In the final scene of Casino Royale, Bond begins his journey to discovering the man responsible for Vesper’s betrayal and death, and subsequent movies follow him down the rabbit hole of exposing the evil organization Spectre and its leader, Ernst Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). At their behest, she worked to entrap Bond but later sacrificed her life in order to save his. That film ends with the revelation that Bond’s first true love, Vesper, was being blackmailed by a villainous figure. That refusal to establish Bond film continuity changed in a big way with Casino Royale (2006), the first to star Daniel Craig in its title role. Even when Bond hunts down Blofeld, the man he presumably holds responsible for his wife’s death, he never even mentions Tracy’s name. Even when Bond’s wife was murdered on their wedding day in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), she’s never even mentioned in the film’s sequel, Diamonds Are Forever (1971). The next movie may star the same actor or a different one, but rarely does anything of real consequence-romances, villainous encounters-carry over from film to film. Bond movies usually end with the successful destruction of a villain’s lair, and the camera panning away as the hero beds a Bond girl-on a boat, in space, on a balcony, often with his would-be rescuers looking on. In the franchise’s storied 58-year history, 007 has never actually died.
