You Only Live Twice

Plot hole: Blofeld tells the bad guys that they had Bond and let him get away. The woman says, "But Bond is dead. It was in all the papers." As we saw in a paper near the start, there was a well-publicised photo of Bond, and when she met him he wasn't using any kind of disguise, so how did she not recognise him if she'd seen the papers?

Jon Sandys

Revealing mistake: During the car chase scene, if you watch the speedometer on the car, it never rises above zero. That, and the obviously poor image quality of the "road" in front of them, shows that they were using projected film in front of the car.

poehitman

Continuity mistake: When Bond and Kissy jump into the ocean to avoid the poison gas in the cave, you can see Bond's skin through his shirt. When they come ashore on Blofeld's volcano island, Bond takes off his shirt to reveal a grey ninja outfit underneath, complete with huge rubber suction cups for his hands and knees. Where did he hide all that?

Plot hole: Right after Bond escapes Blofeld and joins Tanaka and Kissy, they say they need to get to the control room (that Bond just left from). They look at the "front door" to the room, and Tanaka says, "Impossible! It's too well defended!". Why did they not go back the way Bond just came from, through Blofeld's "apartment"? Instead, they fight their way across the entire launching complex and go through another entrance, which also leads through Blofeld's apartment.

poehitman

Continuity mistake: When Blofeld is just about to shoot Bond with a Webley & Scott Mk. IV revolver in .455 Webley caliber, Blofeld's hand is hit with a ninja throwing star. However, the gun he drops isn't the Webley, but a Smith & Wesson .38 Special.

Plot hole: The ferocious battle in the crater ends instantly when Bond blows up the spaceship. Why? Aren't Blofeld's men still going to try to defend themselves? How do they know Bond has succeeded in his mission? They can't see the control room, let alone the television sets.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where divers are recovering Bond's "body", you can see that one of the divers has two tanks on his back. Then, in the next shot, he only has one tank, then two again.

Continuity mistake: At one point, during the scene with the helicopter dogfight, the tail wing of Bond's mini-copter is riddled with bullet holes (and yet the mini-copter continues to fly very efficiently). But for the rest of the scene, the tail wing is in perfect condition with no sign of the damage done to it. (00:56:40 - 00:58:45)

Revealing mistake: In the car chase, the girl keeps the steering wheel straight all the time (in the shot from inside the car), although the street is not straight at all.

nightline

Continuity mistake: While Bond prepares "Little Nellie" for flight, a Japanese technician removes the red rotor tether from the front of the Autogyro. In the next shot, while Bond is putting his flying helmet on, the tether is still attached to the rotor. (00:51:30)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: The technician is pushing the little nelly out of the garage, he is not taking the tether off.

Visible crew/equipment: When 007 is on the "Little Nelly" and is about to fly over the village, there's a shot in front of him and you can see another helicopter in the background. This is not the helicopter that attacks Bond later - it must be the one used to film the action from behind.

Dr Wilson

Factual error: Two rocket lift-offs are shown. For the American lift-off, they show an Atlas-Agena (American) rocket booster but for the Soviet lift-off, they show a Gemini-Titan (also American) rocket booster. Compounding the mixup is that the film's Jupiter capsules are basically just Gemini craft, which are seen atop what the film presents as the Russian rocket.

Plot hole: In the volcano base, Bond finds and frees three captured astronauts - two Russians and an American. But when they enter the SPECTRE astronauts' room, there are only two of them with Bond (and there is no indication that the third one was seriously hurt in the previous struggle with the guards); and after Bond is dressed in the spacesuit, they disappear from the story altogether.

You Only Live Twice mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Aki drives James to see Tiger and when she collects him from Osato Chemicals, her car changes from left hand to right hand drive as the camera follows them along.

Revealing mistake: When the submarine surfaces with the life raft on the casing at the end of the film, the water movement looks a bit odd because the scene was actually shot with the sub diving and floating the raft off, the film then being played backwards.

Other mistake: When the goons car is carried off to sea by the helicopter, Bond can watch the helicopter on the screen in Aki's car. But where is that camera mounted? On a camera plane?

Jacob La Cour

Plot hole: When Bond arrives on the island with the fake volcano, Kissy tells him that nothing unusual has happened there, except the death of a diving girl when she ventured into a cave. Even if the construction of the launch facility in the volcano had been kept secret it would have been impossible to launch the large rocket twice without anybody noticing.

Factual error: In the scene where the ninjas are attacking the volcano, they are armed with rocket guns. While the rocket guns, MBA Gyrojet Rocket Carbines, are real, their 13mm rocket cartridges could barely beat out a .45 ACP pistol cartridge in stopping power, not to mention they couldn't cause huge explosions like they did in the movie.

Continuity mistake: In the scene at the end where Bond is trying to make Blofeld's spaceship blow up, you can see the timer showing the time till interception. On the 1st shot the timer shows 25 seconds. On the second shot it says 13 seconds. Then there is another shot and the timer shows 24 seconds.

Plot hole: At the end, we see pictures of the space shuttle several times on a TV screen. Where is the camera to film that?

Tiger Tanaka: I must say I am disappointed with the ease with which I could pull you in. The one thing my honourable mother taught me long ago was never to get into a car with a strange girl. But you, I'm afraid, will get into anything. With any girl.

More quotes from You Only Live Twice

Trivia: German actress Karin Dor almost suffered decapitation by the helicopter rotors in the scene where she and the actor playing Osato meet Bond for the first time. Only an attentive crewman, who shouted a warning at her, prevented it.

More trivia for You Only Live Twice

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.