In the films, the character of Jason Bourne, portrayed by Matt Damon, is a much simpler character than the one described in the novels, the background story does not involve the Vietnam War and the only mention of Carlos the Jackal is an homage; “Carlos” is the assassin originally thought to have made an attempt on Nykwana Wombosi’s life, but is just another alias. 71 appears in the films as the training facility (SRD) where Bourne was created, 415 East 71st Street, NYC.

Jason Bourne was born as David Webb on September 13, 1970, in Nixa, Missouri and joined the Army, later being recruited into Special Forces as a Green Beret. In his military career he went on to be initiated into the elite Delta Force, attaining the rank of Captain. He is a Catholic as shown on his dog tags in The Bourne Ultimatum. The dog tags also show his blood type as type O negative and his Army affilliation, evident in their setup; however, a Treadstone file seen earlier in the film list his blood type as A+. His film backstory also makes no mention of Jason Bourne as a separate character (the real Jason Bourne in the novel backstory was a double agent who was killed by Webb, who then later assumed his identity); however, a scene in The Bourne Ultimatum implies this killing and identity exchange.

Webb volunteered for Operation Treadstone, which was a secret CIA black-ops program. The Bourne Ultimatum reveals that Webb’s free will and sense of morality were intentionally broken down by means of an insidious behavior modification process; he was deprived of sleep for days on end; a hood was pulled over his head and he was repeatedly submerged face-forward in water, almost killing him; and he was told to shoot and kill an unknown bound, gagged and hooded man sitting in the corner of a room, as the head of the department asks him, “Will you commit to this program?”. Webb’s questions of “what has he done” were brushed aside; the man is to be killed because Webb has been ordered to kill him, and refusal to kill the man results in Webb being subjected to another near-death experience in the water tank. Finally Webb’s personality was broken; he capitulated and killed the subject without remorse. The Treadstone chief welcomed him to the program, and told him that he was no longer David Webb and that he is now Jason Bourne.

As Jason Bourne he gained the knowledge of CIA’s protocols and trade crafts. His other special skills include expertise in hand-to-hand combat, supreme efficiency in handling numerous vehicles, and speaking fluent English, French, Russian, Dutch, German, Swedish, and Spanish, rather than French and “Eastern dialects” as described in the novels.

Once training was over, Bourne was deployed to various locations around the world as an assassin. But on a job in France he had a sudden attack of conscience when he saw his target in the company of his children, aborted his mission, and was shot in the back twice and once in the head while attempting to escape. Similarly to the story in the novel, he woke up with his memory gone.

The character of Bourne in the films is a very quick-thinking, conditioned, and linear type of person that moves quickly and brutally towards his goal. He is tormented by fragmented memories of his past, which tend to hit him so hard and suddenly that he reacts to them physically, such as flinching. He is extremely adept at hand-to-hand combat and also shows an immediate ability to utilize lateral thinking to solve problems. He sometimes uses improvised weapons, for example using a pen to stab an assassin and using a book and a towel as defense. He is shown using tactical improvisation such as using a fan, flashlight and tape to fake his location and gas, a toaster and a magazine to cause an explosion. He is also proficient with firearms, explosives, electronics and evasive protocols.

Not only is the plot of this movie completely different from the original novel, the character of Jason Bourne himself has changed. In the book, Jason Bourne is a hard, ruthless man, capable of hurting or killing anyone who gets in his way even after he has lost his memory. As the story progresses he slowly begins to show a more gentle side, but it takes a lot of time and he never completely loses the underlying hardness. Though Richard Chamberlain stayed true to this character in the 1988 television movie, the portrayal by Matt Damon is much more positive, giving the impression that with the amnesia Bourne’s character has fundamentally changed.