WARNING: The following contains spoilers for No Time to Die, now in theaters.

After fifteen years and five films, Daniel Craig's universally lauded tenure as the British secret agent James Bond has finally come to a definitive end with No Time to Die. As fans reflect on Craig's celebrated run as the character, one of the undisputed high points of the era and entire Bond franchise that continues to hold up nearly a full decade later is 2012's Skyfall. The Academy Award-winning film brought the franchise to its highest worldwide box office totals to date, even after adjusting for inflation. However, for all of its success, it also cast its direct follow-up, 2015's Spectre, in its creative shadow.

Skyfall had delved more into Bond's personal backstory than any other film in the franchise, with Bond returning to his eponymous ancestral home and was forced to confront his contentious upbringing before taking on Silva for a final showdown on the Scottish moors. With much of Skyfall featuring Bond in the middle of something of an existential crisis, the character is much more emotionally vulnerable as he contemplates his life and career while Silva makes the fight all the more personal by targeting Bond's surrogate maternal figure M. And while Bond fails to protect her by the film's end, he reinvigorates his commitment to MI6 moving forward.

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While Spectre reintroduced the eponymous global terrorist syndicate and its fiendish leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld, it also doubled down on the nature of Bond having more explicit personal connections to the mission and his enemy. 2006's Casino Royale and its direct 2008 sequel Quantum of Solace introduced a shadowy organization in the vein of Spectre known as Quantum, but Spectre made it clear that the two organizations were one and the same. But more shockingly, Blofeld was revealed to be Bond's renamed adoptive brother Franz Oberhauser, a villain who went out of his way to orchestrate all of Bond's strife and loss from behind-the-scenes as part of their longstanding vendetta.

Spectre was largely a critical and commercial success, but it did not approach the same level as Skyfall while audiences were divided on the narrative decisions to retcon Blofeld to be Bond's brother -- a move that curiously echoed the familial connection between parody characters Austin Powers and Doctor Evil -- as well as tying in elements from Skyfall that suggested Silva was working for Spectre all along rather than operating alone to seek revenge on M. These plot threads would continue to haunt No Time to Die, with Bond being convinced the true villainous mastermind for much of the film was a captive Blofeld, resulting in an awkward exchange between the two men that results in Blofeld's death.

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Christoph-Waltz-Spectre-Blofeld

Spectre's connections to Skyfall are more overt than similar themes and scope, with elements from the 2012 film's score recycled for use throughout Spectre in addition to its own original score, and Skyfall filmmaker Sam Mendes returning to helm Spectre. And while a fine film in its own right, it does feel like Spectre was perhaps overly influenced by Skyfall due to its predecessor's enormous success, forcing in personal connections and backstory where it perhaps would be better omitted entirely.

To see how Daniel Craig's James Bond ends his run, No Time to Die is in theaters now.

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