Trivia / 007: From Russia with Love

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Despite his retirement, Sean Connery accepted the opportunity to play Bond again in this game because he wanted to give his version of the character one last send-off.
  I hate nothing more than being tied to only James Bond. But when they came to make the game and they asked me to do it I said yes. Regardless of anything, James Bond was good to me and made me a respected actor. I wanted a one last thing. And I didn't want someone else taking on my Bond film.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: Sean Connery as Bond, of course.
• The Other Darrin: Most of the movie characters had to be recast for various reasons, death of the actor due to the 40 year interval between film and game being a big one. For example, Bernard Lee (M) is replaced by Peter Renaday due to the former having died in 1981. However the game in part traded itself on getting Sean Connery to not only let them use his face for James Bond, but voice the character as well.
• The Original Darrin: Sean Connery returned as James Bond while previous video games of the franchise at the Turn of the Millennium had then-current Bond actor Pierce Brosnan voicing the main role.
• Role Reprise: The game traded itself in part on having gotten Sean Connery to voice Bond, who retired from physical acting two years prior. It is the last time he portrayed Bond in any media, as he passed away in October 2020.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: EA wasn't allowed to use the name SPECTRE for the antagonists due to a legal dispute over the film rights to Thunderball between MGM/UA/Eon Productions and now-deceased screenwriter/producer Kevin McClory (which wasn't settled until 2013 when Eon's producers bought the last remaining rights to McClory's estate, Spectre resulted from that). They had to replace them with the Suspiciously Similar Substitute OCTOPUS.
• What Could Have Been: EA had originally planned to release a 007 game in 2005, internally called Bond6, that would've once again used the likeness of Pierce Brosnan. This was dropped after Brosnan stepped away from the role, and the game was instead retooled as an adaptation of From Russia with Love while the new Bond actor (who turned out to be Daniel Craig) was being cast.
• You Look Familiar: Elizabeth Stark, the Bond Girl you rescue at the beginning of the game, is portrayed by British singer Natasha Bedingfield (of "Unwritten" fame). Bedingfield had previously contributed lead vocals for the opening song, "If You're Gonna Jump", from the previous Bond game, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.

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