Q's Just Not The Same
James Bond wouldn't be much if it wasn't for his gadgets. They saved his bacon on more than one occasion and every one of them from a laser watch to missile toting automobile was given to him by one man...Q. While Bond's and M's have changed through the years, the one constant was Desmond Llewelyn's Q.
If there was ever a man that could measure up Bond in a second and put him in his place, it was Q. When it was Connery, the two men weren't that far apart in age. Q and Bond could easily have been friends and as they got older, so did the deepness of their friendship.
The Roger Moore years saw a more distance between them, which I blame just as much on Moore's standoffishness as anything else. It wasn't until the Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan years that the familiarity was back again. By then, the dynamic was different. Q had aged considerably, but Bond was ageless. Their relationship was almost like father and son, where the father had to just let him go out and make his mistakes.
Q didn't treat Bond like he was the end all be all super agent. he knew that much if his success came from is gadgets and treated him accordingly. When Llewelyn died 1999, John Cleese had some pretty big shoes to fill. Cleese is known for his comedy and sadly that's what Q has been reduced to in the recent movies.
A man exasperated by Bond without the strength to call the super agent on his mistakes. I hope as the series continued Q once again gets that camaraderie that Llewelyn worked so hard on for decades.