Die Another Day receives an outsized amount of criticism, yet scattered throughout its excesses are moments that stand apart as genuinely inventive within the Bond universe.  One of the most overlooked and unique is Bond’s simulated defense of an assault on MI6 headquarters.  The setup is quietly effective: Bond hears gunfire from his office and instinctively moves to investigate, only to find Moneypenny apparently killed by a single shot to the head.

The scene abruptly shifts from routine to chaos, and for a moment the audience shares Bond’s uncertainty about his safety.  His swift intervention to “rescue” a hostage M underscores his resourcefulness, but R’s insistence that Bond might have killed M is defended by Bond’s curt “check the replay” line.  And while Bond claims he still prefers the firing range, the sequence hints at a far more immersive, psychologically complex training regimen than any other movie has shown.

Frankly, it’d be a great addition to a future potential origin story type Bond movie, and after all, as Q says, “it’s called the future, so get used to it.”