Goofs for
You Only Live Twice (1967) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: When Bond and Kissy leave the boat, it's obvious that Bond has nothing on under his shirt. Upon arrival at the volcano, he removes his shirt to reveal a Ninja outfit.
  
  
• Continuity: The timer changes from 12 seconds remaining to 25 seconds remaining [widescreen only].
  
  
• Continuity: When Aki is driving Bond to see Henderson, she is driving a car with the steering on the right side. As they approach Henderson's residence, Aki is seen briefly to be on the left side of the car. When the camera cuts to a close-up, she is back on the right again.
  
  

• Continuity: Kissy's shoes when diving and arriving at the volcano.
  
  
• Continuity: After Little Nellie has been assembled, Bond gets aboard. A technician is seen to begin the removal of the red rotor brace. The next close-up of Bond sees the brace in position. The next longer shot sees the technician completing the removal of the rotor brace.
  
  
• Factual errors: When the Russians launch their ship, they are talking about stats of the Sputnik. In Russian, the technician says that it is 36 degrees while the English subtitle reads 72, which is not possible. 36°C is 96.8°F. A further error is that the capsule atop the rocket is not only not the one we later see being captured; it is a US Gemini spacecraft. The Gemini vehicle was first launched in 1964 and was in use until the end of 1966. There were two unmanned and ten manned flights. In 1967, the Soviet Union was already using the Soyuz-class spacecraft.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: A wire is clearly seen lifting "Bird 1" off the launch pad during lift-off.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Just before the SPECTRE rocket touches down at their base, the cable lowering it is visible against the smoke, and the crane's hook is visible at the top of the screen.
  
  
• Continuity: When fleeing Osato's goons, the speedometer on Aki's car reads 0.
  
  
• Continuity: On a monitor in Aki's car Bond sees Tiger's helicopter from above lifting Osato's gunmen's car. But there is only one helicopter shown in all the other shots so this leaves no place for Tiger to have placed a video camera that would be able to transmit the picture Bond sees.
  
  
• Continuity: When Helga Brandt traps Bond in the plane and bails out, the plane was shown retracting the landing gear after take-off and after she bailed out the plane in the background had the gear down, (or it was a different version of the plane with non-retracting gear)
  
  
• Continuity: Amount of lava/status of exploding volcano in distance shots inconsistent with conditions in close ups.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: While rolling the SPECTRE rocket on to the platform only one of the visible wheels under the platform spins correctly. One of the four wheels doesn't spin at all. The left wheel spins in the wrong direction.
  
  
• Continuity: While flying Little Nellie during the engagement with the SPECTRE helicopters, Bond expends all of his weaponry. Afterward, however, when Bond is told to proceed to a certain position, the helicopter is seen pulling away fully armed.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the volcano Ninja fight finale, the ace swordman's weapon bends and straightens several times.
  
  
• Continuity: When Blofeld's control room proves to be less than "impregnable", he flees with some of his henchmen and Bond in tow. Blofeld takes a Webley from Mr. Osato and shoots him with it. He then cocks it and motions at Bond with the pistol. The gun is blasted from his hand and goes off, yet when it is shown on the ground in close-up it is cocked again. The hammer would have to have been re-cocked by hand. Bond then grabs the weapon as Blofeld flees. He joins the ninja assault wielding the top-break British revolver but as he fights, it changes back and forth several times into a Smith and Wesson revolver with a swing out cylinder.
  
  
• Continuity: Number of tanks on divers recovering Bond's "body". When first seen, and when they enter the sub, they have dual-tanks, when they pick-up the wrapped body, they have singles.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the divers recover Bond's body and take it to the submarine, multiple shots show that they are only three or four feet underwater. The submarine in the background is a very small model, as the real thing would have most of the hull and all of the conning tower above water.
  
  
• Continuity: As part of Bond's disguise as a Japanese man, they shave all the hair from his chest. Yet in the final scene of the movie, when Bond and Kissy are in the lifeboat, Bond's chest is quite hairy, even though this is only a few days later.
  
  
• Continuity: Bond stows away on a monorail cart which stops at the astronauts' quarters. After Bond gets out of the cart, a second cart passes by, even though the cart he arrived in is still on the track (out of shot). No one moved the cart before the second cart passed through.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The tachometer in the Toyota 2000 is always at zero (the interiors were shot with rear screen projection). Also, the driver's use of the steering wheel in no way matches the visible turns on the rear-screen.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Bond has infiltrated and is escaping from Osato Chemicals for the first time, the security guards that are shooting at him are using silenced revolvers (at least the ones inside the building), yet when they fire, the noise made is that of an unsilenced weapon.
  
  
• Continuity: As the four helicopters begin to attack little Nellie, Bond's helmet microphone switches from his right side to his left and back again.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At the end of the movie when the submarine surfaces under Bond's raft, you can clearly see that the film has been reversed.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bond is being suited up by the astronaut and cosmonaut, they connect the blue inlet hose of the air conditioner to the left connector of his suit and the red outlet hose to the right connector. However, when Bond arrives at the Spectre rocket, the hoses have switched sides.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bond takes his seat at the sumo arena, he first takes off his shoes. When he and Aki leave shortly later to go to meet Henderson, he leaves without putting his shoes back on. He is wearing shoes when he arrives at Henderson's apartment.
  
  
• Continuity: When James Bond is in Tanaka's underground train enjoying the sake wine. One servant enters saying that the photograph is ready for viewing. This servant then walks to the door, which is on the left-hand side of the carriage. After going through the door, we can see the servant taking a left turn, but where to? Outside the moving train?
  
  
• Continuity: During the fight scene with the large goon in Osato's office, the goon's suit and shirt repeatedly become disheveled and un-tucked, then straightened and tucked, as the shots change.
  
  
• Continuity: When Osato and Brandt land on the helicopter landing pad to meet Bond (as Mr. Fischer), the helicopter lands across the top of the "H" on the pad, near the edge of the circle, and it is facing slightly to the left of the camera. After a close-up of the tail rotor, the helicopter is now resting along the side of the "H", is further inside the circle, and is now facing to the right.
  
  
• Continuity: In the climactic scene in the control room, the white ceiling material hanging behind Bond disappears and reappears between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: Blofeld dismisses the Chinese representatives from his apartment and they leave. He then calls for Osato and Number 11 and the Chinese are still in the apartment.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Bond first sees the "crack" ninja training facility, one of the running ninjas trips and almost falls.
  
  
• Continuity: Just before Bond opens the safe at Osata Chemicals he drinks some "Siamese Vodka". Then there is a shot of the safe that includes the outline of his overcoat. When the camera returns to the same safe shot there is no overcoat outline and Bond walks toward the safe from off-camera.
  
  
• Factual errors: When the lady is dropped into the piranha tank there is much movement of the water, but the water doesn't turn red as one would expect it to from the blood.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bond and Kissy Suzuki go to the sea, the sun is setting down from shot to shot, yet the next time is day.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Kissy Suzuki dives in the cave, a diving-mask is visible just before emerging from the water.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bond enters the volcano, it is already dark, yet when we see the crater opens from within, the sky are blue. Each shot of the opening from the inside shows random amount of light outside.
  
  
• Continuity: In the helicopter battle scene, all of the copters are flying quickly through the sky (obviously.) However in the shots where enemy copters are destroyed, they are obviously stationery.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the Little Nellie helicopter battle scene, the same footage of enemy copters being destroyed is used three times.
  
  
• Continuity: Little Nellie takes some bullet hole damage to its rudder during the helicopter battle scene. The bullet holes disappear in all subsequent scenes.
  
  
• Continuity: While Bond and Kissy are climbing the volcano, his "Japanese" make-up disappears somewhere along the way. Since it was applied surgically, it's unlikely he could have casually pulled it off and tossed it away; he also had no way of knowing he wouldn't be needing it again.
  
  
• Continuity: Bond and Kissy are prevented from entering the cave passageway to SPECTRE's base by poison gas. At the end of the film, however, Bond, Kissy, and the ninjas escape through the cave with no ill effects.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Bond discovers the SPECTRE base and tells Kissy to go summon Tanaka and his ninjas, her dubbed voice says "yes", but her mouth movement clearly show that she replied in Japanese ("hai").
  
  
• Continuity: During the climactic battle scene, one of Tiger's ninja's slides down a rope into the SPECTRE base and runs off, but he has a row of bullet holes across his back.
  
  
• Continuity: Just as Bond enters the crater, there is a message audible, that says, that the US Spacecraft will be intercepted. Yet the Ninjas arrive in time. It took Bond and the Girl hours just climbing up the Volcano and yet the Girl makes it to the island and makes it back with the ninjas in time.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Helga Brandt traps Bond in the plane and bails out, you can see that the wooden board holding Bond's arms to the chair has a pre-made crack down the center where he eventually breaks loose.
  
  
• Continuity: A ninja blows a wide hole in the volcano's roof to allow his fellow ninjas to enter. In subsequent shots the roof is in perfect condition.
  
  
• Continuity: As Tiger and his men swim away from the exploding volcano they are seen to be urgently thrashing their arms and legs in their haste to escape. In the next, closer shot they are leisurely swimming along at a much slower pace before going back to the original, urgent shot.
  
  
• Continuity: The shoe covers that Bond takes off a dead assassin disappear when he enters the car and reappear in a later scene.
  
  
• Continuity: In the close up shots of Bond and Aki is her car the center of the windshield trim on the top is missing, but in the far shot of her driving the windshield is intact.
  
  
• Continuity: When Aki and Bond leave the Sumo match, she drives him in her 2000GT convertible. Like all cars in Japan, the driver (Aki) is on the right side of the car. However, when they pull up to the hotel, their positions have switched. She (and her powder blue head scarf) are now on the left. The film strip appears to be reversed, as they park with the right side of the car facing the hotel door, but in the next shot, the left side of the car is facing the door.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Hong Kong police pull up in front of the building where Bond has been "shot", a crowd of people is assembled on the corner behind them, obviously standing there watching the filming. A small group of people is also inside the shop adjacent to the same building, also clearly watching the filming.
  
  
• Plot holes: When Bond leaves Osato's office after meeting with him, Osato turns to Miss Brandt and orders, "Kill him." When Osato says this, Bond is not even out of his inner office, the doorway is wide open, and Bond should almost certainly have heard him.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Twice during the film one of the NASA technicians, when radioing NASA headquarters in Houston, Texas, mispronounces the name of the city "HOO-ston". The correct pronunciation is "HEW-ston".
  
  
• Continuity: When Bond shoots the henchman in the dock scene. He drops the gun and throws his hands backwards just before Bond actually shoots.
  
  
• Factual errors: Towards the end when the US move to a "higher security" status we see a TV shot of a B52 taking off (presumably to drop nukes on the Russians). The active B52 fleet was kept in the air permanently flying "holding patterns" towards Soviet territories being relieved every few days.
  
  
• Factual errors: During the opening movie sequence (tracking station) "Hawaii" can be heard calling "Jupiter 16" - this is contrary to proper protocol. Tracking stations only relay communications between Houston and the capsule. To reduce confusion during missions NASA capsule communications ("CapCom") was through one individual (always an astronaut) at NASA-Houston ("Houston, we've had a problem here"). One exception to this was during the launch phase when Cape Canaveral ("Launch") was the only communications point. This protocol is still in use today.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Bond is struggling to pull the Meyers 200A plane out of the dive we see two shots of an air speed indicator. In the first instance this should be going up as the plane power dives (engine is running) and Bond hasn't quite got control yet.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Aki could not drive so all of her driving scenes were shot with stunt men wearing wigs.
  
  
• Continuity: Kissy is wearing a striped cover-up over her bikini when she returns to the crater with Tiger, and keeps it on throughout the battle in the crater. After Blofeld triggers the self-destruct and Bond yells "Down the tunnel", she's seen running from the crater and down the tunnel in only the bikini.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the helicopter battle, Bond drops at least a dozen aerial mines. However, there is only one big explosion when they hit the helicopter below, revealing that the mines are duds and the real source of the explosion is the helicopter itself.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the ninja smashes the watermelon, a couple pieces of it get stuck to the camera lens and obscure the view for a second.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Bond first arrives at the ninja training camp, some of of the ninjas are sword fighting. It is assumed that they are sparring (with no real contact) because the ninja in blue obviously misses several of the others very badly with the sword, but they faint as if hit. However, two of the ninjas scream loudly in pain when they are "slashed" which makes it unclear whether they are sparring or using real contact.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Tanaka demonstrates the rocket-propelled bullets for Bond, just before he fires the bullet, his mouth starts moving as if he is saying something, but no words come out. Also, in the next line, Tanaka says something incomprehensible, which sounds like "All rocket gun" or something similar.
  
  
• Continuity: When Tanaka hands Bond the cigarette gun, Bond is holding it in his right hand. In the next shot, Bond is holding it in his left hand.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bond kills the ninja who surprise attacks him, he clearly stabs him in the hip. In the next scene, the blood is on the ninja's torso, and not his hip. Also, there is no blood on the weapon, either.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Bond kills the ninja that surprise attacks him, Tanaka comes over to check on him. The man's body is lying flat, with the back of his head resting on the ground. When Tanaka comes over, he crouches over him, pushes his head to the side and checks his pulse. In the next camera shot. The body is back to the original position (with the head flat), and Tanaka has disappeared. This is clearly the same video clip re-used from moments earlier, when Bond first killed him. Again after this, Tanaka is crouched over him again, with the head turned to the side.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bond and Kissy are in the rowboat, her position changes very rapidly between angles, The time of day changes even more so. First, the sun is setting, and is high in the horizon. Next, the sun is setting and is very low in the horizon, almost night time. Next, it is about mid day, which would mean that either there is a continuity error with the footage, or Bond and Kissy and the others stayed out rowing all night long and into the next day, which also makes no sense.
  
  
• Plot holes: How does Blofeld have a side view of the satellites in outer space? This would mean that he would need to have an additional spacecraft with a camera attached. In that event, the astronauts would notice two spacecraft approaching instead of one.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Blofeld tries to shoot Bond, and the gun gets knocked out of his hand with a ninja star, and goes off. The gun hits the ground, and goes off again. This is impossible for two reasons. The gun was never re-cocked, and the angle that the gun hit the floor would not have set the trigger off.
  
  
• Continuity: After Blofeld gets the ninja star lodged in his arm, he never removes it. In the next camera angle, it is gone. Later on, there is no blood and no damage to his arm.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Bond is fighting Hans, Bond gets knocked over near the fireplace, and it plays a sound effect of glass breaking. However, there are no glass objects anywhere near Bond at this time.
  
  
• Continuity: When Hans picks up the lamp to strike Bond, he is holding it up by the bulb end. In the next camera shot, he is holding it by the base end.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Bond is fighting Hans, Hans throws one punch that doesn't even come close to making contact, but a sound effect is played as if it connected.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bond is setting off the self-destruct for the "pirate" spacecraft, the timer is not synchronized between the two different camera angles. In the first camera angle, it starts off, counting, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24. It then cuts to a different camera angle, and it counts, 14, 13, 12. It then goes back to the original camera angle, and it counts, 24, 23. It then goes back to the other camera angle, and finally counts down, 12, 11, 10, 9...
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The reflection of the lava would not have causes the entire sky and the ocean to have a red hue. This reveals that the entire scene has been color graded.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): The NASA technicians and US astronauts in the opening sequence repeatedly use the phrase "Cape-Com". The term actually used was "Cap-Com".
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Henderson tells Bond he has lived in Japan for 28 years (since 1939, based on the film's release date), and that he lost his leg in Singapore in 1942. These statements are mutually exclusive. Perhaps he meant 18 years.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Blofeld claims that only one person, 007, uses a Walther PPK. But several people on all sides have been using the PPK in this series.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bond is being chased across the roof of the warehouse in the harbor, a helicopter shot of this taking place shows that a roof door is open as Bond approaches. The next shot is Bond by that same door and it it closed.
  
  
• Continuity: After Bond gets the tickets from Satoiyama and walks into the arena, the "referee" for the match is wearing a red robe. In the scene when Aki comes in, the "referee" is wearing blue. It's possible the "referee" was rotated out with another one, especially if there is some delay between Bond sitting down, and Aki arriving.
  
  
• Errors in geography: In the Russian launch sequence the rocket shown lifting off from the pad is an American made Titan III-C ICBM modified to launch the Gemini series spacecraft. Also there are palm trees in the foreground which indicates a tropical location far south of the Soviet Baikonuir Cosmodrome complex.
  
  
• Errors in geography: According to the commentary, the Americans and Russians are launching each other's spacecraft toward the end of the film.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Possible deliberate Cold War omission by filmmakers, when the SPECTRE spaceship attacks the American spaceships it has Russian markings of CCCP and Red Star, when the SPECTRE spaceship attacks the Russian spaceship it is clean skinned. To show a continuity of plot, it should have American markings, no doubt this is deliberate by filmmakers.
  
  

• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: After Blofeld sets off the explosions to destroy his volcano complex and the Ninja's are running down the tunnel and swimming out of the cave. There are a couple views of the cavern during the explosions. Several bodies are laying on floor and steps dressed in Blofeld's uniforms. They are rigid dummies and the explosions cause them to bounce like mannequins.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: The knife that kills Henderson goes through the wall and into his back, and was obviously thrown with great force. Yet, when it tears through the wall it does not even make a sound. There is no blood on it either.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: Bond chases Aki into Tanaka'a headquarters, where a trap is sprung for him. Afterwards, Tanaka reveals to Bond that he had been watching him on video surveillance (which made the trap easy). However, the video we see of Bond is not taken from surveillance cameras, as it has multiple camera angles, panning, and zooming. This footage was obviously shot with a movie camera, not a surveillance camera.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: Extremely obvious stuntman. When Bond is fighting Hans in Blofeld's quarters, he appears to be about the same height. When Bond back-drops him into the water, he appears to be about a foot shorter. (This is 5'6 stuntman Bob Simmons).
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: When the "pirate" spacecraft actually explodes, it is much farther away from the American spaceship than it was just seconds before.
  
  

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