OT: Where the Bourne continuation series by Lustbader has gone wrong...
Until Matt Damon is willing to return as Bourne, or there is a reboot and re-casting, everyone's favorite amnesiac ex-assassin isn't going to grace the silver screen.
Well, fortunately, Eric van Lustbader has been kind enough to keep Bourne alive and running in the books.
Right?
To be honest, I was (and to an extent, still am) a fan of the Lustbader novels. I think his 'Arkadin trilogy' (The Bourne Sanction, The Bourne Deception, The Bourne Objective) were all pretty great reads. But those apart, his works have been kinda a disappointment and do not live up to the potential of Robert Ludlum's character. The last book, The Bourne Imperative, had a great premise with a severely flawed execution...and while I'm looking forward to The Bourne Retribution coming out in December, I can't say its with any great anticipation...
So this is just my explanation of where I feel the continuation series has gone wrong. I wonder if anyone else shares these views...
Be warned there might be some SPOILERS below
Lack of connection to the 'Bourne' mythology: Robert Ludlum, in his original trilogy of Bourne novels, created a rich mythology of characters, conspiracies and events that shaped Jason Bourne and his world. There was the Vietnam War-era 'Medusa' project that served as the 'birthplace' of Jason Bourne in many ways. There was Treadstone 71 and the plot to 'field an assassin to kill an assassin', namely Carlos the Jackal. There were characters like Alexander Conklin, Mo Panov, Marie St. Jacques; and even relatively minor stars like Phillipe D'Anjou and the Bourne doppleganger from the second book.
But Lustbader for the most part, has shunned the mythology Ludlum created for the character-by killing off the remaining supporting characters and replacing them with characters off his own creation. Bourne is now an anchor-less character in a totally new, unfamiliar and shifting landscape, which may be a great metaphor for his own struggles as an amnesiac, but doesn't necessarily deliver a great story.
Its worth noting that the 'Arkadin trilogy', Lustbader's best Bourne novels, DOES tap into the pre-existing Bourne mythology surrounding the Treadstone project (even if he's heavily retconned the nature and history of the program). The Bourne Legacy, also a reasonably good effort, taps into David Webb's past in Southeast Asia in a manner which may be controversial, but is quiet intriguing.
Expendable characters: Lustbader got rid of Bourne's old supporting cast and replaced them with new ones. Which would have been okay-IF he'd allowed his new characters some time to grow!
Instead, the majority of Lustbader's characters are introduced in one book, appear to become a significant part of Bourne's life going forward, and are immediately killed off the next book. Or, failing that, they're simply written out of the story and never mentioned again. And then replaced by a new character, so that the cycle begins again. Soraya Moore, Peter Marks, and to some extent Deron and Tyrone, are virtually the only characters who've been there more or less from the start of Lustbader's series. Some of the character deaths/disappearances are particularly egregious...Bourne's girlfriend Moira, whose relationship with him was developing pretty well, decides to spend some time in Mexico till her foot heals and is never heard from or mentioned ever again! And whatever happened to Bourne's children, Jamie and Allison? We're told early on that he shipped them off to Canada and visits them on occasion, but they're never mentioned again. And after a point, neither is Marie, Bourne's lover and wife and THE second most important character in the Ludlum books...
After a point, its difficult to really care about any character or their situation in these books when you know that you likely won't be seeing them ever again...
Bourne's characterization: Initially, Lustbader seemed to be on to something here, with the idea that after Marie's death, David Webb lapsed into the Bourne identity as a means of coping; much like he did originally when his first wife and kids died. The Bourne Deception in particular made a good attempt trying to explore Bourne's fractured psyche and identity issues-he's forgotten who David Webb was because of his amnesia, and he's not sure if he's really Jason Bourne since that was originally a false identity manufactured by Treadstone. But thereafter, Bourne's identity issues seemed to be swept under the rug. He's Jason Bourne, period, and David Webb hardly ever gets a mention anymore. He doesn't seem to have any identity conflict anymore.
Which brings me to the next point-he doesn't seem to have much of a motivation anymore either! Exactly why does Bourne do what he does? Here is a man who has a house, and a family, but he doesn't seem to go back to either of them. Sure, originally, it was because he was on the run from one US intelligence agency or the other...but all those matters seemed to have been cleared up at the moment, and I doubt if he's a 'wanted man' anymore, so why is he still running? (more on that later). In some of the earlier Lustbader books, circumstances propelled Jason into certain missions, but lately, it seems that he's a man without a cause and travels around the world foiling terrorist plots because he's got nothing better to do. Why? For a man who once claimed he'd had enough with violence and killing and loss, for a man who claims to be haunted by fragmented memories of all the people he's killed, he certainly spends a lot of time killing people and losing friends and lovers!
Bourne's no longer the hero of his own story: Considering how hollow Jason Bourne has become under Lustbader lately, it's probably no surprise that he's no longer even the central character of the stories anymore.
Multiple plot threads and different POV's was a vital part of Ludlum's writing style, the Bourne series included. And yet, he always managed to converge all those seemingly disparate threads by the end. While there could be multiple characters with their individual stories, in some way or the other, they would all relate pretty organically to the protagonist and his story-making the protagonist the true anchor of the story!
Lustbader has pulled this off successfully on some occasions, but lately, he's not doing a very good job at it.
It seems now that a 'Bourne novel' is actually a collection of several separate stories with separate characters, that are only loosely connected at best. This may have worked brilliantly for 'Pulp Fiction', but a Bourne book really shouldn't try to be that.
Consider, The Bourne Dominion (the last Lustbader book I've read more than once). You've got a full-fledged Soraya Moore story in Paris. You've got the story of Colonel Boris Karpov. You've got the story of the Secretary of Defense and the political conspiracies he's embroiled in. And then, you've got Bourne's story...
Basically, Jason Bourne really only appears for about 25-30% of the book, if even that. Sure, a lot of characters spend time talking about him, but his own story is not a major focus of the plot, let alone a narrative anchor.
Continuity problems: Given that Ludlum's Jason Bourne was a Vietnam War veteran, its understandable that some of the original backstory couldn't be retained. But Lustbader simply can't make up his mind about how much of the backstory, and the original novels, are 'canonical' to his new 'continuity' and how much is discarded. This is something which changes from book to book and further contributes to the earlier points I made about the hollowness of Bourne's characterization and the lack of connection to the Bourne mythos.
The Bourne Legacy functions as a pseudo-sequel to the original trilogy, and even uses the Vietnam backstory. True, Bourne would now logically be in his fifties at the very least, but the way the book is written, you can believe he's that old. There are even references to his old nemesis Carlos.
But subsequent novels totally ignore the Vietnam War backstory. Despite the fact that the plot of Legacy kinda hinges on it, and subsequent books refer back to the events of Legacy. So does the character of Khan still exist or not in the Lustbader Bourne universe? And if so, how does HIS backstory work anymore? We don't know.
We also don't know much about the nature of Bourne's work with Treadstone before his amnesia. It appears that in Lustbader's continuity, Bourne was an assassin for the CIA (similar to the movies), though he also undertook other black ops missions. It also appears that right from the start, Bourne was considered a loose canon by the Agency higher-ups. But when exactly did they declare him a rogue agent and persona non grata? And why?
How much of the events of the books still happened? Did Bourne still take on Carlos? Did he still confront a doppleganger in China? Is his complicated (but no no means wholly negative) relationship with the government in those books still intact? And if so, why's he considered a rogue after everything that has happened...
For that matter, Bourne's memory is another issue. Exactly how much does he remember of his past? By the end of the Ludlum novels, Bourne had recovered the majority of his memory and identity, so much so, that the amnesia was just given a passing mention in The Bourne Ultimatum. But in the Lustbader books, he seems to be a clean slate again. And an inconsistent one at that! In Legacy, he remembers his family in Southeast Asia clearly; yet in recent books, he claims that he doesn't know anything about David Webb's life. He seems to remember his friendship with Conklin, and his long-standing animosity with the CIA bureaucracy, and yet, he often doesn't remember any of his missions. He claims that he has no way of recovering his past AT ALL and is constantly haunted by this...yet, logically, he's should have had YEARS after his amnesia to study the old Treadstone files, back when his old buddy Conklin was still alive.
These may seem like nitpicks on the surface, but when you add them up, it's all one hell of a mess!