Moonraker

In 1977, Star Wars smashed onto screen, fusing fantasy and sci-fi into a big, mainstream space opera epic, and kickstarting one of the biggest franchises ever made. In 1979, Alien did the same for nail biting sci-fi horror, again kicking off a blood soaked saga, still screaming today. In 1979, Moonraker decided, "Hey, I can do sci-fi too" and does, and chucks in the sci-fi sink too.

Moonraker the novel, is about a wealthy industrialist turning out to be a Nazi who became injured in WW2, blagged his way as an Englishman, who then plans to blow up London with the "Moonraker" missiles, originally made to protect Britain. It notably does not involve a megalomaniac with a space station ready to launch globes of lethal toxin on Earth, who then wants to repopulate it with his own chosen "master race." It also does not involve a bit when a pigeon double takes at seeing Bond pilot a convertible gondola onto land.

As is the case of many Bond films, Moonraker took inspiration from the trends of the time, here most notably Star Wars, resulting in a change up of the planned ordering of the films (For Your Eyes Only was originally planned after The Spy Who Loved Me but then Star Wars happened...). Combing this was the fact that with The Spy Who Loved Me had gone to the edge of sanity with a nuclear apocalypse to make way for underwater living, Moonraker saw only one way forward, and that was to stupidity and beyond.

What you get is potentially the most cartoonish of the Bond films, with occasional flourishes of style, and a wonderfully dry villain. The mission statement is laid out in the pre-credits sequence, where Jaws kicks Bond out of a plane without a parachute. The ensuing stunt work and aerial combat is spectacularly filmed, but here comes Jaws, serving nothing more than a punchline as he crashes into a circus big top. A more apt metaphor for the film does not exist.

In place of Jaws' silence menace, we instead have the third Chuckle Brother, moving from one seemingly fatal calamity to the next. Be it death by cable car crash, or demise by driving a boat off a waterfall, Jaws just shrugs it off. He does get one moment of menace, stalking his would be prey, through a carnival at Rio, in a ghoulish clown costume. However, this too is undercut when he gives up the chase when he is manhandled by a crowd to come party...He even goes on to switch sides, all because a buxom blonde with glasses takes a shine to him, and  Drax doesn't see them as part of his "master race." 

Speaking of which, Hugo Drax fares much better as a foe. Although his appearance is a little bit close to David Brent, Michael Lonsdale has a good line in sassy put downs, with such classics as "You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season." and "Look after Mr Bond. See that some harm comes to him." His plan is the geographical inverse of Stromberg's from The Spy Who Loved Me - instead of destroying the world to pave way for an aquatic life, he seeks to wipe it out from space and repopulate it with his chosen few "master race."

This allows for some more magnificent Ken Adam set designs, in particular Drax's Aztec-inspired Moonraker base, and of course the space satellite itself. However, the third act shoot out is nothing the series hasn't done before, and better, and not long ago coming hot off the heels of the similar The Spy Who Loved Me. Okay the guns have been replaced with lasers, and there some novelty in the scenes where gravity has been disabled on the ship, but it is all very much by the numbers.

Worse still, the comedic and slapstick angle of Moore's tenure in the series is appearing to peak here (Octopussy waiting in the wings says to hold their drink...). The nadir of this comes in Venice when Bond is seemingly assailed by anyone and everyone, starting with a henchman lying in wait in a gondola bound coffin, to yet more goons in speedboats (as is the default action scene for Moore Bond). And then it happens. The scene. Bond's gondola is actually a tricked out Q vehicle, and drives straight onto land. Cue tourists with mouths agape. Cue pigeon double taking. It strives for the winking irony of Bond driving the Lotus Esprit out of the sea in The Spy Who Loved Me, but overshoots wildly and lands in Looney Tunes.

You are sensing a pattern now, I take it? The makers of the film clearly had "Do The Spy Who Loved Me, again but bigger, and in space!" And another area where they try to ape this is in the lead Bond girl, the preposterously named Dr Holly Goodhead (introduced in a wince inducing manner by having Bond surprised that the good doctor turns out to be a woman). In many ways, Holly is actually a more progressive step forward for the Bond series - she's highly qualified, and without her, Bond would certainly fail, as he has finally found one area he isn't instantly expert in - space travel. She's able to pilot the Moonraker ships, and handles herself in a fight (certainly better than a now creaking Roger Moore, bless him). Somehow, despite all this, she comes across as duller than Anya in The Spy Who Loved Me. In the previous film, Anya was helped along with a stronger rivalry with Bond, and she also had a more personal angle in proceedings. Dr Goodhead on the other hand rarely drives the plot forward, and her and Bond just keep bumping into each other and helping out. Oh and of course, her frosty guard breaks down before Moore's charm in about 5 minutes. She is also involved in perhaps the second most ludicrous sexual innuendo in the series - "I believe he is attempting reentry, Sir) (Next to Octopussy, Dr Christmas Jones is also asking for someone to hold her drink...)

And what about Bond himself? He's fine, I guess. Moore never seems to be putting in anything less than 100% in his movies, throwing himself into the comedic tone with relish. However, perhaps like Connery, the the movies in general don't allow him to flex his range, with both actors finding their groove fairly quickly and sticking there until leaving the role. But even Connery himself thought Moonraker had lost its way, stating that the film had "departed so much from any sort of credence with the reality we had in my six films" (remember, this is the guy who disguised himself as Japanese in You Only Live Twice, and fought a villain with a space diamond laser in Diamonds are Forever).

So despite becoming the highest grossing film in the series at the time of release, the following film would see Bond reenter Earth's atmosphere with blistering terminal velocity, with the hope that it didn't simply burn up prior to impact.