Foreshadowing / James Bond

Get your funeral attire ready.

Unmarked spoilers are present throughout the subpages. Read at your own risk.

In General

• The opening sequences come with plot-relevant music (typically to go with the silhouettes foreshadowing the plot).

Goldfinger

• Oddjob breaks off a statue's head by throwing his hat at it, and later on breaks Tilly Masterson's neck the same way.
• Bond kills a henchman with electricity in the prologue. Guess how he kills Oddjob at the end.
• Bond warns Pussy about the consequences of shooting a gun in an aeroplane at high altitude. In the climax a gun is fired in an aircraft and blows out a window, causing Goldfinger to be sucked out and fall to his death.
• Bond ordering Goldfinger to lose at gin rummy in the beginning is later used in the golf game when Bond tricks Goldfinger into losing the game.

Thunderball

• After Bond kills Largo's Dragon Vargas with a spear from a speargun, Domino says "It should have been Largo." At the climax, Domino kills Largo the exact same way.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

• Several scenes set up Tracy's fate at the end of the film.
  • "Teresa was a saint." In real life, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was sent to Auschwitz and died a martyr in 1942. Tracy died not long after saving the man she loved.
  • This line from Tracy.
    Tracy: People who want to stay alive play it safe.
  • Bond also gets his first look at Tracy through the telescopic site of his rifle. Three guesses as to what happens to her at the end.
  • Draco makes his offer to give Bond £1 million in exchange for Tracy's hand in marriage on the night of the 13th.
  • During the whirlwind romance sequence, Tracy is seen stroking a passing black cat. They are typically a sign of misfortune and death.
• While on the helicopter ride to Piz Gloria, Irma Bunt points out avalanche damage on a mountain as they pass over it. Later in the film, Bond and Tracy attempt to escape Blofeld via skis, only for the latter to trigger an avalanche and bury them in it.
• Meta example: The whole resignation from Her Majesty's Secret Service business would mirror Lazenby's decision to quit the series.
• Another meta example regarding Lazenby's decision to quit the series: In the Bond Gun Barrel sequence, Bond gets on one knee as he fires the gun, as if he's bowing farewell. Then, the blood that would normally turn everything red wipes him out of the picture as well.

Diamonds Are Forever

• While Bond is in the Whyte House he sees a painting of the owner, Willard Whyte. Later he meets and rescues Willard Whyte and discovers he looks just like his picture.
• Plenty O'Toole is thrown out a window and ends up landing in a pool. Later she's killed by Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, who tie her to a weight and throw her into a pool to drown.
• When Bond first meets Tiffany Case she's wearing a black wig. Later she sees black hair in a pool and thinks it's her wig: it's actually the hair of Plenty O'Toole. Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd thought Plenty was Tiffany wearing the wig.

For Your Eyes Only

• Before being taken on a ride by Blofeld, a priest informs Bond that a helicopter from Universal Exports is coming to pick Bond up. He then makes the sign of the cross toward Bond as the helicopter takes off, hinting at the helicopter being a death trap meant for Bond.

The Living Daylights

• After the sniper sequence in Vienna, when told that he disobeyed orders Bond snarls that if M wants him to resign, he'll welcome it. The very next movie, M revokes his licence to kill.
• In the prologue, Bond uses a parachute to exit a Land Rover full of explosives (and a soon-to-be-dead mook) that's been driven off a cliff. Later on, he and Kara use a parachute (plus Jeep) to exit a cargo plane that's run out of fuel and is about to crash.

GoldenEye

• When Ourumov and Xenia steal the GoldenEye equipment and set the satellite to fire on Severnaya, look at The Big Board carefully; the second satellite's orbital path is clearly visible.
• When Bond and Trevelyan are breaking into the base, it's noted that the security seems rather light. Since Trevelyan is already planning to defect, Ourumov would intentionally make it easier for him to get in.
• Our first glimpse of Alec Trevelyan comes as he is pointing a gun at Bond's head shouting at him in Russian.
• Some of the lyrics to the theme echo Trevelyan's future motives. Not that this is new for the franchise, but it's used in a more subtle manner to hide the plot twist.
• This exchange between Bond and M early on in the film becomes this after it turns out Trevelyan is alive:
  M: Avenging Alec Trevelyan will not bring him back.
  Bond: You didn't get him killed.
  M: Neither did you.

Tomorrow Never Dies

• During the debriefing, M mentions that Carver's satellite will give him the ability to reach every single human being on the Earth - except the Chinese, who refused broadcast rights. This becomes an important plot point, because that's what Carver wants to reverse after enacting his plan to trigger World War III.

The World Is Not Enough

• While showing the pipeline's planned route through the mountains, Bond says "Your father's legacy.", to which Elektra responds "My family's legacy to the world." This is a sign that Elektra wasn't on good terms with her father and arranged his death.
• When Elektra is working on her laptop, you can see framed photos on her desk of her mother (Elektra clearly inherited her good looks from her mom) and her maternal grandfather, but not her father. This is a clue to eagle-eyed fans that Elektra loathes her father.
  • Near the beginning of the film (right after the Q sequence), Bond reads a press release on Elektra King. A prominent quote is attributed to her, highlighting her real personality:
    Elektra: I've never really known what direction my life is taking, which I find exciting. My friends are all very game to join in any mad schemes I might suggest so we often end up in really strange places wearing very odd costumes!

Die Another Day

• The body-altering technology in Cuba, and the savage ferocity with which Gustav Graves attacks Bond in their duel. These are clues that foreshadow the revelation that Graves is Colonel Moon Not Quite Dead.
• When Bond introduces himself to Grave, we briefly cut to Miranda's reaction, alluding to her status as The Mole.

Casino Royale

• In the opening credits, a crosshair moves over a card illustration of the queen of hearts, briefly showing Vesper's face. While it does tell the viewer that Vesper will become the true love of Bond's life, pay attention to what's below the reversed image of this card. It's a spade, which typically represents death. At the end of the movie, Vesper commits suicide.
• Bond was only able to defeat Dimitrios in Poker because he had the absolute nuts (best possible hand) before the river card was even drawn.
• Bond getting knocked from the tournament is treated by Vesper as a result of his reckless behavior, when in fact he was making a very sound judgment call in assuming he would win the hand. It makes sense upon subsequent viewings why Vesper would refuse to buy him back into the game, and it's not because he's reckless.
• Figuring out Le Chiffre's tell (placing his left hand to his forehead above his left eye) is a key part of Bond's strategy in the poker game. He later tells Vesper that everybody has a tell, except her, which is foreshadowing that he can't tell she's been lying to him about her motives.
• Even though both Bond and Vesper are being tortured harshly for the info on the account that the money is in after the card game, only Bond has to spend any time recuperating from it. In fact, he sees Vesper and Mathis standing over his bed when he's still in a haze. It seems likely that Vesper wasn't tortured at all, since she was in on the scheme to get the money.

Quantum of Solace

• When M tells Bond that Vesper kept a lock of her lover's hair in her apartment, Bond seems surprised, saying she didn't strike him as the sentimental type. M replies "Well we never really know anyone, do we?" Only minutes later, Craig Mitchell, her own bodyguard is revealed to be a Quantum infiltrator, and injures her before leading Bond on a chase through Siena.
• Once Dominic Greene is brought into the plot, there are a lot of shots that casually include water in the composition.
• Greene was found with oil in his stomach and two bullets in the back of his head. Bond gave him a can of oil, but didn't give him a gun. It's implied in Spectre that SPECTRE, the real mastermind behind Quantum, did the deed.
• Quantum, along with their color-designated code names are like SPECTRE and their respective number designated code names. Hence, it hinted at the latter group's presence.

Skyfall

• The opening credits sequence foreshadows multiple elements of Bond's mission to Asia, Bond and Silva's backstories, and the climactic showdown at the titular Skyfall manor at the end of the movie.
  • The theme song also has a few - the chorus in particular indirectly mentions that there will be a battle ("We will stand tall, face it all together, at Skyfall.")
  • When Judi Dench's credits appears, it takes place in a graveyard. Sure enough, M dies by the film's end.
• In the first scene, M orders Bond to leave Ronson behind so he can get the hard drive back, sacrificing one life for the greater good and not having to risk the lives of more agents. She orders Eve to shoot at Patrice for the same reason, even if it means the possibility of hitting Bond. As we learn later, she did the same thing to Silva when he started going rouge on the Chinese by hacking them. It didn't go well.
• M's line "Oh, to hell with dignity! I'll leave when the job's done!" foreshadows her final scene at the end of the movie.
• Bond's line to Severine, "Someone usually dies."
• A very subtle example that overlaps somewhat with a Call-Back to Casino Royale: in the earlier film, Bond tells M "I thought M was a randomly assigned letter, I had no idea it stood for..." clearly implying that M's real name has an 'm' in it somewhere. In Skyfall, we're introduced to an authoritative senior figure (played by a big-time actor), named Mallory...
• As they're arming up at Skyfall manor, Kincaid produces a hunting knife and comments that "sometimes the old ways are the best". Guess how Silva meets his end.
• In addition, Judi Dench's M is referred to as Emma at one point, implying it may be a nickname as well as a codename.
  • Though it's more likely Kincade assumed he heard "Em" and that it would be nice to be formal. They didn't have the heart, and didn't see the necessity, to correct him.
• The "crown" on M's head in the mocking video Silva sends is actually the MI6 building, foreshadowing that he's going to attack it.
• When Bond is strapped to a chair and meets Silva, the latter scoffs about Britain, the British Empire, and MI6, calling them ruins and telling Bond he’s living in one as well despite the former not knowing it yet. Spectre reveals that the old building Silva bombed is set to be demolished in favor of C/Max Denbigh’s Nine Eyes Office, which would make the Double 00 Program obsolete.
• Silva usually finishes his threats to M with “Think on your Sins”, though when he’s captured and sees her for the first time since giving him up to the Chinese, he shows off his damaged mouth and ominously tells her to look upon her work. The next movie reveals that she had information on Marco Sciarra and that Silva was part of SPECTRE’s plan to kill her as payback for helping Bond ruin Le Chiffre and Dominic Greene’s plots and to stop digging too deep into their affairs.

Spectre

• When she's about to pass out from drinking too much, Madeleine jokingly observes that there are two James Bonds. Which hints at his relationship with the villain.
• At the Rome SPECTRE conference, multiple members of the board are attempting to justify funding for their ventures due to the "surveillance initiative", which foreshadows the true nature of the op Blofeld is running with C.
• South Africa being bombed right after they reject C's plan is another tip off. If you've seen Sherlock, you might just suspect C anyways, as he plays Moriarty there.
• Early on in the film, as Bond is taken to the new Q Branch, he passes by the Vauxhall Cross office, which Tanner mentions is set to be demolished. It is at the climax of the film when Blofeld takes control of the demolition charges with his own detonator and tries to bring the place down on 007 and Madeleine Swann.
• M gives a speech wherein he states that glass will inevitably break and leave pieces behind as he is announcing the end of the 00 program per C's influence. At the climax, M's fight with C leads to glass shattering above their heads. C slips on the glass shards and falls to his death.
• M explains to C that a man having a licence to kill also means having a licence not to kill. At the end of the movie Bond decides to spare Blofeld's life.
• In the same scene as above, he asks C if he's ever actually killed anyone in person (as Bond and M both have). C doesn't answer, and can't meet his eye. He gives it the ol' college try in the climax.
• Oberhauser uses a variant of the "No, Mr. Bond, I expected you to die" line, and possesses a Right-Hand Cat, which hints at his actual identity. The viewer might be tricked into thinking it's merely a Call-Back to earlier films, though...
• M explains to Q that the tracker that allows them to follow Bond's movements also allows C to follow Bond's movements. This would explain how Mr. Hinx is always able to find where Bond is going, as C is working with Blofeld.
• The photo Bond looks at in his apartment features him as a boy with the older Oberhauser and the face of the other boy has been burned away. Not only hints at the villain's past with Bond (and the whole photo is seen later in Blofeld's base), but also the damage that will occur to Blofeld's face when the watch blows up.
• When Mr Hinx reaches the corpse of Mr White, he looks up at the security camera mounted on the wall behind the man and smiles. This foreshadows Oberhauser revealing that he managed to hack the camera and acquire the footage of White's suicide from said camera.
• The opening shot of the film. The epigraph "The Dead Are Alive." It foreshadows everything, from Judi Dench's cameo as M, Mr. White's condition, Mr. Hinx surviving the car crash, Oberhauser being alive twice, and Bond escaping Vauxhall Cross.
• Q mentions that he has two cats. Oberhauser has one.
• The opening credits feature Bond and Madeleine falling through the air, which is how they escape the rigged Vauxhall building.

No Time to Die

• When describing the antagonist of the movie, producer Barbara said that Safin was 'the one who really gets under Bond's skin.' Come the movie, Safin literally and figuratively gets under 007's skin by infecting him with the Heracles variant that would kill Madeline and his daughter if he ever came into their vicinity.
• The opening Bond Gun Barrel sequence, instead of blood dripping down the screen, has Bond's silhouette Fade to White as it segues into the opening flashback. Bond's death scene has him disappearing in a flash of white as the missiles hit Safin’s island.
• The hints of "We Have All the Time in the World" early on in the score. Anyone who remembers that as the theme from On Her Majesty's Secret Service - and remembers that as the one where Bond's wife dies - knows that things aren't going to end well.
• Madeleine teases Bond about his inability to let his guard down—"You're always looking over your shoulder." When they're ambushed, he almost immediately thinks she was behind it, showing that indeed, he can't let his guard down and trust her completely.
• During the scene where Bond visits Vesper's grave, there's a Latin inscription above it, which can be translated to: "What you are, I once was. What I am, you will become.". In the long run, Bond will share the same fate as Vesper.
• As they flee the SPECTRE gunmen, Madeleine says "There's something I need to tell you". She's pregnant.
• When Bond coldly tells Madeleine "You'll never see me again" in the film's opening, her gripping her chest in pain implies it borne as much from the morning sickness caused by his baby now growing inside her as it does from grief.
• In the opening credits, the Britannia statue starts bleeding at her right cheek, alluding to where Safin smashes a vial of Heracles-laced blood on Bond's face during the final confrontation.
• Nomi and Moneypenny snarking about her having once shot Bond—"Everyone tries at least once". At the end, Safin does so, several times.
• Paloma knocking back an entire vodka martini in one and being apparently unaffected by it is a clue that she's not nearly The Ditz that she pretends to be.
• Blofeld telling Bond "When her (Madeleine) secret gets out, it'll be the death of you". And indeed, it was.
• When Safin demands an audience with Bond, Bond tells Nomi to blow the facility up if he doesn't make it. Which shows that he's willing to sacrifice himself to ensure everyone else's safety.