Twice a year, I do what I call my Jason Bourne Movie Marathon™. On the July 4 and New Year’s Day holidays, I watch the entire series of movies in order. (Well, it’s been a while since I’ve included Legacy in there; I just don’t care for it.)
In every movie, it’s basically Jason vs. the CIA, and in every movie, the CIA sets up a surveillance room to track him and try to bring him down.
As I watch the whole series, I always get a kick out of comparing how those surveillance operations changed over the course of those 14+ years, so I thought I’d document the changes here.
The Bourne Identity
This one was released in 2002. Wikipedia tells me it was filmed in 2000-01. The CIA is cramped together, about 5-6 guys, in a small office with monochrome computers, maps on the wall, and one screen that doesn’t seem to change from showing a world map with purple border outlines
(I took these photos myself n the TV in my office, so allow me some grace with the image quality and composition.)
The Bourne Supremacy
This one was released in the summer of 2004. Wikipedia doesn’t say when filming happened, but if the movie came out two years after Bourne Identity, I assume filming happened two years after the first one was filmed…so 2002-03.
In this one, the CIA has setup its headquarters in Berlin, where most of the movie takes place. So, they don’t have the luxury of using permanent government office space. Still, the remote surveillance room is decided un-high tech. The computer monitors are color now, but there are no screens on the walls.
The Bourne Ultimatum
This one didn’t come out until 2007 and, again, Wikipedia doesn’t tell me when filming happened.
But look! We finally have displays on the wall and thin-screen monitors at the CIA office building in NYC — quite a step up!
Jason Bourne
And then nine years later came what’s currently the final movie in my favorite series ever. Jason Bourne was released in 2016 and damn, talk about an upgrade in technology.
This time, the CIA surveillance happens primarily at headquarters in Langley, Virginia. All the walls are one big monitor — or several monitors, to be more precise. They use Dell Computers — product placement, no doubt. And they can pull up surveillance cameras pretty much anywhere around the world, it seems, on a moment’s notice.
It’s crazy to see how the tech changed over the course of these four movies. There are a couple times in different movies when Jason uses Google to look up some info, and I always get a kick of seeing what that looked like back in the day.
Anyway, I just finished this year’s July 4 marathon…and I already can’t wait for New Year’s Day 2026.
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