[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Is James Bond a code name?? (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 6/5/2013 2:23:26 AM EDT
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I've been thinking/reading online discussions about this lately. The general consensus seems to be that Skyfall (in which Bond's family estate is shown, including the gravestones for an "Andrew Bond" and his wife, and the groundskeeper addresses him as "James Bond" despite having not seen him in years) disproves this theory. I don't necessarily agree; while I agree that there are some holes in the "Bond is a code name" theory, even after Skyfall it still makes a hell of a lot more sense than Bond being one person throughout all the movies, which would essentially mean that he is immortal. Consider the theory I've been working on for a few days (I'll refer to the different Bonds by the names of the actors who play them, in order to differentiate them from one another):
Sean Connery's real name is James Bond...or, more precisely, Andrew James Bond. In order to keep a rigid distinction between his home life and his work as a 00 agent, he goes by his middle name in his professional life. He marries and has a son, whom he names Andrew James Bond Jr. Sometime shortly after the events of Diamonds are Forever, Connery took some leave time and took his wife on a romantic vacation; his son was left at home in the care of his trusted groundskeeper. During the vacation, SPECTRE thugs attack the couple. Connery's wife is killed, and Connery himself is believed dead. In order to protect his son from further retaliation by Blofeld, Connery agrees to allow MI6 to fake his death. Connery will have to leave his son forever, but will know that he is safe under the watchful eye of the groundskeeper and will also be kept an eye on at a distance by MI6. Connery adopts the identity of John Mason, who is given a backstory (SAS Captain) that is different from Connery's own but will explain his skill set. Connery must leave Britain forever and goes to San Francisco to start a private business and even fathers a child with an American woman....but when MI6 needs an operative for a highly sensitive mission in the United States they call upon the only man who can do the job, and he is unable to resist. Unfortunately his skills are rusty after some time of dormancy and he is captured and held off the books by the FBI at multiple locations, including Alcatraz. As they only know him as John Mason and have no idea about his past as James Bond, he continues living the Mason identity the entire time he is behind bars, but is unable to attempt to contact his friend Felix Leiter for help. Meanwhile, MI6 institutes a tradition where an agent with an exemplary service record who is killed in the line of duty will have future agents who adopt his 00 number, also adopt his name as a code name (somewhat similar to a sports team retiring a jersey number). They may even be required to legally change their name. So George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan all operate under the code name "James Bond". When Brosnan retires, MI6 does not recruit a new 007 for several years...until a new recruit enters training. He is raw, not nearly as refined as his immediate predecessors, but is reminiscent of the Connery...and, in fact, his birth name is James Bond, having been named after his father. He completes his 00 training and takes his father's place as 007 but is constantly haunted by his father's death in the line of duty. He knows the location where his father's Aston Martin is stored, and may or may not know that his father has escaped from American custody (with the help of Dr. Stanley Goodspeed) and that he has a half-sister named Jade Angelou living in San Francisco. Likewise, Felix Leiter is a code name--he has been white at times and black at others, and he and Bond have introduced themselves to one another at various times in the series. M is a code name, of course (Craig jokes in Casino Royale that it isn't, but all this means is that Judi Dench's M has either a real first or last name beginning with the letter M). Moneypenny is also a code name, traditionally reserved for M's secretary--note that the Moneypenny character in Skyfall doesn't introduce herself as such until after she's accepted that position. This is after she's been on at least two operations with Bond and probably slept with him (in Macau)--unlikely that he doesn't know either her real name or whatever code name she was going by as a field operative (and of course, like Leiter, she's changed race over the course of the series). He re-introduces himself to her after learning she has left field work because he doesn't know what her new code name will be (having never met any of the previous Moneypennys). Now I realize there are still some holes in this theory--most notably Roger Moore avenging the death of George Lazenby's wife, which can be explained by Moore and Lazenby actually portraying the same Bond--but, like I said, makes a hell of a lot more sense than Bond being immortal (and I threw in The Rock crossover because it was fun to think up). TL/DR - Bond is a code name, they're all different people except possibly Moore and Lazenby, Connery is Craig's father (and those two are both actually named "James Bond", and Connery's Bond is the same person as John Mason from The Rock |
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I think a simpler explanation might be that the fictional Bond world exists in a time warp (like the Hardy boys were 17 and 18 for about 60 years), while in our own world time continues to move, so they have to replace actors.
Or perhaps Bond went on to help Nick Cage stop domestic terrorists from melting the faces off of all of San Francisco. What do I know? |
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We did this already. Bond is his real name. Which never made sense to me. Why would a secret agent use his real name when out on a mission?  If you actually watch the movies he uses aliases plenty of times when he is supposed to be "undercover". -J ETA here is a link to a list of his various aliases. List of Aliases for James Bond |
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Then who the fuck is Spartacus? http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3zw5m5Igw1qcqw6d.gif I'm Spartacus and so is my wife! |
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Fleming took the name for his character from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies. Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond's guide and he later explained to the ornithologist's wife that "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond  |
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So, basically, the OP watched the 1967 abortion Casino Royale while drunk? Good point, OP, where does David Niven fit into your theory? The original Casino Royale is non-canon, as is Never Say Never Again--although in theory there could have been any number of Bonds who served in between the ones portrayed on screen. Also we're talking the film series here, which doesn't necessarily follow canon with the novels. Another point--we saw in Moonraker that space travel was considerably more advanced and widespread in the film than it was at that point in time in real life. Could this be because we're watching an alternate universe where the US government adapted alien technology recovered from the Roswell crash, as referenced in The Rock, to its own space program?? |
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So, basically, the OP watched the 1967 abortion Casino Royale while drunk? Good point, OP, where does David Niven fit into your theory? The original Casino Royale is non-canon, as is Never Say Never Again--although in theory there could have been any number of Bonds who served in between the ones portrayed on screen. Also we're talking the film series here, which doesn't necessarily follow canon with the novels. Another point--we saw in Moonraker that space travel was considerably more advanced and widespread in the film than it was at that point in time in real life. Could this be because we're watching an alternate universe where the US government adapted alien technology recovered from the Roswell crash, as referenced in The Rock, to its own space program?? I find your use of the word "canon" ironic given your peyote induced theory. |
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Here are the Bonds on their wedding day: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/16/Tracy_and_James_just_got_married.jpg It didnt end well... very underrated film. |
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I actually always figured his name was an alias seeing as how he just tells everybody and their mother his name. Still you'd think he'd need more than one alias. I'm sure by now his name has been mentioned at the annual international terrorist expo and conference.
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Protip:
If you a dictator or madman who runs an international crime ring and your island home is visited by any of the following: 1. Ornithologist (James Bond) 2. Lepidopterist (Robert Baden-Powell) 3. Naturalist (Stephen Maturin) then you should SHOOT THEM ON THE SPOT. |