# In the world of 007: Do the 007-movies exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 22, 2004, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672 "2004-01-22T22:12:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nils](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Nils](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nils)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2004, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/1 "2004-01-22T22:12:05Z")
Maybe this thread fits better into IMHO. Mods, fell free to move it. I just saw the trailer of “007 - A view to a kill”. Bond introduces himself to a police officer with the classic: “My name is Bond, James Bond.” The officer answers: “And my name is Dick Tracey but you’re still under arrest.” To me that sounds like the officer knew the name from the movies but (of course) didn’t believe the guy he just arrested. Does this imply that in the world of the James Bond, the James Bond movies also exist? Are there other examples of this kind? ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2004, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/2 "2004-01-22T23:07:04Z")
Probably not. To the officer, Bond might as well have said “My name is Smith. Joe Smith.” To which to cop responded with his “Dick Tracy” zinger. However, I might note that in the movie “Our Man Flint,” secret agent Derek Flint meets with a British spy codenamed “0008.” Then, a little later, one of the villains can be seen reading a “0008” book, complete with a Bond-style logo. That last part isn’t really relevant to the subject at hand, but you might find it interesting. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/3 "2004-01-23T01:04:17Z")
No, there is no self-referential Mobius strip reality to the Bond franchise per se, but there’s ample bad writing that posits his cover being totally blown, to the point where not just the international intelligence community, but every two-bit thug, assassin, fence, smuggler, mercenary, escort girl, moll, floozy, chopper pilot, shark wrangler, etc. etc. knows who he is. It’s one of my pet peeves with a franchise that I otherwise love. ---
**Author:** ![BraheSilver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@BraheSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BraheSilver)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/4 "2004-01-23T03:05:32Z")
So your theory is that Bond is a well-known name to people “in the know” - crime syndicates, ex-KGB officers, Chinese spy rings, megalomaniacal supervillains, etc., but nobody really _knows_ who he is? Maybe it’s something akin to Daniel Boone walking into a bar in New York and not having anybody react to his name. When Bond says the line to the girl of the week she doesn’t react, since she’s not in the group of people who would have heard about him. Perhaps Bond gives out his own name and cheesy pseudonyms (“Mr. Stock,” anyone?) _likes_ getting captured, the pervert. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BraheSilver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@BraheSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BraheSilver)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/5 "2004-01-23T03:08:10Z")
Just pretend I said “because he likes…” in that last sentence so I make some sort of sense. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/6 "2004-01-23T04:47:47Z")
This leads me to ask: What do Joey, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, Ross and Rachel watch on NBC at 8 p.m. on Thursdays? Personally? I like to think they’re watching a show about me. It’s a wildly sexy comedy called “The Half-Hour Happy Hour.” Happy ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/7 "2004-01-23T13:43:27Z")
There was a Dr. Who Episode where the first episode of Dr. Who was about to come on the telly, but the Doctor left the room during the promo. ---
**Author:** ![Nils](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Nils](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nils)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/8 "2004-01-23T18:24:56Z")
[QUOTE=BraheSilver] So your theory is that Bond is a well-known name to people “in the know” - crime syndicates, ex-KGB officers, Chinese spy rings, megalomaniacal supervillains, etc., but nobody really _knows_ who he is? /QUOTE] No, my theorie is, that the movies exist (as they do in our world), but no one (in Bond’s world) knows that he really does exist. In the words of Otto West (“A fish called Wanda”): It’s a smoke screen. A double bluff. An XK-red-27 technique. IIRC in Spaceballs, there is a self-reference, when they watch the Video-tape of the movie to find out, what to do next. ---
**Author:** ![av8rmike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@av8rmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/av8rmike)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/9 "2004-01-23T19:16:18Z")
I think you may be reading too much into what is basically a throwaway joke. Bond tells the cop his real name in the hopes that the latter will recognize him and let him go. Either the cop doesn’t know who Bond is, or does know and intends to arrest him anyway. Regardless, it’s a set-up for a fire-truck chase scene through the San Francisco streeets. ---
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2004, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/10 "2004-01-24T00:12:02Z")
> [@Nils](#): > > Are there other examples of this kind? In [Octopussy](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086034/), Bond’s contact in India, Vijay (played by real-life tennis star Vijay Amritraj), swats off attacking bad guys with a tennis racket. How does Vijay first make contact with Bond? He **plays a couple of bars of the “James Bond Theme” on his snake-charmer flute!** In our world, the James Bond theme is immediately recognizable as such, and does not exist outside the movies (i.e. it’s not a prior work co-opted for the movies). One _could_ claim that, in the Bond-world, this is just a tune randomly picked so that two agents would recognize each other, but it would be more interesting if, as the OP suggests, the “James Bond Theme” exists as such in the Bond-world. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2004, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/11 "2004-01-24T01:07:24Z")
Just as an aside, Edgar Rice Burroughs was writing Tarzan books well after the movies. Thus, in one of the later books, Lord Greystoke is in a small plane that crash-lands somewhere (Indonesia?) in a jungle. Greystoke, finding himself in the jungle, strips down to his loin cloth and swings off to find food, etc for the other survivors. When he swings back into camp, one of the other survivors says something like, “Who do you think you are, Johnny Weissmuller?” So, the Tarzan movies exist in the world of the books, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2004, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/12 "2004-01-24T01:38:09Z")
> [@Antonius Block](#): > > In [URL=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086034/]How does Vijay first make contact with Bond? He plays a couple of bars of the “James Bond Theme” on his snake-charmer flute! “Charming tune.” As to the OP, James Bond certainly exists and is known in the Bond universe. I absolutely have always thought that the cop in _A View to a Kill_ was implying that he’d heard of Bond and was saying that this guy wasn’t him. In _You Only Live Twice_ there was that newpaper article confirming that “British Agent James Bond was killed” when they faked his death. In _Diamonds Are Forever_, Jill St. John commented “Do you know who you just killed?! That was James Bond!” when she thought Bond was Peter Franks. (Granted, she may have heard of him being kinda 'in the business" as **The Scrivener** pointed out). And again in _You Only Live Twice_ there was that scene where Blofeld said to Osato “Only one man we know carries this gun - James Bond.” (A rather puzzling scene considering the popularity of the Walther PPK). Now, as to whether the movies exist in that universe, I can’t think of a specific reference, but I certainly think the Bond World has heard of master spy James Bond. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2004, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-world-of-007-do-the-007-movies-exist/225672/13 "2004-01-24T20:40:32Z")
Or the line in Star Trek: First Contact, James Cromwell’s character, Zefram Cochrance, is being told about his importance to the future. He tries to get a grip on what he’s been told and asks the Enterprise crew “so you’re on some sort of Star Trek” (or words like that 🙂 )