The way the films were adapted was generally effective for the wider movie audience, but did create problems in certain cases. With the books On Her Majesty's Secret Service came before You Only Live Twice, but with the films the order was reversed. The film You Only Live Twice largely deviated from the novel, and had bond meeting Blofeld for the first time.Skar wrote: ↑Thu Oct 14, 2021 7:46 pmI was reading about the Bond novels because I was curious of the film's chronological order. I found out they were produced out of order so they were more episodic and standalone than the novels. It's not really an issue since it works better for a film franchise and offers more freedom.ABED wrote: ↑Wed Oct 13, 2021 5:38 pmI like the Bond films' use of continuity, namely that it's vague and unimportant except in regards to what little backstory we get about Bond - He's an orphan whose parents died in a climbing accident. That's really the only thing that's stayed through the 30+ films. Otherwise, it's like "how is Judi Dench's M the one who recruited Bond when Bond was there before her in Goldeneye?" The simple answer "It doesn't matter"
Then On Her Majesty's Secret Service was much closer to its novel (moreso than any other Bond film). Because Bond meets Blofeld for the first time in the OHMSS novel, the faithfully adapted film also makes it seem like they're meeting for the first time. This is strange as we saw them meet in the previous film (part of which is shown in flashbacks during the title sequence along with the other 4 Connery films), and yet here they appear not to recognize each other, and initially only have suspicions of the others' true identity.
Funnily enough From Russia With Love and Dr No also had their orders reversed. The Dr No film even refers to Bond's Beretta jamming on his previous mission, which actually happened in the From Russia With Love novel and was a reference to precisely that.