was originally intended to be played by Connery (though presumably NOT as a former 00) until it was decided that using him would be too distracting to the audience, for this very reason.

The License To Kill

It is really unclear how Bond could go from an agent with "no kills", as he is described in the Action Prologue of Casino Royale (2006), to the ruthlessly effective- we might even say "brutally" effective- killer he is only a little later and through all three Craig films. In real life, killing just 2 men doesn't transform most people that completely- and Bond clearly has experience doing what he does. It is almost inconceivable that he has never killed anyone before. Also, in Skyfall, we see that field agents like Eve are ordered to shoot people in the line of duty- and if she had killed Patrice, it would not have implied that she was halfway to "00" status herself. So, what exactly does the "License To Kill" or "00" status mean?

"00" agents in this mythology must be the ones who carry out assassinations for MI-6, as opposed to killing in self-defense or combat operations (obviously, you couldn't forbid a non-"00" to kill an enemy that was trying to kill him!). That must be the meaning of "kills" in the Casino Royale (2006) prologue; premeditated, targeted assassinations. It would also account for some of the disparities in Skyfall, where Bond is portrayed as a long-service agent, only 2 films after Casino Royale (2006). So, Bond was already an experienced field operative before the events of the film, and had killed enemies in combat or self-defense, "in the rough and tumble of it" as it were; he just hadn't been sent on an assassination contract yet. (Just like Silva, who was an experienced agent and a ruthless killer, but never explicitly stated to have been a "00".) It was Bond's long experience that qualified him to be sent on an assassination- 'M' would hardly send a rookie, would she? And once you're a "00", with a license to kill, maybe you get to decide who needs to be assassinated on your own and tell 'M' about it afterwards? Which would be why MI-6 is so careful about promoting "00"s in the first place- because, as we see with Bond, once they have a license to kill, they may use it even when you don't want them to.

• Judging by the books, James Bond is not precisely a spy, but a high profile assassin. The same may be said of all 00 agents. They're "blunt instruments", after all.
  • Technically in Casino Royale it isn't stated that two kills automatically make you a 00, simply that it's a minimum requirement.
    • The meaning of kills/licence to kill in this context is, as I recall explained in one of the earlier novels in the series, maybe as early as Casino Royale.

Silva is from Gibraltar

For those who don't know, it's a British territory at the southern tip of Spain. That would explain the casting choice of Javier Bardem, since if Silva came from Gibraltar, and British citizenship, he could work for MI6.

The double 0 Agents are produced by a breeding program

They really are almost superhuman. This explains why Bond can take what he does, continuously, for great amounts of time, while on enough alcohol that a normal person couldn't see straight, and why cyanide doesn't kill Silva. M has some mutation towards being a determinator, but since she was never able to do field work, she passed on her genes to her children, who are, by different fathers, presumably also mutants or at the very least talented, Bond, Silva, and likely several other agents. Bond guesses that M is his mother, and Silva has some sort of proof. Makes the scene between Bond and Silva squicky, though.

The old Q was killed in the explosion

Ben Whishaw's Q is mentioned to be the new Quartermaster. It's very likely that the old Q was one of the agents killed by Silva's explosion, which is how Ben Whishaw's Q, relatively young and arrogant got the job.

Skyfall was once called Baskerville Hall.

At some time after events described in the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, the male lineage of the Baskervilles died out, and the Bonds where either their next of kin, or just bought the place.

Mallory is Mycroft Holmes.

Not the original, the BBC series version of Mycroft. Here we see what he does at work, when he is not busy annoying his little brother.

Silva arranged for all his assets, technology and knowledge to be used to set up SPECTRE after his death.

As a way to keep making the MI6's life miserable even beyond the grave. Hence, the next movie.

Mallory is Justin Quayle

Also played by Ralph Fiennes, Justin Quayle fakes his own death at the end of The Constant Gardener. A funeral is staged where the conspiracy involving pharmaceutical companies that Justin uncovered is revealed by his late wife Tessa's cousin Ham. He obtains another false passport off Ham and changes his name to Gareth Mallory, makes up a back-story about joining the SAS and serving in Northern Ireland and is eventually promoted to Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

Bond's Aston Martin is the same car he won in Casino Royale

He had the car shipped to the UK, converted it to right hand drive, and had Q install the weapons and ejector seat while he was in Macau.

Silva's cyanide capsule contained more than just cyanide

The amount of damage his jaw and face sustained wouldn't be caused by cyanide alone. Likely, MI6 included a corrosive substance to disfigure or destroy his jaw and skull so that no one could identify him with dental records.

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