Was You Only Live Twice a Natural Stopping Place for the Bond Film Series?

The post's titular question may sound odd. However, consider the reality of the series. In You Only Live Twice the plots, budgets and spectacle had hit the limits afforded by the premise. The Secret Service actually faked Bond's death because, as M told him, "This is the big one, 007," and it was--such that later Bond films that went all-out (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, Tomorrow Never Dies) did little but repeat its essentials (the global destructiveness of the villain's plans, the outer space/weapons of mass destruction element, the villain's fortress) rather than go beyond it; and such, too, that the ingenuity of the films in regard to that spectacle trailed off afterward. (The only thing that had yet to be added to the basics were the ski scenes that came with the next, now rather anomalous-looking, production, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.) One can add that in this, the fourth film devoted to Bond's battle with SPECTRE, Bond finally met Ernst Stavro Blofeld face to face--and in the book (for what it is worth) finished him off, a narrative course that would have befit what stands as the biggest, craziest Bond adventure. And of course, Sean Connery was done with it all.

But up to this point each movie had made more money than the last--and if You Only Live Twice disappointed that way it still brought in over $100 million on a $10 million production budget, an extraordinary level of profitability before one even thinks of the other revenue streams associated with it. The result was that art may have suggested the film as a logical conclusion to the saga--but commerce was in the driver's seat, which was why the series let Blofeld live to fight another day, and remains with us over a half century later (even if "Bond 26" is very, very slow indeed to get going).