It's pointless to compare 'Casino Royale' to any of the other 'straight' Bond films. Or in Fritz Perl's 'here and now', to switch hoaxes in midstream. In any event, it's certainly something for fans like myself to contemplate and discuss.It helps if you're able to live in Kierkegaard's unfolding moment if you want to enjoy this movie. Perhaps one day the folks at Dynamite Comics, who have done truly great work with the 'James Bond' series on the page in recent years, could explore this idea down the line while we wait for a new actor to fill the void. What would Craig's lost missions look like? What sort of villains did he encounter during those years we never got to see? What high-stakes plots did he stop that made him so weary and reliant on substance to get through the day? A great many questions that, frustratingly, have no answers. It has stuck with me ever since, and following 'No Time to Die' I simply cannot stop thinking about it.

The folks of the 'James Bonding' podcast once theorized that the entire 'James Bond' series was canon, in a sense, with all of the missions seen in Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and George Lazenby's movies took place in between 'Quantum' and 'Skyfall.' While that theory falls apart in a heartbeat, the nugget of this very real notion was seeded in my mind by that show.

Much has happened to Craig's Bond in the time between 'Quantum' and 'Skyfall,' that much is certain. This is not the run-and-gun, fresh to the world of spies Bond that we saw in 'Casino Royale.' This is a version of the man who is bordering on 'played out,' who is held together by his drink and his pills, as Silva puts it later in the movie.

This is a Bond that has been through some things and seen some things. Let's have a look at the scene, just as a refresher. One scene in particular hints at the importance of this time gap, which sees Bond breaking into M's apartment after he was presumed dead, given that he was shot off a train and fell to a would-be death in the cold open. If we're to assume that 'Quantum of Solace' also takes place in 2006 (roughly speaking) as follows right after 'Casino Royale,' then six years or so passed between the events of those movies and 'Skyfall,' which was released in 2012. But something else key happens in 'Skyfall' that is easy to gloss over for the average viewer.

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