Everything You Only Live Twice Changed From The James Bond Novel

Everything You Only Live Twice Changed From The James Bond Novel

Contents

You Only Live Twice is one of Ian Fleming’s darker James Bond adventures, so how did the movie’s screenwriter Roald Dahl reinvent the 007 story?

You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]

Everything You Only Live Twice Changed From The James Bond Novel

You Only Live Twice was the fifth James Bond movie and set in stone much of the franchise’s best-remembered elements, but what (if anything) did the film take from Ian Fleming’s source novel? Super-spy James Bond has thus far taken viewers on twenty five cinematic adventures, each of which is based on the writings of creator Ian Fleming. At least, the movies are ostensibly based on the original novels, though many 007 outings diverging wildly from their source material.

The character of James Bond was created by Fleming, and his earliest screen incarnations owe a lot to the character from his books. However, as the franchise continued and more actors put their spin on 007, the tone of the series evolved numerous times, too. Some of these iterations skewed close to Fleming’s grounded but debonair secret agent, while others embraced campy escapism.

For example, Ian Fleming did introduce the character of Blofeld and the head of SPECTRE is as nefarious in the source novels as he is in the movies. However, the goofy tropes of hiding Blofeld’s scarred face and showing only his trademark Persian cat was an invention of the movie franchise, which illustrates how much more over-the-top the Bond movies aimed to be. This was not always the case, though. Early outings hewed close to Fleming’s novels no matter how fun James Bond was. However, this changed with the arrival of the fifth film, 1967’s You Only Live Twice. Dismissed by the movie’s screenwriter Roald Dahl as a travelogue with no plot worth adapting, the original novel You Only Live Twice has next to nothing in common with its adaptation. So, what changes were made between the novel and the big screen, and why?

See also  The 15 Best SciFi & Fantasy Movies Of All Time (According To Rotten Tomatoes)

You Only Live Twice’s Book Plot Is Far Darker

Everything You Only Live Twice Changed From The James Bond Novel

No secret rocket bases here, although Roald Dahl is remiss in saying that You Only Live Twice’s novel has no plot to speak of. If anything, the novel has one of Ian Fleming’s darkest plots with Bond avenging the death of his love by hunting down an old enemy. However, in the novel, Blofeld is not only no longer hidden and shrouded in secrecy, but instead killed off for good by the time the story reaches its conclusion. In the book, Bond is heartbroken and despondent after losing the love of his life at the end of the previous adventure, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Rather than reboot or retcon this tragedy, Fleming’s story leans into Bond’s hopelessness and sees MI6 attempting to get him off their hands as his self-destructive streak has made him a liability.

He is tasked with the impossible mission of getting Japanese forces to offer intercepted Soviet intel to MI6. Instead, upon arrival in Japan, Bond ends up taking up an assignment from Japanese authorities to assassinate Blofeld, who is operating a suicide garden in the country. The plot is more akin to a Daniel Craig-era Bond movie like Casino Royale than the Sean Connery-starring hit the novel later became, and doesn’t shy away from moments of violence. 007 succeeds in his mission, eventually strangling Blofeld to death with his bare hands before faking his own demise. In the process, James Bond suffers a blow to the head and forgets his identity, living with a Bond girl who keeps the truth of who he is hidden from him by the novel’s end. She is also, in a twist that the movies have never even attempted to revisit, pregnant with his child by the story’s denouement.

What You Only Live Twice’s Movie Adaptation Added

Everything You Only Live Twice Changed From The James Bond Novel

With such a compelling but bleak story, it is easy to see why screenwriter Dahl decided to completely reinvent Fleming’s book with an in-name-only adaptation. A lot of what Dahl’s lighter, more fun and humorous Bond treatment added for the movie ended up becoming some of the franchise’s most recognizable elements. Classic James Bond touches like the rocket base hidden inside a volcano, the piranha tank that SPECTRE employees are dropped into after failing their missions, or Blofeld’s ability to always give 007 the slip was all Dahl’s handiwork, with the writer reworking You Only Live Twice to make the plot more cartoony and thus more of an adventure. The net result of Dahl’s additions was a campier story than the novel’s with a heightened tone that would endure throughout the later Roger Moore era of the franchise. Famously, Moore gave Bond a winking self-parodic edge that Sean Connery indulged in much less, and the trappings of You Only Live Twice are reminiscent of the actor’s goofier tenure in the role in the years that followed.

See also  Bohemian Rhapsody Movie Lost $51M In Profit Despite Grossing $911M

What The Book and Movie Have In Common

Despite the gulf in difference between their respective tones, there are a few similarities between both You Only Live Twice’s original novel and its later movie adaptation. In both texts, James Bond disguises himself as a Japanese local and is almost immediately caught and detained. In both texts, he and Kissy Suzuki survive the ending, although only the novel ends with Bond losing his memory and Suzuki pregnant with his child. The classic Bond villain Blofeld is also the major antagonist in both, but the murder of Bond’s wife that 007 avenges in the novel doesn’t occur until the next movie in the franchise, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which saw George Lazenby inherit the role from Connery.

Ultimately, the biggest elements that Roald Dahl’s story borrows are a few stray set-pieces like the Japanese disguise misadventure or the names of characters like Kissy Suzuki, but the darkness of Fleming’s novel is largely avoided. The series has continued to avoid the implications of You Only Live Twice’s novel story as Bond has still never sired a child despite his many love interests, and even the harsher moments of Daniel Craig’s 007 movies have not seen the character at such a low ebb that even Bond’s employers MI6 think he needs to retire. Thus, it is understandable Dahl opted not to stay true to Fleming’s novel as it was, although it meant the James Bond adventure You Only Live Twice is all but unrecognizable from its book counterpart.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/james-bond-you-only-live-twice-novel-movie-differences-dahl/

Movies -