Special Thanks To The
Bond Film Informant For This Information
SPOILER ALERT:
DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT
TO KNOW ANY IMPORTANT PLOT DETAILS
Dr. No
1.
Felix Leiter plays a major role in the film, despite being absent in the novel.
2.
Bond escapes from the ventilation shaft for a different reason in the film.
In the novel it is part of an obstacle course that ends in a fight with a
giant
squid.
3. The film replaced a centipede with a tarantula for
Bond's bed
companion. (it was felt a spider seemed more threatening)
4. Dr.
No works for SPECTRE in the film instead of working for
Russia
on freelance terms.
5. Dr.
No's death is changed from the novel, where he is suffocated by a
pile of guano.
6. Miss Taro's character is a more prominent
character in the film.
7. Professor Dent is not featured in the novel.
Creator
of the James Bond series - Ian Fleming
From
Russia With Love
1.
The film introduces SPECTRE (in the novel the plot against
Bond is
coordinated by SMERSH instead of being manipulated by a third party).
2. The
novel's decoding machine was called a 'Spektor' but was
changed to 'Lektor' for obvious reasons.
3. The last part of the film added the helicopter and
boat sequences.
4. Fleming's novel is officially titled From
Russia, With Love,
including a comma that was omitted from the film title.
Goldfinger
1.
In the novel, Goldfinger merely
intends to steal the gold from
Fort Knox (compared to the more ingenious scheme of the film).
2. Tilly Masterson's character plays a larger role
in the
novel before meeting the same fate as her film counterpart.
3. The novel features a circular saw instead
of a laser beam
in the attempt to remove Bond of his manhood.
4. While Jill Masterson was painted gold in
Bond's hotel room in
the film, she runs away with him on a train in the novel and it is
merely mentioned to Bond later on that she was painted.
5. The novel has Bond driving an Aston Martin
DB3 instead of the film's DB5.
It is still packed with extras, but they are less implausible. For
example: strengthened bumpers and lights which change color
to confuse anyone following at night.
6. A scene is left out of the film where Bond
stays at Goldfinger's
mansion for dinner and is almost caught going through his room.
7. The pre-title sequence of the film is only mentioned
in the novel.
8. In the novel, Oddjob is the one who gets
sucked out of the jet
window, not Goldfinger (who is suffocated by Bond.)
9. There is no Pussy Galore's Flying Circus
in the novel. Instead,
she is part of an all lesbian gang called The Cement Mixers.
10. In the novel, Tilly is captured along
with Bond and they are
forced to work as Goldfinger's secretaries.
11. Instead of spraying gas all over the Fort
Knox base, the novel's
plan is to poison the water source.
12. Goldfinger works for SMERSH in the novel
instead of being
self-employed and funded by communist China.
Oddjob meets a different fate in the film.
Thunderball
1. Fiona Volpe was not featured in the novel.
2. The
NATO observer is bribed in the novel to steal the missles, but in
the film SPECTRE kills him and sends a replacement: someone who has
undergone plastic surgery to look just like the dead observer.
3. Domino's
surname in the novel is Vitali, whereas it was changed to
Derval for the film.
4. In the novel, Largo is known as number
1 and Blofeld is number 2.
This was switched around for the film to clarify Blofeld being the
head of SPECTRE despite the fact that Largo is in charge of
operation Thunderball.
5. Largo is impaled underwater in the book
as opposed to the same
fate taking place in the film onboard his out of control yacht.
You
Only Live Twice
BECAUSE THE TWO VERSIONS GREATLY DIFFER, THIS
WILL LIST WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON
1. Both take place primarily in Japan.
2. Main characters: Tiger Tanaka, Henderson, Blofeld,
and Kissy.
3. Both feature Bond working undercover as
a Japanese
fisherman.
On
Her Majesty's Secret Service
1. In the novel, Tracy is not held hostage
on Piz Gloria during
the final assault, yet this occurs in the film to tie the two substories
together.
2. The title that Blofeld claims is Count
de Bleauville in the
novel whereas in the film it is Count de Bleauchamp.
3. The novel has Bond proposing to Tracy in
an airport but in the
film this takes place in an old stable.
4. The allergy clinic girls are all from the
England area in the
novel while in the film their nationalities are spread across the
world.
OHMSS
is extremely faithful to the original novel.
Diamonds
Are Forever
BECAUSE THE TWO VERSIONS GREATLY DIFFER, THIS
WILL LIST WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON
1. Both versions have Bond infiltrating a
diamond smuggling
pipeline using the identity of Peter Franks.
2. Main characters: Tiffany Case, Shady Tree,
Mr. Wint,
Mr. Kidd, and Felix Leiter.
3. Both take place primarily in Las Vegas
and Africa.
4. Both versions feature Bond fighting Wint
and Kidd on
a luxury liner.
Live
And Let Die
BECAUSE THE TWO VERSIONS GREATLY DIFFER, THIS
WILL LIST WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON
1. Both take place primarily in Harlem and
Jamaica (Although
the film only used the latter as a location for the footage of
the fictional island of San Monique).
2. Main characters: Solitaire, Tee Hee, Whisper,
and Felix
Leiter.
3. The villain in the novel is known as Mr.
Big, though this
Mr. Big is not the prime minister of a caribbean island
wearing a rubber mask.
Baron
Samedi is mentioned in the novel, but not featured as a character.
The
Man With The Golden Gun
BECAUSE THE TWO VERSIONS GREATLY DIFFER, THIS
WILL LIST WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON
1. Scaramanga's third nipple is mentioned
in the novel, but not
used as a plot point in the way that it is in the film.
2. Main characters: Mary Goodnight and Scaramanga.
3. The story Scaramanga tells Bond about the
circus elephant
is taken from the novel.
The
Spy Who Loved Me
NOTHING FROM THE ORIGINAL NOVEL IS IN THE
FILM, SO THIS WILL COMPARE IT TO THE
NOVELIZATION BY CHRISTOPHER WOOD
1. The novelization explores the background
of Jaws and
Stromberg.
and also adds a Fleming-esque torture sequence with Bond as the
victim in order to stress the fact that detente does not mean that
there are no hard feelings regarding the past.
3. Stromberg's first name in the novelization
is Sigmund.
The film states that it is Karl.
Jaws is loosely based on the character of Sol Horror from
Fleming's
The Spy Who Loved Me. Horror had metal caps on all his teeth.
Moonraker
BECAUSE THE TWO VERSIONS GREATLY DIFFER, THIS
WILL LIST WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON
1. The villain (Hugo Drax) is taken from the
novel, but the
name of the girl (Gala Brand) is changed despite both
characters being very similar.
2. There is one scene that is familiar in
both versions:
Where Bond and the girl are imprisoned below the exhausts
from a rocket, but it is placed in the film in a different context.
3. There is a subtle reference to the novel
when it is
revealed that Frederick Gray plays bridge with Drax.
The literary verison of the villain cheats at that
particular game when he plays with M.
For
Your Eyes Only
BECAUSE THE TWO VERSIONS GREATLY DIFFER, THIS
WILL LIST WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON
1. The early part of the film uses the Fleming
story from
which it took its title as basis. Fleming's For
Your Eyes Only
concerns Bond undertaking a personal mission for M to
assassinate Gonzales, a hitman who murdered the Havelocks,
a middle aged couple who were friends of M's. However,
Gonzales is actually killed by Judy, the Havelock's daughter,
herself intent on revenge. The name of the Havelock's daughter
is changed to Melina in the film, presumably to better reflect the
Greek heritage she is given.
2. Later parts of the film are influenced
by another short story:
Risico.
This story concerns Bond's involvement with a feud
between two Italian smugglers, Kristatos and Colombo. With
a change of location to Greece, the film takes a lot of material
from the story. In particular the part of the plot where it first
appears that Colombo is the villain and Kristatos is trustworthy.
Certain scenes are taken from the story, principally Bond's dinner
with Kristatos in the casino restaurant, and the subsequent scenes
where Colombo gains Bond's trust and the attack on the warehouse.
3. Further Fleming material in the film is
the sequence where
Bond and Melina are keel-hauled by Kristatos, a scene which
appeared in the novel Live
And Let Die, with Melina having
replaced Solitaire.
4. The identigraph which Bond and Q use to
identify Locque
is based on a device called the Identicast, which was featured
in the novel Goldfinger.
Octopussy
BECAUSE THE TWO VERSIONS GREATLY DIFFER, THIS
WILL LIST WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON
1. The early auction sequence of the film
takes its inspiration from
The Property
of a Lady, a short story which Fleming wrote in
1963.
2. The character of Jim Fanning, the Service's
art advisor, is
also taken from The
Property of a Lady.
3. The film takes its title from the short
story Octopussy,
which
also provides the backstory to Octopussy's father.
Never
Say Never Again
BASED
ON THE NOVEL THUNDERBALL
BECAUSE
THE TWO VERSIONS GREATLY DIFFER, THIS
WILL LIST WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON
1.
Similar plot with SPECTRE stealing the two nuclear weapons.
2. Both take place primarily in the Bahamas, with a prologue
at
a British health clinic called Shrublands.
3. Main characters: Largo, Domino, Pettachi,
Felix Leiter,
Count Lippe, and Blofeld.
4. The final underwater battle is very similar
to the novel's climax.
Never
Say Never Again is
much less faithful to the novel than the original Thunderball.
A
View To A Kill
BECAUSE
THE TWO VERSIONS GREATLY DIFFER, THIS
WILL LIST WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON
1. The film got its title from
one of the short stories featured
in the book For
Your Eyes Only where it is titled
From A View To
A Kill.
2. This same short story is set in and around
Paris and the film
features a similar setting for one sequence.
The
Living Daylights
BECAUSE
THE TWO VERSIONS GREATLY DIFFER, THIS
WILL LIST WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON
1. The plot of the short story is placed into
the opening section
of the film (concerning Koskov's defection), but with the original
location of East Berlin changed to Bratislava. Even Bond's
line concerning the sniper having enough time to make "strawberry
jam" out of Koskov is taken directly from the story.
2. The name of the supposed KGB plot, Smiert
Spionam
("Death to Spies") was the full name of SMERSH, the
Soviet agency who provided Bond's main adversaries in
the early Fleming books.
Licence
To Kill
1.
Felix Leiter's encounter with a shark and Bond's subsequent
discovery of him with a note reading, "He disagreed with
something that ate him" is taken from Fleming's Live
And Let Die.
2. The fight scenes within Krest's laboratory
are also influenced
by Live And Let
Die, although the film features gold coins being
smuggled, not drugs.
3. The film also takes inspiration from The
Hildebrand Rarity
as they
both feature a marine biologist named Milton Krest
and his boat, The Wavekrest. Fleming's Krest liked to
beat his wife with a
stingray tail, a tendency transferred to
Sanchez's relationship with Lupe.
4. The film was novelized by John Gardner
and it keeps with
the continuity of the Fleming novels (as well as his own) so
the reader is expected to believe that Felix is attacked by
a shark for a second time.
Licence To Kill was the first
Bond film to have a non-Fleming title
and the last to feature any Fleming material until 2006's Casino Royale
GoldenEye
1.
Bill Tanner, a character from the Fleming's novels, is featured
in the
film.
2. The character of Alec Trevelyan is reminiscent
of the
literary version of Hugo Drax from Moonraker.
Both were
scarred in an explosion then left for dead and both hated
Britain, despite appearing to be British.
3. The title of the film is taken from Ian
Fleming's house in
Jamaica.
4. GoldenEye was
the first film to mention Bond's parents
and the fact that they were killed in a climbing accident.
This was first revealed in the novel You
Only Live Twice.
Tomorrow
Never Dies
NOTHING
FROM THE ORIGINAL NOVELS IS IN THE
FILM, SO THIS WILL COMPARE IT TO THE
NOVELIZATION BY RAYMOND BENSON
1. The novelization reveals Elliot Carver's
past.
2. Scenes in which Wai Lin conducts her investigations
before we meet her in the actual film are featured in
the novelization.
Three very different actors take very different approaches
to the role of James Bond
The
World Is Not Enough
1.
In the novel On
Her Majesty's Secret Service, "The World
Is Not Enough" is given as the motto of one Sir Thomas Bond,
although there is no evidence that this is one of 007's actual
descendents.
2. The film includes the kidnapping of M,
an element which
formed the basis for the first non-Fleming novel Colonel
Sun
by Kinglsey Amis (writing as Robert Markham).
Die
Another Day
1.
The country club where the fencing sequence is set is called
"Blades" (the name of M's gentleman's club from the novel
Moonraker)
but it is not named on-screen.
2. In Cuba, Bond pretends to be an ornithologist,
inspired by a
book called Birds of the West Indies. This
is a real book by a
real ornithologist named James Bond and was the source from
which Fleming took the name of his secret agent.
3. Miranda Frost was rumored to have been
named Gala Brand
(from Moonraker)
in early drafts of the script but the name was
changed when her character was dramatically altered and there
was no resemblance to the original character.
4. There is an ad for 'Player's Cigarettes'
in the film. In the novel
Thunderball
Domino smokes this brand and is infatuated with
the sailor pictured on the box.
Casino
Royale
1.
The pre-titles sequence and everything up to the casino scenes
are original and were not in the novel.
2. Le Chiffre worked for the Russian organization
SMERSH in
the novel, but the film has him working for terrorists.
3. The novel had Le Chiffre losing his money
in a prostitution scheme
that failed due to brothels being outlawed in France.
4. The film features Bond and Le Chiffre dueling
over a game of
Texas Hold 'Em poker, while the novel had them playing baccarat.
5. The novel has "Casino Royale"
located in Royale-les-eaux, a
fictional town in Monaco, but the film moves it to Montenegro.
6. The novel has an extra scene where two
men in straw hats blow
themselves up in an attempt to kill Bond.
7. Both versions feature an attempt on Bond's
life while he is at the
card table. In the novel, a henchman with a gun hidden inside a cane
approaches Bond from behind. In the film, his martini is
poisoned by Le Chiffre's girlfriend.
8. Instead of laying Vesper out on the road
to force Bond to crash,
the novel features Le Chiffre spreading a spike strip across it.
9. Le Chiffre tortures Bond with a carpet
beater in the novel but
the movie needed to update and it is changed to a knotted rope.
10. It was never implied that Mathis could
have been a traitor in
the novel.
11. There are no heavy action sequences after
Le Chiffre's death
in the novel. Instead, Bond and Vesper stay at a small motel where
she commits suicide by an overdose of sleeping pills. The novel
ends with Bond's famous line, "The bitch is dead."
Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig may by great friends in real
life,
but their vision of James Bond is dramatically different.
