Timothy Dalton was originally considered for the role of James Bond in the late 1960s, after Sir Sean Connery left the role, following You Only Live Twice (1967). Dalton was screentested by Albert R. Broccoli for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), but he turned down the part, as he thought he was too young. He was also considered for Diamonds Are Forever (1971), but turned it down again, still feeling he was too young. He was considered again for the role in For Your Eyes Only (1981), when for a while, it was unclear whether Sir Roger Moore would return. However, Dalton declined at that time, as there was no script (or even first draft). Dalton was offered the role again in 1983 for Octopussy (1983), and yet again in 1985 for A View to a Kill (1985), but had to decline the role both times due to previous commitments.

The casting of Frederick Warder and Glyn Baker as 004 and 002 was intentional, due to their resemblance to George Lazenby and Sir Roger Moore, respectively. For the movie's opening scene, the writers wanted to toy with the audience's expectations of which of the 00 agents was Bond.

Timothy Dalton was originally unavailable to play Bond, and Pierce Brosnan was then chosen to play 007 in 1986, and was given the script to this movie. Although he was contracted to Remington Steele (1982) for seven seasons, NBC decided to cancel the show at the end of the fourth season, which meant that Brosnan was free to play James Bond in this movie the following year. However, shortly after the end of the fourth season, NBC had second thoughts about cancelling "Remington Steele", and subsequently approached the Bond producers directly in an attempt to strike a deal that would allow Brosnan to play James Bond and Remington Steele the following year. NBC also offered to completely reschedule the shooting of Remington Steele to ensure that there were no scheduling conflicts. But eventually, Albert R. Broccoli famously told NBC that "James Bond will not be Remington Steele, and Remington Steele will not be James Bond." Accordingly, Brosnan would only play Bond if the show remained cancelled. NBC had a sixty day deadline to revoke their decision to cancel the series, and at 6:30 p.m. on the sixtieth day of the deadline, Brosnan learned that NBC decided to make a fifth season. The Bond producers subsequently prevented Brosnan from becoming the next James Bond. Subsequently, the role went to Timothy Dalton, who was now finally available. NBC went on to make only six episodes of the fifth season of Remington Steele (1982) before finally cancelling the show for good.

A stuntman was originally going to play the role of the SAS man who's rope is cut by The Imposter (played by Carl Rigg), the Russian assassin in Gibraltar at the beginning, but after watching rushes, director John Glen decided that they needed a real actor for the part, and it was given to another actor. At the time, this actor was out of work and staying home, taking care of his baby, while his wife was away on business. Upon getting the call, he left the baby with a neighbor, left his wife a note telling her he'd gone to be in a James Bond movie, and caught the next plane to Gibraltar to start filming.

This was the last Bond film to be scored by John Barry.

Continuity

At the end of the film 007 is unable to find a flat enough area of ground to land a plane so jumps into a jeep in the cargo hold and ejects it from the rear of the plane. he's then seen driving it along a straight road with desert on either side

When Bond bails out of the burning truck on Gibraltar, the truck continues falling and then explodes and nothing is visible in the water below. A moment later Bond looks down and there is now a yacht below him (but no truck debris). Then we cut to the lady on the yacht telling Margot how boring things are - apparently oblivious to the truck exploding just above her yacht and falling into the sea no further away than about 100 yards.

A plane that is speeding down the runway, just after barely missing a collision with the plane Bond has commandeered, crashes into Koskov's jeep with such force that the jeep literally explodes into a huge ball of flame, inside and out. However, when the smoke clears, the jeep is still intact with no flames at all on the inside and Koskov is only singed.

When Bond reaches into the car to set it to self-destruct, Kara can be seen holding the cello case in the background. Moments later, Kara isn't holding anything and Bond reaches into the car to retrieve the cello case.

On the journey from Tangiers to Afghanistan, the C130 has a cabin interior with passenger seats and a toilet, and access to the flight deck is through this cabin. As the aircraft leaves the Afghan airbase, no cabin interior exists.



Factual errors

The CSSR border guards are all shown carrying AKM and AKMS assault rifles. Czechoslovakia purposefully never adopted Soviet firearms, but rather went with models out of their own foundries. The correct weapon would be the Sa vz. 58, which is extremely similar in design to the AK-47/AKM.

As the burning jeep falls from the cliff, Bond kicks out a side window to escape and the glass shards go "downwards". However since the jeep, Bond, and the broken window are all in free fall then either the glass would float "horizontally" away from Bond, or more likely the shards would go "upwards" due to air resistance.

At the concert Kara's cello would still be playable with a bullet hole, but its beautiful tone for which a Stradivarius is renowned would be completely ruined.

When Kara enters the Mujahadeen compound, it is likely that she would have been separated from the men, and also made to veil her face. The Mujahadeen were very strict Muslims and a forerunner of the Taliban.

The C-130E/H has 8 fuel tanks (6 in the wings, 2 on external pylons) and has the ability to pump fuel between them if required. The amount of small arms fire needed to puncture all of the fuel tanks sufficiently for it to run out of fuel in the manner depicted in the movie would have rendered the aircraft unflyable. As the engines spool down they make the noise of piston driven engines when a C-130 uses Turboprops. Furthermore when the airplane crashes two of its engines are still running and it bursts into flames, despite being out of fuel.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

Bond and Kara are forced to bail out of the cargo plane while in flight because it runs out of fuel and both its engines die. Yet when the plane crashes into the mountain, it erupts in a huge fireball. With the plane out of fuel, there wouldn't have been anything to ignite when it crashed.

The highly trained security officer, who is supposed to be working at maximum alert, takes Bond's gun but doesn't look in the hamper he's carrying. The security officer knew Bond, knew he was coming there, and knew he would be carrying "a parcel from Harrod's."

In the final battle with Whitaker, Bond wastes his eight rounds on the body armor covering Whitakers face while Whitaker simply stands there, waiting for Bonds gun to run dry. After a couple of shots fired, establishing that his bullets can't pierce the armor, Bond would surely have aimed at Whitakers chest instead. In fact, Bond's first three shots are aimed at Whitaker's body, evidence by the sparks caused by his armor deflecting them.

During Necros's attack on the Blayden safe house, he garrotes one guy, knocks out another with a pan, and throws explosive milk bottles at three others. Later M states "Two dead, two in the hospital". Necros is, however, seen hiding his first victim, so it's likely no one found the body. The two injured victims are one who was knocked out, and one of the hit with the explosive milk bottle.

In the film's intro, when 004 has his rope cut by the impostor, he falls a much greater height than he's climbed. This is because he continued falling beyond the small cliff ledge he started climbing from.



Revealing mistakes

The ice is revealed to be about 5 or 6 inches thick, at least. The rim on the wheel of Bond's vehicle appears to be about one inch thick. There is no way it could have sliced all the way through the ice in one lap.

During the sniper scene in the beginning, it is clear visible that it is not actually filmed through a night vision scope, as we can still see red lights in the picture. For a night vision scope it is technically impossible to display any other color but shades of green.

Bond drives in a circle causing the ice to crack. As he stops and looks across he can see the car wobbling on a much smaller circle of ice tens of feet away.

There is no way Bond's car could have gotten "stuck" in the shed. It would have driven straight through. Even when it is traveling, you can see that the walls have been lifted a good half a foot off the ground, and Bond's car would not have done that.

James Bond's laser slices under the body of a Czech police car so that the wheels and underframe come off when the brakes are applied. He only cuts in the area between the wheels, but the body would not be attached only in that area. If the wheels go one way and the brake pedal (with the body) another, then the brakes could not be applied because the brake lines must have been severed.



Miscellaneous

When Koskov is wearing his Soviet military uniform, his cap has the wrong badge for a general (it's the badge worn by officers ranking no higher than colonel), the cap's crown is the wrong shape for the 1980s and the gold braid over the visor is wrong.

There is no way that armed men with bandoliers would even think of showing themselves at a concert hall in such a fashion. At the very least they would have bought western clothes before getting on the plane.

When Bond switches on the Aston Martin's targeting system, preparing to fire it's missiles at the articulated truck blocking the road, the head-up display says that the car's speed is 70mph, but the car is going nowhere near this fast, it is doing more like 25mph.



Audio/visual unsynchronised

When the engines of the cargo plane die, a coughing, sputtering sound is heard. The aircraft in question is a C-130 Hercules, equipped with turboprop (a jet engine whose power turbine drives a gearbox that drives the propeller)engines. When a jet engine dies, it just winds down (as the only moving parts are the compressor and turbine and the entire reaction stops when the fuel is cut off). Only engines with pistons make a sputtering sound as they run out of fuel (this comes from certain pistons not receiving fuel while others still are).

When James Bond cuts off his shoe during the final airplane fight the guy is screaming with his mouth closed.

When Bond is about to assassinate Pushkin, and his guard comes in, Bond pistol-whips him twice. The second hit misses very badly, but sound is played as if it connected.

When Necros hits the British agent with the frying pan, it misses very badly, but sound is played as if it connected.

When Kara asks what happened after Bond kills Necros, Bond says, "He got the boot." However, Bond's lips barely move when saying this.



Crew or equipment visible

When the Mujahideen are delivering the opium to the Russians and Bond asks Kamran Shah for a bomb, Kamran turns his horse around and a crew member in blue jeans and a ballcap can be seen.



Errors in geography

Upon leaving the plane they see a sign saying that it's 325 km to Islamabad and 200 km to Karachi. In fact Islamabad and Karachi are almost 2000 km apart.

The producers made a special effort to make Vienna look like Bratislava. They did so by parking a lot of Trabants on the street and putting up Cyrillic-lettered street signs. However, Trabants were East German cars and, while there would have certainly been some in 1987 Bratislava, most of the cars would have been the Czechoslovak "Skoda" brand. Secondly, both Czech and Slovak use Latin letters, so street signs in Bratislava never would have had Cyrillic lettering. The tramways are clearly old Vienna streetcars; nothing similar ever served Bratislava's public transport.

The landscape in incorrect for Afghanistan, palm trees would be able to survive the harsh Afghan winters.

Entering Pakistan, Bond looks at the sign posting showing the distances of Islamabad and Karachi. The foreign words on that board should be either in Urdu (Pakistan's national language) or Pushto (Afghan).

Bond and Kara couldn't have sled into Austria from Czechoslovakia in the cell case since the border between the two countries anywhere near Bratislava is either a natural one, created by Danube or March rivers, and there are no mountains steep enough for them to slide down.



Plot holes

Bond and Saunders only agreed to meet at the caf? a few hours beforehand. Necros the hitman couldn't possibly have known this, and even if he'd somehow worked it out, he wouldn't have been able to assemble a bomb adjacent to the sliding caf? doors without being seen by the customers and all the people at the funfair.



Character error

Bond claimed to have called Kara "beautiful" in Afghan. There is no such language as Afghan. The main languages spoken in Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari.

To lose the KGB agent following Kara, Bond has her openly go into the phone booth with her cello case so the agent would know it was her. But this plan only alerts the agent to her and gives them, according to Bond, "about ten minutes, if we're lucky." He should have had her conceal herself completely behind the trolley car as she walked from the building straight to Bond's car so that the KGB agent would have never become aware of her, thereby giving them potentially hours to escape.

There is no reason for Saunders to use the night vision goggles, the outdoor area is extremely well-lit, even for night time.

The highly trained security officer at the Blayden Safe House frisks the pretend milkman but fails to check the milk float and its cargo.

Whitaker says that the Duke of Wellington needed German mercenaries to defeat Napol?on Bonaparte. In fact, the only German troops in Wellington's army, the King's German Legion, were part of the regular British Army. (King George III of Great Britain was Elector of Hanover in Germany; when the French invaded, many Hanoverians fled to Britain to form the KGL). The other Germans at Waterloo were the Prussian Army who was not under Wellington's command.