15 years after his debut, Daniel Craig's 007 era has come to an end with No Time to Die serving as his last hurrah. The filmmakers were well aware of the magnitude of Craig’s departure and his final outing features a number of Easter eggs, callbacks, and references to previous movies in the franchise.
Some of the nods come through dialogue that points out significant events from Bond’s past, while certain items show up in creatively hidden places that fans may have missed upon the first watch. With a pretty big wait for the next entry, it’s worth rounding up all the Easter eggs that pay tribute to Daniel Craig and the history of the series.
This is an iconic part of the James Bond movies, but No Time to Die managed to include it within the movie itself. The Easter egg is better hidden in Craig’s last outing, as Bond is shown in a tunnel where he aims a shot.
Eagle-eyed viewers will be able to see that the tunnel is shaped like a gun barrel, paying homage to Bond’s classic entry. The scene can also be considered a nod toward Craig’s first movie, as Casino Royale had also dared to place the gun barrel sequence outside of the traditional opening.
In the beginning of the movie, Bond visited Vesper’s gravesite, where he ended up getting attacked by Blofeld’s goons. It was a surprise within the context of the movie because it had just started, but the scene was actually an Easter egg that pointed toward For Your Eyes Only.
It starts with Bond visiting the gravesite of his deceased wife, Tracy, following which Blofeld launches a surprise attack. No Time to Die also improved upon the moment since For Your Eyes Only couldn’t directly identity Blofeld because of a legal dispute over the character at the time.
While there’s little doubt that No Time to Die reinvigorated James Bond's formula, it also had time for a great callback. The Aston Martin DB5 is a trademark of the franchise, but the car’s gadgets hadn’t been used in quite some time.
No Time to Die paid homage to Goldfinger when Bond used the vehicle’s gadgets, which were last seen in action in the latter movie. It was a fitting way to not only close off Craig’s run but to pay tribute to the franchise’s nearly 60-year history.
The Daniel Craig era is a rebooted continuity that is separate from the ones his predecessors were in. However, No Time to Die placed an Easter egg where the former Ms were acknowledged, even if their presence doesn’t exactly make sense in this universe.
The current M, Gareth Mallory, was seen standing by the portrait of Judi Dench’s M, whom he had succeeded two movies back. It didn’t stop there, though, as a portrait of Robert Brown’s M was also present — the actor had portrayed M through the Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton eras.
In a blink-and-miss reference to M’s impact on Bond’s life, the bulldog statuette she left Bond as part of her inheritance shows up. M died in Skyfall, which was when Bond was bequeathed the statuette, and No Time to Die made sure to include it in a shot.
The dog appears when Bond rips the tarp off his car and can be seen in a fleeting moment during the scene. It’s a way to indicate to fans that Bond treasured the statuette as part of his connection with M, who was deceased for a number of years by that point.
Some fans might argue that No Time to Die isn't like other Bond movies, which isn’t entirely accurate because Timothy Dalton’s films were thematically similar. Those entries were darker, much like Craig's era, and it appears that the filmmakers wanted to acknowledge that.
During the movie, Bond makes use of the Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante, which is the same one the character used back in Dalton’s The Living Daylights — it even has the same number. The vehicle hadn’t shown up in the series since 1987, so the Easter egg serves as a reminder of when a Bond was similar to Craig’s.
James Bond suffered a personal tragedy in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, when his wife was killed shortly after they were married. No Time to Die planted a creative Easter egg to the doomed relationship by comparing it to Bond and Madeleine.
Bond’s words to Tracy that “We have all the time in the world” are the same that he says to Madeleine in this film. It’s a hint toward the fact that they actually didn’t have much longer to be with each other, and fans who caught on to the parallels would have known that one of the characters was going to die.
Safin has a garden in dedication to his father inside his lair that was called the “Poison Garden,” which is a reference to a similar setting in the Ian Fleming novels that the series is based on. In the book version of You Only Live Twice, the “Garden of Death” is something the villain possesses.
The garden’s poisonous plants are similar from the movie to the book and the latter saw the garden operated by Dr. Guntram Shatterhand (Blofeld’s alias). Shatterhand was actually a working title for No Time to Die, which makes this an Easter egg with greater detail behind it.
The film did a good job in setting up potential storylines for the James Bond series’ future while carrying in references to earlier continuity. Eve’s connection to Bond was brought full circle by Nomi when the latter quipped that she understood why Eve had shot Bond.
It was a callback to Skyfall, where Eve had accidentally taken Bond down in the film’s opening sequence. Eve didn’t have as much to do in No Time to Die, which makes Nomi’s quote an Easter egg to how she ties into Daniel Craig’s era.
Dr. No is one of the top James Bond movies similar to No Time to Die, mainly because of the antagonists. Safin is a callback to the classic Bond villains, although his lair is an outright Easter egg that makes reference toward the series’ first movie.
Safin’s lair is distinctly familiar to the lair that Dr. No uses in his titular movie’s climax, with the similarities more overt thanks to No Time to Die’s opening. The title sequence features colored dots that are almost alike to Dr. No’s and Safin’s lair is a way for the movie to round out Bond’s history.
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