the funny thing is that this one shows how "james became bond" while in the film there are several times where it clearly takes place in 2006 ( bond looks at the phone from the guy he chases in the beggining of the movie and the date it says on it is 'July 6th 2006) judi dench's character M also talks about "back in 2001 at the same time as 9/11," which also indicates that it takes place in current time which would mean that the previous ones would take place in the future when this one has all kinds of more high tech stuff that wasnt possible in the previous films.