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Revisiting Moonraker


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#1 quantumofsolace

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Posted 27 April 2015 - 11:58 AM

http://www.denofgeek...iting-moonraker



#2 trevanian

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Posted 27 April 2015 - 03:59 PM

Outside of art direction, vfx and music, I have nothing approaching love, respect or appreciation for much of ANYTHING in Moonraker outside of Corinne's death. The writer thinks of it as incongruous and way out of place in a lightweight movie (presumably forgetting the centrifuge, which is at least an attempt to evoke TB's 'rack.')

 

But to me, her death is the only thing that feels bond-like about the whole thing (ditto for Macnee's death in VIEW, the only thing I liked in the whole movie outside of the theme song.)

 

And since he is drawing the obvious parallels with recycling SPY (which itself shamelessly recycles YOLT), he should be getting his panties in a bunch over SPY's killing of Stromberg, which is the most outrageously dark and out-of-place moment in the whole Moore era. Bond spends FOUR shots on Stromberg, who hasn't even gotten him all that angry up till this point? Bond spends four rounds on ANYBODY? This isn't Dent, y'know? It's just another megalomaniacal crazy, but he hasn't murdered your wife. Maybe I should see what else this guy has written ...

 

I really REALLY hated SPY and MR (and the first TREK movie and THE BLACK HOLE, I'm not just picking on Bond as bad late-teen experiences), but a lot of that owed to having seen the Connerys and even OHMSS both on TV and reissued several times theatrically during 1975-1979, so I knew it wasn't just me being picky, they could have done better if they weren't busy trying to make Bond into SMOKEY & THE BANDIT.  If WARHEAD had gotten off the ground in the 70s, it would have been interesting to see if the Moores would have gone even more camp and slapstick in anticipation of a 'serious' Bond .... then again, the WARHEAD draft I read wasn't so much serious as it was boring & stupid, outside of the too-cool Statue of LIberty finale.



#3 Call Billy Bob

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Posted 27 April 2015 - 04:17 PM

I agree with this revisitation. I have a special place in my heart for Moonraker and embrace the silly and absurd! It's a good Sunday afternoon popcorn Bond and a nice change of pace for me if I watch too much Craig or Dalton in a row.



#4 DaveBond21

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Posted 27 April 2015 - 11:32 PM

I am surprised he misses out one of the funniest/interesting moments.

 

For me, it's when Drax calls someone looking for a replacement for Chang, and that someone suggests Jaws. Drax replies "Oh, well if you can get him...."

 

I'd love to know who Drax is calling - 'Henchmen R Us"??

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________-



#5 Call Billy Bob

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Posted 28 April 2015 - 01:27 AM

I am surprised he misses out one of the funniest/interesting moments.

 

For me, it's when Drax calls someone looking for a replacement for Chang, and that someone suggests Jaws. Drax replies "Oh, well if you can get him...."

 

I'd love to know who Drax is calling - 'Henchmen R Us"??

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________-

He probably phoned this meeting...

 

top-10-worst-movie-cameos-L-1Zttas.png



#6 glidrose

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Posted 28 April 2015 - 09:46 PM

 

I am surprised he misses out one of the funniest/interesting moments.

 

For me, it's when Drax calls someone looking for a replacement for Chang, and that someone suggests Jaws. Drax replies "Oh, well if you can get him...."

 

I'd love to know who Drax is calling - 'Henchmen R Us"??

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________-

He probably phoned this meeting...

 

top-10-worst-movie-cameos-L-1Zttas.png

 

 

 

That's from the movie Inspector Gadget, in case anybody cares. The muscular black fellow next to Kiel is an unrecognizable Mr. T.



#7 SecretAgentFan

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Posted 05 May 2015 - 08:06 AM

MOONRAKER (re-watch)

 

It´s silly.  It´s over the top.  It has laser guns.  It´s a copy of the last one which was a copy of YOLT.  It has double-take-pigeons.  It has Jaws turning good (years before the TERMINATOR again) and even gets a girl-friend.  It is NOT FLEMING!!!

 

Yeah, I know.

 

But.

 

I don´t exactly remember whether I saw many Bond films after I had seen TSWLM and become a fan.  I know I had bought a book by Michael Scheingraber "The James Bond films" and tried to catch the other Bond films whenever they were shown at the local cinema.  But I do remember going to see MOONRAKER three times during its initial run - which was probably the most I had seen a film, before the age of home video.  And I loved every second of it.  Especially the space sequence and the laser fights.  I was 10 years old, of course, and totally swept up by STAR WARS and all the space operas in release at that time.  So for me, taking James Bond into space was a MAGNIFICENT idea, a combination of everything I loved and wanted to see.

 

And I was not the only one.  I vividly remember how audiences went crazy, cheering, laughing, applauding during MOONRAKER.  It was pure escapist fun and a hellishly good time at the movies.

 

So, again, this one has imprinted on me how a movie is allowed to be just that: fun.  These days, of course, everything has to be REAL (yeah, especially those superhero movies because the concept of a super hero invites reality, right) and EDGY (well, as edgy as a film can be in which the hero always survives and reaches his goal...).  

 

Don´t get me wrong: I don´t think that every Bond movie has to be like MOONRAKER.  Even back then I was not disappointed when Bond stopped using laser weapons or going into space.  But I instinctively loved that the Bond movies tried everything, expanded their limits again and again, and always had the audacity to just shrug off everything else and do what they wanted to do.

 

That, to me, is Bond.  The spirit of "you think I can´t do this - but here I´m doing it - and I have fun doing it".

 

Of course, that only applies to the movies.  The novels have a different approach, and I love that as well - but again, to me this proves that Bond is so great because the stories can be everything.  Almost.  I don´t want Bond to go to Middle-Earth, after all.

 

Re-watching this one, in sequence with the others, too, naturally changed my reception a bit again.

 

I was thoroughly entertained, the film moves at a brisk pace, and it is as beautifully photographed as its predecessor.  Barry´s score is a masterpiece.  The one-liners are pretty great, Michael Lonsdale as Drax is underrated, delivering his bonmots with barely concelead egocentric pleasure and coming across like a grown-up nerd who is annoyed that he has to spend time with anyone but himself.  The locations are breathtaking and interesting.  I do like Lois Chiles as Holly, a Bond girl, uh, woman (who by the way is one of the least busty ones in the franchise, a clear sign of restraint in an otherwise unrestrained film).

 

Still, by offering up an extravagant spectacle combined of constant spectacles, the story is weak, and that diminished the film´s effect on me this time.  In that way, MOORNAKER is indeed Moore´s THUNDERBALL (only the space fight is mercifully shorter than the underwater fight).  But what I detected for the first time is this: MOONRAKER is also Moore´s DIE ANOTHER DAY, working not only as a greatest hits collection (another one) but with nods to every previous Bond film.  

 

And here they are (if you´re still reading this):

 

10. TSWLM (obviously Jaws coming back, a villain who wants to establish a new world order and a rival female agent joining forces with Bond)

  9. TMWTGG  (a boat is run through and split in half)

  8. LALD (Bond uses a hidden device in his watch to escape)

  7. DAF (um...  a laser beam in space)

  6. OHMSS (a ski chase, and a flower causing sterility... but this time altered to be poisonous)

  5. YOLT (Bond almost going into space, now actually flying up there, and Blofeld´s monorail station looks very much like Drax´s.  Maybe they got the same architect.)

  4. TB (Bond having a shooting match with the villain, and of course the climactic underwater fight now takes place in space.)

  3. GF (Goldfinger sucked into air, Drax sucked into space)

  2. FRWL (Bond being chased by boat and blowing up others)

  1. DN (Bond escaping through narrow shafts - this time together with Holly while being almost torched by fire)

 

Of course, one can say that every Bond film at this point references the previous ones because - let´s be honest, there are only so many ways to chase, fight and escape someone, and only so many plots for a villain to think of.

 

MOONRAKER, IMO, knows that and shrugs it off, throwing itself into things with a showman´s attitude that seems to be forgotten these days.

 

And let´s not forget that such an enterprise has to be carried by its leading man to work.  And Roger Moore once again manages to do this.  I noticed this time that he aged between TSWLM and MR quite a bit - maybe his kidney stone-troubles during production left its ghastly traces.  Also, he is still quite tough, not at all the parody that so many in hindsight claim he was.  He actually does a lot of spying in this film, too, and kills ruthlessly.  In fact, IMO, he grounds the absurdity of the film with welcome coolness, not camping it up at all.

 

Of course, many here will say: THE WHOLE FILM DID NOT WORK.  But frankly, my dear ones, it did, raking in more money than any previous Bond, getting people excited for Bond and managing to raise many young viewers (as I was back then) to be interested in this franchise, dragging their families and friends to it again and again.

 

I give you this: MOONRAKER is not for everyone.  And those who only can tolerate gritty spy stories will be appalled.  Then again, MOONRAKER never tried to be that.  It wanted to be what it became.

 

And I´m fine with that.



#8 David_M

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Posted 05 May 2015 - 12:34 PM

So glad your streak is still alive; I was worried MR would end it for you.

 

I love MR for what it is, which as you say is flat-out, no-holds-barred entertainment.  I thought this line was particularly illuminating:

 

 

 

 I vividly remember how audiences went crazy, cheering, laughing, applauding during MOONRAKER.  It was pure escapist fun and a hellishly good time at the movies.

 

This, for me, sums up the difference between Bond films then and now.  I remember the same reactions, and not just for MR but for all the Moore-era Bonds I saw in the theater (Well okay, maybe a bit less so for AVTAK).  In contrast, today's Bond films are admired, respected, celebrated, recognized by awards and generally regarded as great stuff, but the days of that kind of enthusiastic audience participation seem over (at least judging by the showings I've attended).

 

I'm not saying that's necessarily a good or bad thing (I generally don't LIKE people whooping, laughing and clapping when I'm trying to watch a movie), but it is a sign of how things have changed; how the films are produced and what the ambitions of the filmmakers are.  I enjoy the Craig era in a different way, and maybe it's a more "stick to your ribs" substantial kind of way, but I do kind of regret that my kids -- I think -- won't experience what I did with the "old school" Bonds.  I always thought of that Bond era as the 20th Century equivalent of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show: an over-the-top, big-scale spectacle that blows into town every couple of years to show you things you could never see in your humdrum home town.  A feast for the eyes and ears.

 

MR certainly qualified on that score.  Together with TSWLM, I consider it the most "epic" of Bonds: "Spy" was set against the backdrops of oceans, deserts, mountain ranges...HUGE 70mm vistas.  MR ups the ante by going high up over Rio, down onto the Amazon and back up into outer space.  Anything after these two entries is going to seem small, and for me everything has.



#9 SecretAgentFan

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Posted 05 May 2015 - 02:02 PM

Very well put, David M.!

 

I remember a late night showing of "Casino Royale", one day before its original release date - and people did cheer after the crane/Parkour chase.  But that does not compare to the Moore films.  

 

Maybe it was just a more innocent era.  These days, people in the cinema often behave as if they are in their living room, alone or only with their pals, not enjoying the atmosphere of many people becoming one audience as a movie sweeps them up and plays them.

 

I´m looking forward to experiencing FOR YOUR EYES ONLY on my re-watch binge.  So far, I have been reminded why I liked Moore so much and still do.



#10 tdalton

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Posted 05 May 2015 - 02:05 PM

Yes, that was definitely a different time.  There's no more of this singular audience phenomenon where you can get wrapped up in the film and enjoy it while everyone else around you behaves themselves and respects the fact that they, along with the rest of the "audience" is there to see what's on the big screen in front of them, not the little screen in their pockets.  The singular audience has been replaced by each individual providing their own DVD commentary as the film goes along.



#11 glidrose

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Posted 05 May 2015 - 11:31 PM

And here they are (if you´re still reading this):


Yes, of course, we're still reading. I got hooked a couple of films back, and look forward to reading the rest of your reviews - even if I only agree with you 50% of the time.

#12 trevanian

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Posted 06 May 2015 - 01:00 AM

MOONRAKER (re-watch)

 

   8. LALD (Bond uses a hidden device in his watch to escape)

 

Not just that, in both cases the watch does stuff that was not set up in advance, breaking the cardinal gadget rule.



#13 DaveBond21

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Posted 06 May 2015 - 02:16 AM

I'm really enjoying SecretAgentFan's reviews.


Moonraker is actually pretty serious until the Gondola chase, and actually is quite serious overall if you do some simple editing to scenes - cutting out the reactions to the "Bondola", Jaws flapping his arms like wings, Jaws meeting Dolly, Drax's henchman landing in the British Airways billboard and the fight with the python.

 

Otherwise it's a really good adventure. Of course the villain's plot is as over-the-top as you can get and it's basically a remake of TSWLM but there is alot more to Moonraker than meets the eye. I also love the scenery and colour in this movie, and would actually have preferred to have seen more of the Rio carnival dancers than the space station.

 

Indeed, it is fun to imagine a Moonraker where the action never moves into outer space and there is one more action scene in Brazil before 007 dispatches Drax over a waterfall.



#14 SecretAgentFan

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Posted 06 May 2015 - 04:51 AM

 

MOONRAKER (re-watch)

 

   8. LALD (Bond uses a hidden device in his watch to escape)

 

Not just that, in both cases the watch does stuff that was not set up in advance, breaking the cardinal gadget rule.

 

 

A cardinal gadget rule... hmm... would that imply that every surprise has to be telegraphed before?


 

And here they are (if you´re still reading this):


Yes, of course, we're still reading. I got hooked a couple of films back, and look forward to reading the rest of your reviews - even if I only agree with you 50% of the time.

 

 

Oh, thank you very much!  FOR YOUR EYES ONLY is next - but it might take a few days since my work seems to disagree with my watching Bond films all day...


I'm really enjoying SecretAgentFan's reviews.

 

 

 

Thanks!



#15 trevanian

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Posted 07 May 2015 - 12:25 AM

You set up that Flint's lighter has 70+ functions, that's enough. You don't need to spell out beyond that. But when you say Bond's watch is magnetic, then see it magically grow a function at the climax that wasn't set up at all, that causes my alarm bells to go off. Ditto for the escape from the blast chamber in MR. You didn't need to pull out the fuse in Q's lab or M's office up front, but you did need to set up SOMEthing (a wink and a one-liner about winding this watch being enough to open any door, whatever), in order to effectively contrive it, instead of winding up with a deus ex contriva. I wouldn't expect 70's bond to think his way out of the jam, that'd be expecting too much, but at least a simple setup/payoff, a la the magic wrist gun, which always seems to have the right kind of harpoon loaded, but we can grant that (though it sort of begs why he didn't use the piercing one to escape the blast chamber, now that I think of it.)

 

I remember that exhaust chamber scene was something I expected Wood to address in a shamefaced way at some point in his memoir, but don't think he actually did.


Edited by trevanian, 07 May 2015 - 12:26 AM.


#16 David_M

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Posted 07 May 2015 - 03:44 PM

I think there needs to be some kind of balance between spoiling every surprise ahead of time on the one hand, and Bond pulling miracles out of his ass on the other.

 

Maybe you could do a variation on the Goldfinger speech, with, "This watch has 50 different uses, and if you don't interrupt, it should only take me a couple hours to go over them all..." Then fade to the next scene.  Or even have M jump in and say, "No time for that now, Bond.  Just read the manual on the plane."  That way you don't get into the "If Q didn't mention it on camera, then how can it be true" problem.

 

The real issue, I believe, isn't whether you cheat, but HOW you cheat.  If you put Bond in a very nasty spot, as he's in at the end of LALD, and then he escapes (a bit too easily) with a trick we didn't even know possible, then for every audience member who thinks, "Cool! That watch can do anything!" there's probably another three who yell, "CHEAT!"  (Personally, I'm inclined to go easy on this one, because it's balanced by the scene at the alligator farm, where the vaunted magnet feature fails to save Bond).

 

On the other hand, we have TSWLM, wherein Bond is presented with the Lotus and speeds off before Q has a chance to tell him how it's equipped.  Thus, *everything* it does is a surprise to us...and it does A LOT.  But I've never seen anyone complain that it's a "cheat" or argue it would have been better to pause the film long enough for Q to tell us in advance what we were going to see later.

 

Like everything else, it's all in the execution.  Gadget that does awesome stuff to elevate the action to a higher level = good.  Gadget that gets the writers out of the impossible corner they've managed to write themselves into = not so good.

 

Or maybe I should say, anything that feels like "the lazy way out" is bad.



#17 Turn

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Posted 07 May 2015 - 08:30 PM

One of my most outraged convenient gadget scenes is in YOLT when in Osato's office 007 just happens to have a handy electronic lock-picking device. How convenient to have. Q sure didn't brief him on that one. Then again everybody seems to give YOLT a free pass when it comes to indulging the fantasy element, so I guess I won't have to mention the all-important suction cups for important mountaineering about the occasional hollow volcano one may encounter on a fishing cover to investigate a cave. Oops, I guess I did mention it. So I can't fault MR in that way as it's more blatantly in-your-face with the anything goes approach.

 

Back to the lock-picking thing, I also find it funny in the very next film Bond has to use a device the size of a locker to unlock Gumbold's safe. And it took quite a while to do the job the little one did in mere seconds.



#18 David_M

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Posted 07 May 2015 - 09:13 PM

 

 

Back to the lock-picking thing, I also find it funny in the very next film Bond has to use a device the size of a locker to unlock Gumbold's safe. And it took quite a while to do the job the little one did in mere seconds.

 

The only way OHMSS really works is if YOLT never happened.