Yaphet Kotto later stated "There were so many problems with that script ... I was too afraid of coming off like Mantan Moreland ... I had to dig deep in my soul and brain and come up with a level of reality that would offset the sea of stereotype crap that Tom Mankiewicz wrote that had nothing to do with the Black experience or culture." Kotto said he did this by drawing "on a real life situation I was going through and that saved me ... but the way Kananga dies was a joke ... The entire experience was not as rewarding as I wanted it to be."