10 Movie Goodbyes That'll Break You (When You Know The Truth)

Though it was clear that James Bond's best-known Quartermaster (Desmond Llewelyn) wouldn't be sticking around forever, The World Is Not Enough wasn't actually intended to be Q's final film.

However, actor Desmond Llewelyn died in a car accident mere weeks after the film's premiere, ensuring that Q's departing words in the film took on a whole other, tragically unexpected meaning.

In his final interaction with 007 (Pierce Brosnan), Bond asks Q if he's retiring, to which Q cryptically replies that he's always tried to teach him two things, chief among them, "Always have an escape plan," just as Q disappears through a platform in the floor.

In retrospect it's quite the perfect farewell for the character, dropping a witty one-liner and then using a gadget to vanish out of frame. 

And yet, despite how fitting the scene feels as a natural retirement point for this iteration of Q, especially with the film introducing his successor R (John Cleese), Llewelyn was fully expected to return for sequel Die Another Day.