In this movie's conclusion, Bond uses his shoelaces to create a Prusik knot, attaching himself to his climbing rope so he can ascend a mountain. This technique, which is indeed possible to do with shoelaces, was invented by Austrian mountaineer Karl Prusik, and is common amongst climbers. The Prusik knot celebrated its 50th anniversary the year this movie was released, having first appeared in an Austrian mountaineering manual for rope ascending in 1931.

Only Bond movie to date in the official franchise not to feature M. It was the first Bond movie not to feature Bernard Lee as M, who had played the role in the previous eleven movies in the franchise. Lee died of stomach cancer on January 16, 1981, after the filming of this movie had started, but before his scenes were shot. Although Bernard Lee was dying of stomach cancer, he did try to film at least one scene in the movie, but in the end, it was too much for him, and he had to bow out. He died not long afterward. As a result, Q's role in this movie was slightly expanded to fill the gap. As such, several scenes, originally intended to include M, were re-written with Q, (for example, the confessional scene). As a mark of respect, producer Albert R. Broccoli refused to re-cast the role, changing the script to say that M was on leave. Climax! (1954) season one, episode three, "Casino Royale" also did not feature M.

23-year-old stuntman Paolo Rigoni died during the filming of the bobsled chase. This was due to a poorly designed track. Rigoni was not the only one to lose his life there, however. During an actual competition another bobsledder was killed at the same exact spot. The track was later modified for a less severe turn.

A line of dialogue had to be cut from the opening helicopter sequence for legal reasons. The bald man could not be called "Blofeld", as Kevin McClory had won a court case several years previous, and owned the rights to the use of "S.P.E.C.T.R.E.", and "Ernst Stavro Blofeld". Unofficially disposing of Blofeld so early in this movie was Albert R. Broccoli's way of telling McClory that the success of 007 did not depend on him, and he got rid of Blofeld (supposedly) once and for all. McClory produced and released the unofficial Bond movie, Never Say Never Again (1983), in which Blofeld was played by Max von Sydow. Blofeld did not appear in an EON produced Bond movie again until Spectre (2015), after the rights matter was finally settled in 2013.

The epitaph in the opening scene of Bond's wife's tombstone is, "we have all the time in the world", his last words to her in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), and title song.

Continuity

Bond races through the ski chase with only one ski pole (the other was damaged by the sniper chasing him). The remaining pole was used to clothesline one of the bikers following him, but he has it again in the later shot when he first approaches the bobsled track.

When retrieving the device underwater, Bond's left arm is injured, bleeds and his diving vest is torn; in the following scenes, not only does he stop bleeding altogether but the diving vest is intact.

Bond isn't wearing his wristwatch while climbing the mountain, but it reappears during his fight with Kriegler.

The Mercedes-Benz that Locque flees in after blowing up the warehouse is a type W114 or W115 (also called "/8") with stickers next to the tail lights to make it appear like the type W116 (the first "S-Class") which it becomes in the subsequent scenes.

When the mountaintop monastery guard is struck by Bond's piton, the blade enters his chest dead center, a few inches below the Adam?s apple. Yet when the body lands on the ground, the blade has moved to the man's left shoulder.



Factual errors

James Bond and Melina first meet in a house which is supposed to be in a mountain area near Madrid. There is a swimming pool frequented by women wearing bikinis. In the meantime, some farmers are harvesting olives nearby. Olives are harvested in December - January, when temperatures around Madrid are around 5 degrees Celsius.

During the rock climb, there is not a piton in the world that could stand the 1,000+ pounds of pressure on the line that resulted from Bond's slipping after the thug knocked out the other pitons. Either the line would have broken or the last piton would have easily given way during the fall, resulting in Bond's death.

It is impossible to fly a helicopter with both hands on the stick, but Bond may not know this.

It's impossible to remote control a helicopter with a single joystick.

During the gunfight in the warehouse, Bond lobs a hand grenade towards the bad guys. One of them spots it and picks it up, presumably to lob back. But it explodes as he lifts it. The explosion is followed by the man screaming but he would have been killed instantly.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

The Blofeld character in the opening appears bald and has a neck brace, appearing as he did at the end of 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'. But in 'Diamonds Are Forever', he had hair and no neck brace. The filmmakers did not confirm the character to be Blofeld himself, due to rights issues and felt that the audience should use their 'imagination'.

Retrieving the ATAC so that it can't be used to countermand attacks or order false attacks is only one military security consideration. If the Soviets had been able to obtain the ATAC, they would have been able to analyze the technology behind it, including radio frequencies, cryptology, and even command structure; all of which would make it easier for them to compromise or interfere with any replacement system or codes. Cryptological hardware is always sensitive.

As Bond climbs up through the forest to the pool party, the guard is distracted by a woman with long curly brunette hair and a red flower over her right ear; she is wearing a blue bikini and a long cover-up. After Bond passes her and the guard and proceeds up the hill to spy on the pool party, this same woman is now seen dancing at the party in the first shot seen through Bond's binoculars; she could not be in both places at once, however, she is seen in the background of a camera shot returning to the pool area from her tryst with the guard before Bond uses his binoculars, and thus is not in 2 places at once.

In the hockey rink fight scene: the goaltender player is wearing non-goaltender gloves. A real goaltender player wears a blocker glove on one hand, and a catching glove on the other. However, they weren't there to play hockey, they were there to kill Bond.

James Bond was married to Tracy (played by Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty's Secret Service). In the opening scene, a gravestone shows her name as Teresa. This is because her full name was Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, nicknamed Tracy.



Revealing mistakes

During the fight in the hockey rink, Bond climbs into the Zamboni and "hits" the last hockey player. These machines are very slow, and don't get powered up very quickly. When you look closely at the footage, it seems more like the hockey player literally skates head-on into the Zamboni on purpose.

While diving down to retrieve the spare tank with Melina, 007 is a stuntman with long, blond hair.

At the baccarat game, Bond has the same cards for both the first and second hand; the queen of spades and the five of diamonds. While this is, strictly speaking, not impossible (several packs are mixed together to fill the shoe from which the cards are dealt) it is blindingly unlikely, and the fact that these cards are initially erroneously described as giving a count of nine (court cards and tens count nothing in baccarat, while number cards count for their respective number of pips) makes it far more probable that the close-ups of Bond's cards are in fact both taken from the second hand played.

In the opening sequences where James Bond has taken control of the helicopter from 'Blofeld' and is carrying him aloft in his wheelchair, at one stage the stunt man in for 'Blofeld' is replaced by a dummy. Immediately after, the stunt man is back in the chair and it's obvious he's wearing a 'bald wig'.

The "guns" on the motorcycles during the ski chase scene have neither bullets nor magazines nor any kind of firing mechanism.



Miscellaneous

When Columbo's men come to help Bond on the beach, even though they just emerged from the water, they are all dry.

Right before Columbo and Lisl have their "argument" at dinner, Kristatos picks up his fork to take a bite and there is nothing on his fork.

When Q and Bond are entering the Identigraph room, Q enters 5 digits into the keypad. Bond then completes the sequence to open the door by entering 2 more key codes, but the door already starts to open before he presses them.

When Bond climbs to the top of the cliff, a villain kicks him in the face, but freeze-framing the section reveals that it?s a stuntman.

The Identigraph room is obviously a restricted area, secured with a 7 digit entry code. But the woman bringing them tea/coffee can also enter the highly secured room.



Audio/visual unsynchronized

When Bond and Melina are to do the deep dive, Bond mentions that they must use a mixture of helium and oxygen, but when they communicate through the helmet radios, their voices sound normal, not high pitched like it should be.

When Bond shoots Locque in the shoulder, he yells without opening his mouth.

When Melina removes her scuba helmet after diving for the device, there is a release in pressure. Her air tube had already been punctured by the bad guy, so the pressure was already released and therefore no sound should have been emitted.

When Bond is standing under the arch, and shooting at Locque's vehicle, he fires one shot. A bullet comes out and hits the windshield. A second later, another bullet hits the windshield, but there was no sound of a second bullet being fired from Bond's gun.

Towards the end, when Bond is fighting with the monastery guard, the guard punches him in the stomach, and Bond's "oof!" is heard before the sound of the punch.



Crew or equipment visible

There is a stunt roll cage in the 2CV when the villagers help Bond and Melina right it.

Near the beginning of the movie, when Bond and Melina are chased from the pool party, a near perfect reflection is shown in Melina's window of a crewman holding a yellow pole with equipment on top and wearing a short-sleeved tan shirt and black glasses. A few frames later he waves his hand between the backseat window and the camera.

The camera and crew are visible in the window reflection of the car where Emil Locque is talking on the car phone at the ski jump.

As the thug falls off the cliff after struggling with Bond, scaffolding is visible immediately behind him.

Whilst inspecting the sunken fishing boat for the ATAC console, Melina is pulled up by a henchman in a white diving suit, there is a cable and hook quite visible on the back of Melina's diving suit winching her up the wall.



Errors in geography

During the dive on the sunken sub, it is stated the pressure is very great requiring special suits. One of the bad guys is using a JIM Suit, which is designed for extreme depth dive work. Yet when they emerge from the sunken sub the water is very light blue and the color rendering is very good. This is only possible in 1 Atmosphere diving. At depths below 100 feet the water is very dark and colors are very gray.

In the pre-credits sequence, when Blofeld turns on his remote control, he sees the helicopter approaching Tower Bridge (and flying east). The scene then cuts to the helicopter flying past the Palace of Westminster. The Palace of Westminster is about 2.5 miles to the west of Tower Bridge.

Bond and Melina are chased by cars in the mountains near Madrid, Spain. Yet when one of the pursuing cars falls down a cliff and into a net where olives are being harvested, the farmers can clearly be heard swearing and talking in Italian, not Spanish.

The pre-titles sequence briefly shows the helicopter is in downtown London (as suggested by the Westminster buildings), then goes straight to being somewhere else, which doesn't appear to be anywhere near it.



Plot holes

In Bond's assault on St Cyril, it makes not the least bit of sense for the sentry not to choose any of the risk-free, sure-win options at his disposal, viz. sound the alarm, cut Bond's rope instead of ripping out one anchor after the other, and/or simply wait for Bond to complete his climb, then calmly empty his magazine into Bond's face when he comes over the edge.

When Erich is shooting at Bond on the ski course he misses multiple shots as Bond skis past him yet he is competing in the Olympic biathlon. Just after he misses those shots he then hits a pistol dead on and shoots a ski pole in half, much harder shots than shooting a full size man. It is not reasonable to believe that he would miss Bond multiple times and yet make those difficult shots.

After the sentry kicks Bond off the mountain, he wastes valuable time trying to knock the rope anchors loose with his gun instead of availing himself of shooting them one by one. This then give Bond the opportunity to make it back to the top, and then throw a knife at the sentry.

Just before Bond and the girl are towed behind the boat, Kristatos orders a wound on Bond's arm to be dressed so as not to attract the sharks too soon. He then proceeds to drag them across a coral reef several times where they sustain a number of lacerations creating pools of blood and attracting the sharks. The dressing delayed the sharks for perhaps 10 seconds at most.

The ATAC system is explained to be a targeting system. But the ship it is shown to be installed on is a spy trawler without any weapons, so there would be no reason for it to have a targeting system.



Character error

When Bond and Melina leave their sub to retrieve the ATAC, Bond tells Melina to speak only when necessary to reserve their air supply. But during their trek to the ship wreck and when Bond is disconnecting the ATAC, he does a lot of unnecessary speaking, such as reading the ATAC disengagement instruction card aloud to Melina, even though he's the one doing the job.

Sir Timothy Havelock is referred to (by people who should know better) as "Sir Havelock" instead of "Sir Timothy".

After Bond seduces the countess he comments on her accent. He guesses Manchester but she corrects him by saying Liverpool. Not only does she not have a Liverpudlian accent, but no Londoner would ever mistake the accents of the two cities.

When Bond checks Luigi Ferrara's pulse to see if he is dead, he puts one of his fingers on the edge of the wrist just behind the thumb. This is the wrong place to check someone's pulse. Bond should have put two fingers on the inside of the wrist. Bond trained in the military and so should have known where to check someone's pulse.

After Bond destroys the ATAC, he turns to the Soviet and says, "That's Detente, Comrade. You don't have it, I don't have it." Actually, this is contradictory to facts. Obviously, Britain still has ATAC even though one transmitter was destroyed, and the Soviets don't have any. Hard to call it Detente when it's a huge victory for the British to keep ATAC out of Soviet hands.