Casino Reboot

When Casino Royale was announced in 2005, I was curious how they were going to pull off an origin story while at the same time keeping it modern with the times. As you know, Casino Royale is Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel and also introduces the world to 007 in his first adventure. Published in 1953, the novel takes place in the 1950s of a British agent earning his 00 license and sent on his first mission to confront an international arms dealer by the name of Le Chiffre. If Bond beats him to a game of poker, he will defeat the man the CIA will take him into custody. This takes a wrong turn.

1953 cover of Fleming's novel

Poster for the 2006 film

Now, I'm not going to focus on the story, as you can look that up yourself here. The main point I wanted to bring up is the fact that the 2006 movie takes place in the current day rather than 1953. Quite a gap, I know...The Cold War is long over, James Bond as a character on the screen no longer smokes cigarettes or cigars, and many events have changed the world such as 9/11 and the Iraq War. So, you can understand that not only did I have a problem with the producers rebooting a series that has been on-going since 1962 and getting Daniel Craig while Pierce Brosnan was basically fired from the job; I also had a problem with them starting a series that should have been set in the 50s instead of the 21st century. What was the point? Sure, it's nice to see that EON finally got the rights to the novel and made their own official version; it's just hard to believe that the man who is James Bond is starting in the early 21st century and we are supposed to see him become the man that goes through all those countless adventures through the decades to follow. Perhaps the most obvious conclusion is that it would have been too expensive to set up a world taking place in the 50s and still maintain the level of action set pieces and stunts all the while shooting in different locations throughout the world. I just found that to be a bit confusing, as I'm sure others did as well.

We still have Judi Dench as M from the previous films, and we see Bond get a new Aston Martin so in a way this continues the adventures left from Pierce Brosnan. It also takes place in 2006 which also acknowledges the passage of time from 2002's Die Another Day. At the same time, this is a younger James Bond before he becomes the man we all know him to be. So, it's a bit of a mess. People tell me to just let it go and ignore all that came before, but if I do that...there would be nothing to reference to in terms of the character played by so many other actors and even the films based on the books Fleming wrote, no matter how different they are on the screen. Until EON says different and announces themselves that we are to forget all that came before and just hit the slate clean, I will continue debating this and not just accept the the fact that this is indeed a clean slate but just a bit of a jumble.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film a great deal-even though I like Skyfall more-but this is just a point that has been boiling up inside of me for a while and wanted to let it out.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? WAS IT WISE NOT TO HAVE THE DANIEL CRAIG VERSION IN THE 50s? IS IT FINE THE WAY IT IS? SHOULD THEY REBOOT ALL THE FILMS THAT CAME BEFORE IT? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW AND AS ALWAYS...