The Bourne Identity: Movie vs Book

I've enjoyed Robert Ludlum's "Jason Bourne" movie series, which starts with the first in the trilogy, The Bourne Identity (Movie/DVD). After watching the most recent movie (The Bourne Ultimatum), I decided to read the books, starting with The Bourne Identity (Book). In particular, I was very curious to see how they compared.

To summarize, let me say this: it's easier to highlight the similarities than the differences. Namely, they both feature Jason Bourne, a former government assassin. All other details are essentially different between the book and the movie. Curious? Read on... :)

bourne-trilogy.jpg
The book version of Bourne Identity is sub-divided into 3 books. In terms of the movies, my theory is that each one of these books within the first book are actually connected to the three separate movies.

One of the core themes of this first book, as well as the 2nd one (The Bourne Supremacy), is the assassin, Carlos the Jackal. Amazingly, in the first movie, Carlos is disposed of quite quickly. At the end of the first book he survives on goes on to more terrible things. What weirdness!

Basically, my recommendation is this if you're interested in the books: discard everything you think you know based on the movies and start from scratch.

Now, I will tell you this: the books are worth reading. Especially now that I'm through the first book and into the second, it's actually an interesting and intriguing read. We know much more about Jason Bourne at this point and actually now can see him as the reluctant hero, abused by his own country and government. Good stuff!

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This page contains a single entry by Ben Tomhave published on September 11, 2007 8:05 PM.

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