The Bourne Ultimatum

Question: When Bourne meets Dr. Albert Hirsh, he gets a keycard to enter. Where did he get it from?

Chosen answer: The script of The Bourne Supremacy actually calls Martin Marshall the "Deputy Vice-Director" of the CIA, although in the same script and film dialog, Landy refers to him as "Director Marshall". So it appears Kramer is CIA Director in all the Bourne films, but Marshall is either acting Director in Kramer's absence or is just referred to as a Director.

Sierra1

Question: When Jason shows Nicky the picture of Nathan Daniels and Ward Abbott she says she doesn't know who Ward Abbott is, but I could have sworn they had a scene together in the Bourne Supremacy. Is she lying?

Answer: The man in the picture was Albert Hirsch, not Ward Abbott, and he was never seen in The Bourne Supremacy. She is not lying and she does not know who he is.

Casual Person

Answer: They look so similar! I had the same question, glad someone thought of it first.

Question: Anyone know how he got into Noah's office towards the end? I saw him go up the stairs, but it appears he would need a key card to get in without breaking anything.

Answer: Knowing Bourne, he must have had a keycard on his person. Remember that Landy guided Bourne back to the CIA New York Headquarters; she could have easily slipped a keycard in the Taxi Cab when Bourne was being picked up at the airport. All he would have to do then is avoid being detected by using the fire exits (hence going through the back).

Jason Riley

Chosen answer: Either a criminal or a prisoner of war. Either way, "who he is" is of little consequence. All that matters is that Bourne killed him without knowing whether or not he deserved to die.

Phixius

Question: At the end of supremacy, Landy tells Bourne his name is David Webb and birthday is 4/15/71. In the Ultimatum, that same date is used as a code. Was this a mistake or am I missing something?

Answer: They don't have that conversation twice; it's intended to be the same scene both times. For the purpose of giving Supremacy a better ending, the sequence was used there despite actually taking place during Ultimatum. This is also why Ultimatum starts with him escaping the police in Moscow: it's a continuation of the chase just preceding the scene with Landy.

Question: When Bourne is talking to Julia Stiles' character she insinuates that they have some kind of history together when she says something like "It's always been hard for me when it comes to you". Does anyone know what she means by this?

Answer: That's probably all it is: an insinuation that Webb and Parsons had some kind of relationship prior to or during his induction into Treadstone, whether romantic or otherwise. It's left deliberately vague.

Sierra1

Answer: Doesn't he ask who she is? When he's talking to Landy on the phone, he references the girl from. Berlin, was it? When he says it should be easy to find her because she's standing next to Landy.

Question: With all the cars Jason Bourne crashed in and kept going, why haven't the airbags gone off?

Answer: This would have been an artistic choice by the filmmakers. Having airbags continually going off each time would have slowed the scene's action and pacing, lessening its dramatic impact. It's not realistic, but it's a movie, and it comes down to what makes for a more exciting story.

raywest

Question: What does Hirsch mean when he tells Vosen, "Just remember why we put Landy there." They talk about framing Landy for BlackBriar, but that never goes anywhere. What was their plan?

Brad

Chosen answer: In the next film, "The Bourne Legacy", we see Vosen testifying against Landy before a congressional committee. He implies that Blackbriar was solely an operation to capture a rogue Treadstone operative (Bourne), and that Landy was responsible for the program as she had aided Bourne.

Sierra1

Question: In Bourne Supremacy, when Bourne confronted Nicky Parsons about his first mission in Berlin (Neski's assassination), Nicky explained to him that his first mission was not in Berlin, but Geneva instead. Eventually the movie showed through Bourne's flashbacks that the assassination of Neski in Berlin was an off-the-record mission arranged by Abbott and thus not documented by the CIA. In Bourne Ultimatum, when Landy reviewed the archives of the Operation Treadstone, there was a scene where Landy was reading the details of Neski's assassination and there was a CIA stamp of approval on Neski's picture as if this is an official mission from the CIA. Isn't this somewhat contradictory?

Answer: No. The Neski assassination was indeed "on-the-record." As much so as anything Treadstone did, anyway. It wasn't listed as Bourne's "first assignment" though because it was a training exercise. Bourne's last training exercise, in fact. After that, Bourne's first mission as a Treadstone agent (agent, not trainee) was in Geneva.

Phixius

Answer: Bourne was supposed to assassinate a man aboard a yacht. Because the man was with his family, Bourne found he was unable to carry out his mission. An unknown shooter then shot him twice in the back, causing him to fall into the sea. The trauma triggered amnesia to where he completely lost his identity. As part of Bourne's CIA assassination training, he had been tortured and undergone extreme mental conditioning to breakdown and remake his personality. This may have had been why his dissociative amnesia was so extreme and long-term.

raywest

Visible crew/equipment: Many shots when they are in the CIA building, you can see the cameraman in the glass walls.

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Trivia: The film crew were unable to shut down Waterloo station, so pedestrians in the station can be seen looking and pointing at the camera.

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