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Daniel Craig’s time as James Bond is over. Some may want to go on to speculate about who the next Bond will be (not that the members of the band IDLES care). It’s a little early for that, though. Instead, it’s time to look back at Craig’s tenure as Bond which, from a sheer time perspective, was longer than anybody else’s run as Bond. Five films is also a significant output for an actor in a role. How many actors do that? Outside of the MCU, that is? What is the legacy of the Craig era for Bond after the release of No Time to Die?
It’s probably safe to say that Craig is now the definitive “serious Bond.” These films are the grimmest of any Bond era. These movies get gritty. Sure, the Timothy Dalton films touched on that, but not to the same degree. They were designed as a juxtaposition to the Pierce Brosnan films, which were fairly campy and were big ‘90s style action films. Craig’s Bond got serious and were more in line with the Bourne films or the works of Christopher Nolan.
This era is also a modernizing of Bond in that it basically tells one long, serialized story. You know how people will say their TV show is really a “200-minute movie” or whatever? The Craig Bonds are an extension of each other. They are not standalone films. In fact, the first two and the last two are basically just one story, with Skyfall in the middle. It may not be a coincidence that Skyfall is the best of the Craig era as well.
I don’t know how I feel about the overarching era of Bond. I kind of feel like the standalone story era was, if not better, more definitively James Bond. Of course, a film franchise is allowed to evolve, but was this an evolution, or just a lateral move to make things different? I would like to see some stories that are self-contained. Don’t make Bond so much like Bourne. Let him be Bond.
Ultimately, I feel like the Daniel Craig era of James Bond gave us two good movies (Casino Royale and Skyfall), one pretty good movie (No Time to Die), and two movies that were pretty mediocre (Quantum of Solace and Spectre). Then again, this era gave us a movie called “Quantum of Solace,” which is pretty delightful. This version of Bond was different in some good ways, but that doesn’t mean the next version shouldn’t also be different in good ways as well.
