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James Bond canon has long been a topic of much debate, but the continuity of the classic era could have been settled with a third Dalton movie.

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SUMMARY

 The abandoned Dalton sequel script provided potential answers to long-standing questions about James Bond ‘s canon and timeline.
 Every Bond actor brings a new element to the role while respecting the character’s legacy, leading to ambiguity in the franchise’s continuity.
 Craig’s era reset the Bond canon, separating his movies from the older ones and creating the possibility of each Bond existing in their own universe.

The James Bond movie franchise has long had an esoteric and confusing canon, but an abandoned Timothy Dalton sequel could have settled the debate.

Almost every James Bond movie has questions surrounding it regarding where it belongs within the franchise’s canon – if it even belongs anywhere at all.

James Bond’s changing face is the biggest factor that contributes to the uncertainty surrounding the timeline, and while there may never be a satisfying explanation given, Dalton’s spell as Bond came very close to clearing up the tangled web of vague continuity. That being said, another Bond era also teased an answer.

Every Bond movie that’s actually based on Ian Fleming’s stories has come together with the looser interpretations of the author’s work to create an impressive collection of feature-length films.

Like with any long-running franchise, James Bond has had to start getting coy with its canon so the story can continue.

Every James Bond actor has brought something new to the role while remaining respectful of the character’s legacy. 007’s numerous recastings have never received an in-universe explanation, but it has come very close to clearing other things up.

The MI6 agent under the codename 007 was surrounded by countless awe-inspiring vehicles throughout Daniel Craig’s era of the James Bond franchise.

Timothy Dalton’s Unmade Third Bond Movie Would Have Answered 007’s Canon Question

An unused Dalton script referenced Bond events from before his era

A 2020 book by author Mark Editz called The Lost Adventures of James Bond mentions several planned projects that were never put into production.

The book references unmade Timothy Dalton Bond movies. The script for a potential third Dalton movie was penned by William Osborne, who ended up contributing to Pierce Brosnan’s 1995 Bond film, GoldenEye, which was the next installment after Dalton’s departure.

Excerpts from Osborne’s unused script are featured in Editz’s book, and the dialogue from Dalton’s Bond would have directly tied his version of the character to previous iterations.

Timothy Dalton’s Bond left after two movies, but he was slated to speak with a love interest in a third film, delivering revealing statements such as, “Did I ever tell you about the time Blofeld dumped me in a pool of sharks?” and “Goldfinger makes me look like a complete idiot.”

The dialogue is a direct reference to 1965’s Thunderball and the preceding movie, Goldfinger from 1964. What’s interesting about this abandoned exchange is that Sean Connery was still in the lead role for both movies being referenced by Dalton’s Bond.

If the abandoned third movie had been made, then the dialogue from Dalton’s Bond would have been the most direct reference to stories from the character’s past.

In fact, Dalton didn’t play the franchise’s title character until 1987’s The Living Daylights. If the abandoned third movie had been made, then the dialogue from Dalton’s Bond would have been the most direct reference to stories from the character’s past.

If so, it would have been difficult to argue that all the Bond movies until that point had indeed been part of the same canon. In its absence, the ambiguity remains firmly in place.

Roger Moore’s Era Came Closest To Solving James Bond Canon

Tracy was the late love interest of George Lazenby’s Bond

Although the movie mentioned in Mark Editz’s book never happened, that doesn’t mean the franchise is completely without instances of James Bond actors referencing the events of their predecessors. In Roger Moore’s For Your Eyes Only in 1981, Bond visits the grave of one “Teresa Bond“.

Teresa, who went by Tracy, married Bond during the final moments of George Lazenby’s lone movie in the role during 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In Lazenby’s movie, Tracy is killed by Blofeld, so Moore’s Bond visiting her grave is a clever reference to a movie that came over a decade earlier.

Diana Rigg starred as Tracy in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and her character would go on to define 5 different eras of James Bond movies.

The moment is a brilliant way to connect the various versions of James Bond, but it’s hard to call the event solid evidence that Lazenby’s version of 007 is the same man as Moore’s.

The discarded script for Timothy Dalton’s third Bond movie would have been a more convincing and definite thread to clear up the character’s timeline and overall franchise continuity. As it stands, the scene at Tracy’s grave is all that exists.

Daniel Craig’s Era Made James Bond Canon Even More Complicated

James Bond finally reset its canon when Daniel Craig was cast

Daniel Craig’s James Bond era changed 007 when he stepped into the lead role in 2006’s Casino Royale. Craig went on to make five movies as 007 before stepping back from the role in 2021.

While Craig’s version of James Bond has never directly referenced the events of the classic era, it’s abundantly clear that his movies are not set within the same timeline as the others.

The one outlier is that Judi Dench remained in the role of M, a character she also played alongside Pierce Brosnan’s Bond. Otherwise, Casino Royale marks the start of a definitive franchise reset.

While Craig’s version of James Bond has never directly referenced the events of the classic era, it’s abundantly clear that his movies are not set within the same timeline as the others.

While Craig’s presence restarted the timeline, this muddies the waters of the older James Bond movies even more. The tentative connections and incomplete projects from the classic era would seem to suggest that all the actors before Daniel Craig were playing the exact same man.

However, separating Daniel Craig’s movies so clearly from the others creates the possibility that every previous James Bond also existed in their own respective universe.