After 50 years has James Bond lost his edge?

Originally created by the famous writer Ian Fleming in the year 1953, James Bond, is a fictional character who was featured in two short story collections as well as twelve novels. Following the death of Fleming in 1964, six other authors have been writing the authorized Bond novels: these authors include Jeffery Deaver, Sebastian Faulks, Raymond Benson, John Gardner, Christopher Wood, as well as Kinsley Amis. Besides, there is a new James Bond's novel which was written by William Boyd; it is planned to be released in 2013. Charlie Higson also wrote a series about a young James Bond while Kate Westbrook wrote 3 novels on the diaries of recurring series character, Money penny. The British Secret Services, which is a fictional agent adapted for video game formats, comic strip, radio, and television besides being used in the second highest grossing as well as longest continually running film franchise up to date. This was started by Dr. No in 1962, starring Sean Connery as the secret agent. To date, there have been 23 films in the Eon Productions series. Skyfall is the most recent Bond film which was produced in 2012 and Daniel Craig starred in his 3rd portrayal of Bond. Craig is the 6th actor to play James Bond in the Eon series. The Never Say Never Again (a 1983 reproduction of the previous Eon-produced film, Thunderball) as well as the Casino Royale (a 1967 spoof) are the only two independent productions of James Bond

The character was created by Ian Fleming in 1953 that went on to write twelve Bond novels and a couple of short stores before he died in 1964. Ian came from a wealthy family with his father being a member of parliament. Ian was educated at Eton and had a number of jobs before becoming a writer. He was a journalist and naval intelligence officer. It was while he was in the British naval intelligence during the Second World War, that he was involved in the planning stages of a number of operations which gave him the background needed to write convincing spy novels. 1980s saw the end of the common creative team that had been working on the Bond films since the beginning in 1962, including Albert Broccoli as producer. Broccoli died soon after Brosnon's film was released. He had produced or co-produced 16 Bond films. For 14 Bond films, title sequences were designed by Maurice Binder, Richard Maibaum had scripted or co-scripted 13 films, John Barry had scored for 11 and Ken Adam had designed sets for 7. Terence Young directed 3, Guy Hamilton, 4, Lewis Gilbert, 3 and John Glenn, 5 Bond films, while "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was directed by Lazenby. Gadgets have played a major part in the films over the years and they seemed to take over at one point but now they are less featured. There have been some great gadgets over the years including X-ray Glasses which were featured in 'The world is not enough'. The spy hook and rocket pack was featured in 'Thunderball' and a voice changer was in 'Diamonds are forever'. There were cigarette darts in 'You only live twice' and who can forget the steel teeth in 'The spy who loved me', although I don't think these qualify as a gadget. Except Marc Foster, who is a German-Swiss, all other directors of Bond films were either from

Britain or from a Commonwealth country. In the late 1970's, Steven Spielberg attempted to win direction of a Bond film, but due to commercial reasons, the attempt did not bear fruit.

Original titles of Fleming were used for the last Dalton film and all four Brosnan films, leaving only four Fleming titles unused. License to Kill and The World Is Not Enough are phrases from Ian Fleming novels. Golden Eye was the name of Fleming's estate in Jamaica and an operation he was part of, during World War II. The only film titles that have no link to Fleming are Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day and Never Say Never Again. The 22nd Bond film released in 2008 was titled Quantum of Solace.