While scouting locations in Japan, the chief production team narrowly escaped death. On March 5, 1966, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, director Lewis Gilbert, cinematographer Freddie Young, and production designer Sir Ken Adam were booked to leave Japan on BOAC flight 911 departing Tokyo for Hong Kong and London. Two hours before their Boeing 707 flight departed, the team was invited to an unexpected ninja demonstration, and so missed their plane. Their flight took off as scheduled, and twenty-five minutes after take-off, the plane encountered severe turbulence and disintegrated over Mt. Fuji, killing all aboard.

The volcano set cost almost as much as Dr. No (1962)'s entire budget. It was so large, it could be seen from three miles away.

The henchman Bond fights in Osato's office was played by Samoan pro wrestler Peter Fanene Maivia, known by his ring name "The High Chief." Maivia also served as the film's fight choreographer, and was the grandfather of fellow wrestler Dwayne Johnson.

The relationship between Sir Sean Connery and the producers deteriorated to the point where he refused to act if they were on-set.

As this was anticipated to be Sir Sean Connery's last appearance as James Bond, publicity material released in advance of the movie announced Bond would be killed, married, and become Japanese. While these events were portrayed in this movie, they were actually ruses as part of Bond's undercover activities.

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.

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.

Little Nellie takes some bullet hole damage to its rudder during the helicopter battle scene. The bullet holes disappear in all subsequent scenes.

The ninjas outside the crater are armed with Spanish Star Z-45 submachine guns and Thompsons. When they are inside the volcano, they mostly use British Sterling and Sten submachine guns. This is because the exterior shots were filmed in Spain, while the volcano set was in Pinewood, UK.

In the cave, when Bond and Kissy dive into the water, she is wearing white tennis shoes. When they resurface outside the cave, Kissy is barefoot. After they climb out of the water she's wearing tennis shoes again. When they reach the summit of the mountain she is wearing more of a slipper type shoe.



Factual errors

Bond kills a SPECTRE agent in the lair using a shuriken. Shuriken are small blades for distraction and cause only light injuries. A strike to the chest through clothing could be incapacitating and painful, but would not be lethal, certainly not instantly.

Blofeld tries to shoot Bond, and the gun gets knocked out of his hand with a shuriken and goes off. The gun hits the ground and goes off again. The gun was never re-cocked, and the angle that the gun hit the floor would not have set the trigger off.

When Helga Brandt has left the plane, we can hear the ominous "Jericho trumpet" sound of a WWII Stuka bomber. When an engine goes to "over rev" its sound just gets more high-pitched. It does not have the siren-like sound to it.

In all the shots of the spaceships, they have a bright red light illuminating their shadow side. This is not possible, as in space, the only source of light is the sun. Everything in the shadow will be black.

M is wearing a Great War "trio", so, enlisted in late 1914. He would be well past retirement age, given that he could not have been born after the mid 1890's.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

Bond's face was shown in many newspapers after he faked his death, Mr. Osato and Brandt acknowledge this, yet they don't recognize Bond when they meet him and only realize it's him when Blofeld points it out. Just because it was in all the papers does not mean that the particular articles they read included his photo; or that they remembered in detail what he looked like. If they were aware that Bond was dead, they would not think that Mr. Fisher was Bond - at best it was someone who resembled him.

Bond undergoes extensive makeup, a giant wedding ceremony, and works as a fisherman for a day in order to pass as a native in front of hundreds of people who attended the wedding so he could get to an apparently uninhabited island. A wet suit and rebreather would have accomplished the same ends. The island is not uninhabited. The fishing village is located on that island and Bond's disguise was part of a ruse so he could blend in with the locals.

Why is "Mr Fisher" meeting the CEO of Osato to discuss a basic supply order? This is something done by phone or letter with that department. The CEO is too busy to handle routine sales matters. However, this is not the United States or Great Britain. Business practices in Japan were different, especially when making initial contact with a new supplier.

The fake "water" in the volcano's crater retracts into the side of the crater yet it is much wider than the side of the volcano at that point. It would extend out past the side of the volcanic cone. It is possible that the canopy is pliable enough to bend sideways into the volcano much like a set of blinds would.

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. This is not a goof. Obviously it implies that there is an observer helicopter, perhaps to run interference if necessary. And this is a movie after all. (If helicopters were to be shown, why can't we see is the third that is photographing the other two?)



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.

When Bond and Aki are being chased by the black car, Aki changes lanes in traffic. However, she turns the steering wheel nearly a full rotation, which would have turned the car sharply to the right.

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.

On a monitor in Aki's Toyota, Bond sees the helicopter flying with the car it has picked up, from about the same altitude. But where would the camera be? Bond seems to be watching the same movie we are.

When Bond's "body" is dropped off the ship and later picked up by the scuba divers it is absolutely rigid yet, when inside the sub, it bends and moves like a real body showing that the original "body" was actually a dummy.



Miscellaneous

After Bond and the American prisoners overpower the Japanese guards, they put on the guards uniforms. It?s unlikely that the tall well build Bond would fit into a smaller Japanese person's uniform. When the guards run into the cell after Bond blows the lock, it?s obvious that the guards running past Bond are shorter and not as well built as Bond.

When Q is briefing Bond on Little Nellie he says the heat-seeking air-to-air missiles fire 60 a minute. However, this is a pointless line, since there are only two missiles and they are fired both at the same time from a single button.

The fastest variant of the Bell 47, the helicopters chasing "Little Nellie," could only go 105 mph flat-out, while the Wallis WA-116 could go over 25 mph faster. "Little Nellie" could have easily outdistanced her pursuers had Bond chosen to do so. While one could say that "Little Nellie" was weighed down with ordnance, so, too, were the Bells.

The roof of the SPECTRE base is made of metal. Despite this, daylight can be seen through it.

When 007 chases Henderson's assassin across the yard, a moment before 007 tackles him, the man takes a half-step, obviously in preparation for being tackled.



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.

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").

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.

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.

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.



Crew or equipment visible

When Kissy Suzuki dives in the cave, a diving-mask is visible just before emerging from the water.

During the landing of the rocket with the Soviet capsule, when it sets down insides the crater, the rope with which it is lowered briefly emerges from the smoke.

Houston Command tells the astronauts that the UFO is approaching their ship from astern. However when Chris, the astronaut, finally says "now I see it", he is facing toward the front of his ship.



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 Baikonur Cosmodrome complex. This was the result of an error during editing in which the footage of the launches for the American and Soviet space capsules were transposed.

During the scene where Helga tries to kill Bond in the plane, the ground is typical English farming countryside, not Japanese topography.

When Bond meets Blofeld, the radar display shows they are not on a small remote island after all, but in the middle of the Japanese mainland - on Honshu, between Kyoto and Tokyo.

Mounted over Tanaka's desk aboard his private train, there is a metal artwork that is clearly meant to be a replica of Japan's four main islands (there is even a little red flag where Tokyo is). However, the set designers clearly made the artwork too large for the space provided, so to make it fit, the northern island of Hokkaido is wildly tilted over 90-degrees.



Plot holes

After a four-hour hike to the top of the crater with no backpack, Bond pulls out a full suction cup apparatus set-up. How did he ever know to bring this, not knowing there was anything inside the crater?

While Bond and Kissy are climbing the volcano, his "Japanese" make-up disappears somewhere along the way. 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.

How does Blofeld have a side view of the spacecraft 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.

Construction of the Volcano HQ would have taken considerable time and resource, it is inconceivable that no-one in the local area would have noticed or commented, let alone undertaking such a monumental project without Japanese intelligence being aware.

Why did Bond impersonate the SPECTRE astronaut? One of the freed astronauts would have been a better choice to foil the launch or mission due to their greater experience with flight control systems.



Character error

Blofeld claims that only one person they know, James Bond, uses a Walther PPK. But several people on all sides have been using the PPK in this series.

The NASA technicians and US astronauts in the opening sequence repeatedly use the phrase "Cape-Com". The term actually used was "Cap-Com".

Bond authenticates Tanaka with the passphrase "I love you". Aki, who clearly lured Bond into the the lair (and would presumably be in communication with the man who claims to be Tanaka), had previously heard the passphrase from Bond at the sumo match. Bond would gain no more confidence that Tanaka was really Tanaka by hearing the passphrase again since he had divulged it earlier to an associate of this man.

Twice during the film one of the NASA technicians, reporting to Houston, calls it "HOO-ston". The correct pronunciation is "HEW-ston".

When the divers are putting Bond's "body" into the sub, they have blue buoyancy control devices, but the diver to last enter the sub has none.