Thunderball: The Adaptation

This is not the complete Thunderball review. I'm not going to get all gushy about how Film!Largo is probably the best Bond Villain ever or anything like that (although he totally is).  A bunch of this will be incorporated into the proper review, but this is just a series of observations about the changes made from the book to the film.

Fiona Volpe
Shockingly, one of the best things about Thunderball the movie isn't in Thunderball the book at all.
That entire subplot about an evil vamp remaining resolutely evil despite the fact that Bond sexed her?  Yeah, nope. The scene where she runs into Bond after he reconnoiters the Disco and gives him a 100-mph lift back to his hotel? Gone.  Gone as well are Paula and that random other guy - not Felix Leiter, the other support character.  Oh, and Q.  All of this means that the scene where Bond sneaks around Palmyra and falls into the shark pool is also not in the book, either.  On the whole, I did like Fiona, but she definitely padded things out (not a euphemism). Tie.


Largo's Introduction
Film!Largo gets a pretty nifty introduction (I said I wouldn't gush; I lied).  It's supposed to be a scene that shows us what kind of boss Blofeld is, but we never see his face. We do see Largo just kind of chilling there waiting for the screaming to stop so he can get on with his mission briefing.  Awesome.  In the book he's not present at this conference at all, and we first meet him on the deck of the Disco Volante watching the recovery operation unfold.  Kind of disappointing. (Also, Book!Largo has both his eyes.) Point: film.

Largo's Death
In the film, Largo escapes the underwater battle and leads the US Navy on a merry chase (somehow ignoring the fact that they had air support at the beginning of the battle). Not so in the book. Bond fights him underwater but gets tired, tries to hide in a cave, gets cornered by Largo and saved by Domino, all underwater. (Domino escapes her bonds without Kutze's help, apparently.)  Missing as well is the scene where Bond fails to intercept Largo as he recovers the bombs and ends up having to wait for a rescue.  The film really stretches out the climax. Point: novel.

Vitali/Petacchi
Book!Bond is sent to the Bahamas on a hunch after M puts some clues from Air Traffic Control together.  Film!Bond immediately notes that one of the bomber pilots has a sister in Nassau and gets M to send him on a government-sanctioned sexing mission, the smooth operator.  In the book, Domino changed her name from Petacchi to Vitali, so the revelation that Largo recruited and murdered her brother comes as a plot twist halfway through. I'm inclined to call this a pragmatic adaptation; Domino turning out to be the sister of a murdered pilot smacks of convenience, whereas Bond going after Domino in the first place not because she's Largo's mistress but because she's the pilot's sister just seems to make more sense. (By the way, the novel implies that Largo had no idea that Domino and the traitor pilot were related. The film kind of glosses over this.) Anyway, point: film.

Double Trouble
By the way, Book!Largo (or rather, somebody in SPECTRE) just turns the pilot, rather than going through all the rigmarole of hiring somebody to get plastic surgery to look just like him. Less convoluted plot. Point: novel.

The Health Clinic
There's never an adequate explanation for why Bond's at the clinic while Lippe's there in the film. In the novel it's because M turned into a health nut, which is kind of silly. (On the other hand, Bond was smoking sixty cigs a day.) On the other other hand, Book!Bond doesn't blackmail the nurse into having sex in the steam room.  I'm going to have to go with Point: novel on this one.

So it's 3-2-1 in favor of the novel. The film is certainly more bloated, but it doesn't shove a gobsmacking coincidence down our throats halfway through. (Seriously. The novel goes through all this rigmarole about Largo's perfect cover - he and his gang are posing as treasure-hunters - but then has him massively drop the ball by screwing a woman whose brother he had killed and apparently not knowing about it. Film!Largo's oversight can more easily be chalked up to overconfidence.)

Oh and Felix Leiter Still Has All His Limbs Oh My God James Bond Is Ruined Forever.