James Bond

Overview

James Bond is the suave British spy and main protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, movies, and video games. Codenamed "007" (pronounced "double-oh seven"), Bond is one of the top agents of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service. He is a Commander of the Royal Navy, has a license to kill, and prefers his martini "shaken, not stirred".

Although an expert in the martial arts, James Bond usually brandishes a Walther PPK pistol. (Although he uses a Beretta 418 in the first James Bond movie and Walther P99 in the 1997-2002 movies) To avoid trademark issues, games before Quantum of Solace renamed the Walther PPK to the "Wolfram PP7" and the Walther P99 to either the "Wolfram P2K" or simply the "P99". He also uses a wide variety of gadgets (including the famous high-tech watches) and custom vehicles (including the iconic Aston Martin DB5) from MI6's Q Branch.

Portrayal

Since the debut of the first official James Bond movie, Dr. No, there have been six actors portraying James Bond in films:

• Sean Connery (1962-1967, 1971)
• George Lazenby (1969)
• Roger Moore (1973-1985)
• Timothy Dalton (1987-1989)
• Pierce Brosnan (1995-2002)
• Daniel Craig (2006-2021)

In early video game adaptions, James Bond has been portrayed as a generic man in tuxedo. Beginning with GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64, video game adaptations of the James Bond movies have the likeness (and sometimes voice) of the specific movie actor who portrayed Bond.

• Pierce Brosnan appeared in the video game adaptations of his first three James Bond films (GoldenEye 007, 007: Tomorrow Never Dies, and 007: The World Is Not Enough), as well as original James Bond games 007: Racing, 007: Agent Under Fire, 007: Nightfire, and 007: Everything or Nothing.
• Daniel Craig appeared in the video game adaptation of his second movie (Quantum of Solace), in the recreation of GoldenEye 007, and in original James Bond games James Bond 007: Blood Stone and 007: Legends (which relives a key moment from one James Bond film from each actor).
• Sean Connery reprised his role as James Bond in the video game recreation 007: From Russia With Love.
• Timothy Dalton's likeness has been used in the cover art for 007: Licence to Kill and James Bond: The Duel.

One notable exception to his portrayal is in GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, where he is briefly portrayed by Jason Carter (of Babylon 5 fame).

Trivia

• As a result of Sean Connery's performance as James Bond, Ian Fleming rewrote the character to be of an ethnically Scottish background.