15 Crazy Facts You Just Have To Accept To Enjoy The James Bond Franchise

12. M Being In The Reboot Series Makes Absolutely No Sense

The character of M has been a consistent fixture in the Bond series, first played by Bernard Lee for the first 11 films, before Robert Brown took over for the next 4 (after the character didn't appear in For Your Eyes Only), and of course, Judi Dench played a contemporary female spin on the character for the last 7 films, before being killed off at the end of Skyfall and replaced with Ralph Fiennes. Dench played M throughout Brosnan's Bond run, but things got a little weird when she continued to play the character in 2006, when the Bond series was effectively given a gritty reboot in an attempt to revitalise the franchise. Though each new Bond actor can be said to give the series a "soft reboot" of sorts, the Craig films marked a stark stylistic and tonal departure from what came before, and so the inclusion of Dench in the mix was rather strange, and it no doubt confused more casual cinemagoers as to whether this was an origin story or not. Granted, Dench is so magnificent in the role that it can be overlooked with relative ease, even though it's an odd move and doesn't really make much sense.