The Strangest Change James Bond Made To Felix Leiter Isn’t What You’d Expect
Felix #Felix
The James Bond movies changed the character of Felix Leiter in Diamonds Are Forever, but not in the way that viewers might have expected. While Daniel Craig’s 007 movies were darker and grittier than most of Ian Fleming’s original James Bond novels, this was not always the approach that the creators of the spy series took when adapting the author’s work to the screen. For decades, the James Bond movies were significantly sillier and more far-fetched than the books they were inspired by, with some 007 movies borrowing little more than a title from their source novel.
However, not every difference between the James Bond novels and their movies made the adaptations more light-hearted. In some unusual instances, the James Bond novels that Fleming wrote were darker, more offbeat, and sillier than their screen adaptation. This was not, broadly speaking, the case for 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever. This uneven James Bond movie was mostly much goofier than its source novel of the same name, from ignoring the death of Tracy Bond to inventing an absurd plot about a solid diamond satellite. However, while Diamonds Are Forever made 007 more over-the-top than the source novel, this was not the case for one crucial character.
Related: 7 Ways No Time To Die Already Impacted 007’s Rebooted Timeline
Diamonds Are Forever Toned Down Felix Leiter
In the source novel Diamonds Are Forever, Bond’s friend from the CIA Felix Leiter barely survived his close encounter with a shark in Live and Let Die. In the book version of Diamonds Are Forever, Felix has a hook for a hand and a prosthetic leg whereas, in the movie, neither is visible. While No Time to Die killed both Bond and Leiter decades later, Diamonds Are Forever’s first draft contained the character’s first canon brush with death. However, Fleming’s literary agent warned the author that readers would be angered by Leiter’s death, resulting in the agent instead losing a hand and a leg but keeping his life.
The movie adaptation of Diamonds Are Forever ignores this part of Felix’s backstory, creating a less interesting character. If Felix has any prosthetic limbs in the movie, they are never depicted and, moreover, Bond never mentions Leiter’s near-death experience from Live and Let Die. This was a surprising choice, since a version of Felix who narrowly escaped a dramatic death would fit better with the atmosphere of Diamonds Are Forever. The rest of the movie adaptation is broad and cartoony (except for Connery’s surprisingly brutal Diamonds Are Forever fight scenes), meaning altering Felix’s arc to seemingly tone the character down was an odd change for the movie to make.
Why This James Bond Canon Change Is Strange (But Has An Explanation)
Diamonds Are Forever makes everything about the novel’s story over-the-top, so it is odd that Felix’s backstory loses some of the most action-packed events. However, this could’ve been an attempt to avoid mention of events from the novel Live and Let Die. While Felix Leiter appears in both novels, he lost his leg and hand to the shark in Live and Let Die before returning in Diamonds Are Forever. However, the movie adaptation of Diamonds Are Forever was produced and released before Live and Let Die. As such, the James Bond franchise’s creators could reasonably have felt that the timeline of the series would be rendered confusing by Leiter’s injuries.