Ricky Church on the major differences between the Jason Bourne book and movie series…
With last week’s news announcing the Jason Bourne franchise will move from Universal to another studio after the rights went up for sale, it is a good time to reflect on the series as it is unclear if Matt Damon will continue in the role or its new studio will want to do a fresh reboot. If the new studio decides to reboot everything, it is an opportunity for the new Bourne films to be closer adaptations to Robert Ludlum’s iconic novels than the Damon films ever were.
For as much as the Damon films were entertaining and began a new wave of spy films (including Bourne‘s irritating shaky cam which became something of a standard for several years), they lost much of the mysterious intrigue and character depth of Ludlum’s novels as they loosely adapted them in order to modernize the stories. I like the films for what they are, but think they missed out on the nuances in Ludlum’s novels. Here are some of the biggest changes the films made from the books.
The Time Period
This is the most obvious change and one the films couldn’t quite escape as The Bourne Identity was first published in 1980. Ludlum was heavily influenced by the late-60s and 70s as several historical events, namely the Vietnam War, played a major role in the story. That’s not just for Identity either as The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum used the politics of 1980s China and the last years of the Cold War for their stories. With the update to modern times, Damon’s The Bourne Identity utilized the technology of the early 2000s with its high-tech satellites, tracking, cell phones and other tech to put more pressure on Bourne as he outran the CIA and its various assassins.
However, by modernizing the time period the film drastically altered Bourne’s backstory, which brings us to the next change…
The Real Bourne Identity
In the film, Damon’s Bourne is revealed to be a highly skilled assassin for the top secret CIA program Treadstone that has no qualms killing whoever they want. Over the course of the trilogy, their methods for training their assassins are shown to be ruthless as they psychologically break their recruits and condition them to carry out their missions no questions asked. It is not exactly a surprise when Bourne learns he is actually an assassin working for a covert division of the CIA that even the CIA wouldn’t approve of – at least officially.
Bourne’s identity in the novel is much more complex and a mystery with many red herrings. Bourne is apparently one of the world’s deadliest assassins in competition with Carlos the Jackal, a renowned assassin with a global network who wants to eliminate Bourne from their playing field.
Except that isn’t the real case at all. Jason Bourne was in the Vietnam War and a member of the Medusa unit made up of dangerous criminals specifically chosen to train outside the rules of engagement, but Bourne betrayed his unit and was executed by David Webb, the leader of Medusa. Webb then joined the CIA created the identity of Jason Bourne, faking and taking credit for assassinations in an effort to draw the Jackal out of hiding and assassinate him. The cat-and-mouse game between them took a turn when the Jackal tried killing Webb, leading to his amnesia and belief he was Jason Bourne.
While the update to modern day as well as Damon’s age prevented the use of Vietnam, the filmmakers could have changed it to the Gulf War or more recent conflict and kept most of Bourne’s identity intact, making the battle between him and the Jackal the central problem rather than the typical evil CIA boogeymen trying to cover their tracks – a plot significant to each one of the films. It still made the series intriguing, but the twists and turns of Ludlum’s classic novel made a spy thriller like no other.
Bourne’s Allies
As far as a spy with amnesia goes, Bourne’s list of allies was pretty small at the beginning of his journey. As his story continues he gains more allies, even after he remembers he is David Webb. However, this isn’t quite the case with the films as Bourne is mostly on his own.
The novels saw Bourne teaming with Alex Conklin, his CIA handler who in the films was played by Chris Cooper. Like the Identity movie, Conklin was an adversary of Bourne’s but only because he thought Bourne/Webb had turned and gone rogue. There was also Dr. Morris Panov, a psychiatrist assigned to Webb’s case to help him cope with his amnesia and the dueling personalities of David Webb and Jason Bourne. In The Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum, both are essential to Bourne’s missions while the films omitted Panov and saw Conklin as corrupt and dead by the end of Identity.
Though the films gave him new allies with Pamela Landy and Nicky, Bourne was still largely left to his own devices throughout most of the series And while the removal of or changes to Bourne’s friends don’t hamper the film’s stories all that much, nothing holds a candle like how the movies treated Marie Kruetz, or better known in the novels as Marie St. Jacques.
The Bastardization of Marie St. Jacques
In The Bourne Identity film, Bourne happens upon a German woman named Marie Kruetz who is near broke, has no home and facing visa problems. After meeting him and becoming a target herself by Treadstone, Bourne and Marie fall in love and set out to make a life together in hiding from the CIA, but unfortunately they are discovered and Marie is killed by an assassin to cover up a corrupt scheme and unsanctioned assassination by Bourne’s former bosses.
This change hurts because it is not anywhere near the Marie St. Jacques of the novels, where she was a highly intelligent Canadian government official who, like her movie counterpart, met Bourne by chance. After being rescued from Carlos’ minions by Bourne, she decided to help him discover who he was and became instrumental in doing so by using her analytical mind to help put the various pieces together. Marie was also not afraid giving US officials a rightful earful in their hunt for Bourne and, following their marriage, managed to escape captivity all on her own in The Bourne Supremacy when she was kidnapped by the CIA in order to manipulate Bourne. She was incredibly resourceful, determined and intuitive, making this fellow Canuck rightly angry at her treatment in the films.
What do you think are the biggest changes in the Bourne films? Are there any that anger you as much as Marie? Let us know on our social channels at @FlickeringMyth…
Ricky Church – Follow me on Bluesky for more movie news and nerd talk.
