I know that Cleese was already introduced in
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Die Another Day
TMC-4 — 9 years ago(September 02, 2016 01:22 AM)
I know that Cleese was already introduced in
The World is Not Enough
as Desmond Llweleyn's (who sadly, passed away shortly after they filmed) protege/eventual successor. I'm sure that I'm wrong but, I thought that "Q" was just a nickname (the Demsond Llweleyn version of Q's real name is Major Boothroyd), and not a formal government title/position like "M". He was nick-named "Q" (or Quartermaster) since he headed up the "Q-branch" (the research and development division) at MI6.
Maybe had John Cleese been given more time to play the role (kind of like how Robert Brown at least got to play "M" four times following the passing of Bernard Lee) as the new "Q" (instead of EON basically cleaning house after
Die Another Day
and replacing Pierce Brosnan's crew w/ Daniel Craig) we would've grown more easy to accept him. It was hard enough to replace a virtual institution and the most consistent element of the Bond franchise (dating back to Sean Connery's days) in Llweleyn.