Sean Bean’s GoldenEye villain Alec Trevelyan predicted James Bond’s death 26 years before No Time To Die. For several decades, James Bond has gone through seven different actors and countless brushes with death. The character’s relevance in film and popular media hasn’t waned despite cultural shifts and trends in pop culture, which gave 007 an air of invincibility. Yet, with Daniel Craig’s time as James Bond coming to an end in 2021, No Time To Die did the unthinkable and killed off the legendary MI6 agent.
Although Daniel Craig’s James Bond was as skilled as in previous iterations, he struggled more with his personal life. This James Bond wished to neutralize threats like Blofeld and Safin in order to enjoy a more peaceful life, which he almost achieved with Madeleine Swann and their daughter Mathilde before deciding to sacrifice himself for their safety. Time is a theme for Craig’s Bond in No Time To Die and his previous films, and his tragic failure to spend time with his loved ones before dying was teased as early as in 1995’s Goldeneye.
Bond’s NTTD Memorial Is Like What Alec Trevelyan Promised In GoldenEye
In Goldeneye, Alec Trevelyan plans to steal hundreds of millions of pounds and kill his former MI6 colleague James Bond in the process. Convinced that his scheme was failproof, Trevelyan tells Russian general Arkady Ourumov “What’s true is that in 48 hours you and I will have more money than God. And Mr. Bond here will have a small memorial service with only Moneypenny and a few tearful restaurateurs in attendance.” While Trevelyan was only trying to distract Ourumov at this moment, he actually believed Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond would fail to stop him, and he ended up being correct in his prediction.
Predictably, Brosnan’s James Bond sabotages Alec Trevelyan’s plan and escapes unscathed. But the same can’t be said about Daniel Craig’s Bond. After he fails to escape Lyutsifer Safin’s base in No Time To Die and his death is confirmed, Moneypenny, Nomi, M, Q, and Bill Tanner have a small toast in Bond’s honor. Long after his own death, Alec Trevelyan’s prediction of Bond’s humble funeral is mostly right, just with Bond’s closest allies replacing the “few tearful restaurateurs.”
Why James Bond’s No Time To Die Death Had To Happen
Nearly six decades of cinematic history and various faked deaths had made the possibility of James Bond actually dying a tragic death highly unlikely. However, Daniel Craig brought a more grounded tone to the character, who clearly got hurt and tired physically and psychologically with every completed mission. Craig’s Bond was far from invincible, and he knew he had to distance himself from danger as soon as Madeleine and Mathilde arrived in his life. But after so many unlikely victories, No Time To Die proved that James Bond is ultimately human. He’s neither a superhero nor the outlandish MI6 agent of previous generations. GoldenEye‘s Alec Trevelyan was only off by a couple of decades.
