Bond 11
Trivia: Some portions of the Moonraker assembly plant were filmed on location at the Rockwell International manufacturing facilities in Palmdale, California, and at the Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was the first movie to feature the modern space shuttle in a motion picture. The film's release was suppose to coincide with the first ever launch of the space shuttle, but this unfortunately didn't occur until 1982, after the release of the next James Bond movie, For Your Eyes Only (1981). For the fight between James Bond and Chang, the film had the largest amount of break-away sugar glass used in a single scene. Roger Moore arrived a few days late for the shoot Rio due to a kidney stones attack in France. Moore had also had a renal colic attack whilst filming Live and Let Die (1973). Once arrived in Rio, he literally walked off the plane, went into make-up and hair, got fitted out, went back onto the plane, and was then filmed arriving in Rio as James Bond for the movie. The only Roger Moore Bond film where he does not draw his Walther PPK. Moonraker was filmed on three continents, in four studios, and across seven countries. The budget for Moonraker was more than the combined budget total of the first six EON James Bond movies put together. The world premiere was supposed to be held in Houston, Texas; however, problems with the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia forced the change of venue to London, England.
At the conclusion of the fox hunt, the bugler blows the first three notes to "Also Sprach Zarathustra", from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Drax' Venice laboratory has an electronic lock on it. The sequence which unlocks the door is the hailing tune from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). The scene where Bond is riding to M's temporary headquarters in a South American hacienda is accompanied by Elmer Bernstein's theme from The Magnificent Seven (1960).
The Characters:
- James Bond - Roger Moore of course.
- Hugo Drax - Michael Lonsdale. Hugo Drax is a billionaire living in California in a chateau that was imported from France. He owns Drax Industries, which constructs space shuttles. In addition, Drax supposedly owns the Eiffel Tower, but apparently couldn't export it from France because they wouldn't issue him an export license.
- Jaws - Richard Keil. In Moonraker he survives falling several thousand feet without a parachute — granted, he falls through a circus tent and lands in the trapeze net — a crash through a building on top of a runaway cable car, and falling off a waterfall. His protrayal in this movie was more comical then in The Spy Who Loved Me.
- Dr. Holly Goodhead - Lois Chiles. Moonraker has often been plotwise compared to The Spy Who Loved Me. Both films featured a villain bent on reshaping the world into his image, and both films featured similar Bond Girls. The suggestively named Dr. Holly Goodhead is a fully trained astronaut working for Drax on loan from NASA. Like Anya Amasova before her, she is one of the top agents in her country (the CIA in this case) and she does not trust 007. And like Amasova before her, Goodhead join forces with Bond and succumbed to his charms. And finally, just like Amasova before, her dalliance with Bond was caught in full view by his and her superiors. She got one notch up from the other Bond girls in which she went "around the world" with him in zero gravity. Chiles states on the DVD documentary that she is rather thrilled that she got one of the more suggestive bond girl names.
- Corinne Dufour - Corinne Clery. Moonraker also featured a short-lived female helicopter pilot like The Spy Who Loved Me. In this case, it is Corinne Dufour, Drax's executive assistant and a "humble" helicopter pilot who greets and escorts Drax's guests. In the film, Bond tries to seduce information out of her, to which she replied that he "presume a great deal". His presumption turn out to be on target as Dufour indirectly revealed the location of Drax's safe. Unfortunately for her, the duo was spotted by Chang and the next day, Drax terminated her employment and then had her terminated turning her into kibble.
- Manuela - Emily Bolton. Bond, from clues gleamed from the Venice Glass Museum, follows the trail to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. There, a mysterious young woman seems eager to meet him, taking a picture of him in the process. She turn out to be Manuela, assigned to assist him by her department. While snooping around the warehouse where Drax's equipments were being stored (and have since been moved), Manuela nearly had a fatal encounter with Jaws, disguised as a "toothy clown".
The Theme Song:
Moonraker was the third of the three Bond films for which the theme song was performed by Shirley Bassey. The soundtrack was composed by John Barry. Moonraker uses for the first time since Diamonds Are Forever a piece of music called "007" (on track 7), the secondary Bond theme composed by Barry which was introduced in From Russia with Love.
The Vehicles & Gadgets:
Moonraker was criticized for an overabundance of gadgets to a degree many fans considered excessive. This film ultimately led to the more realistic For Your Eyes Only, which had Bond rely less on gadgets and more on his talents and instincts rather than a gadget supplied by Q-Branch to get him out of whatever trouble he was in. Bond's gadgets include:
- A wrist gun that was given to him by Q-Branch. It could shoot: Armour-piercing dart, used to disable a high g-force simulator (centrifuge) that was being used by Drax to kill him after their first meeting. And Envenomed darts, used by Bond to kill Drax.
- a ballpoint pen equipped with a hypodermic needle that allowed Bond to eliminate a boa constrictor in a pool while in Drax's jungle hideout.
- A mini camera imprinted with "007". The lens was in the second 0.
- A cigarette case safecracker, which contained a device that used x-rays to reveal the tumblers on a safe's combination lock.
- A watch branded as Seiko. The watch face could open up for a small explosive charge connected to a wire, which allowed for quick removal of an entry obstacle. Bond uses the explosive charge to let him and Dr. Goodhead escape from the Moonraker launch platform.
It is never adequately explained how Bond keeps these items (the watch case bomb and the wrist gun) after having been captured and incarcerated by Drax. - A gondola made by Q-Branch that could transform into a hovercraft and move on land. Bond uses this to escape from his pursuers while in Venice.
- "Q's Hydrofoil Boat". This boat is used by Bond to escape from Jaws while searching for the Moonraker spacecraft launching facility. It came with all the usual Q refinements and a hang-glider.
The Bond girl, Dr. Holly Goodhead, is shown to also have been equipped with several gadgets of her own, including:-
- The aforementioned needle pen.
- A flame-throwing perfume bottle
- A radio transmitter concealed in her handbag.
The Pretitle Sequence:
Bond gets pushed out of a plane without a parachute by Jaws. Bond and the pilot have a fight in midair and Bond is able to take the pilots parachute. Except for a few brief close-ups, the entire sequence of Bond, Jaws and the pilot falling from the plane with Bond and the pilot fighting for a single parachute was actually shot in free-fall. The camera for these sequences was mounted on the helmet of another skydiver, and a few shots are of the cameraman's own arms and legs. Stuntmen Jake Lombard and B.J. Worth wore parachutes concealed within their suits. The "parachute" they fought over was actually a dummy 'chute which had to be removed before the stuntman could use the real parachute underneath. Stuntman Jake Lombard would don and remove the dummy 'chute up to three times in a single jump. The actual parachutes used by the stuntmen had both a main and reserve 'chute concealed within the suitcoats. A breakaway seam ran down the backside which allowed the parachute to be opened without the need to remove the coat. There were only sixty to seventy seconds of freefall time between when the stunt performers exited the aircraft and when they had to activate their 'chutes. After factoring in the time needed to get the performers and cameraman into position after leaving their plane, only a few seconds of film could be shot per jump. Therefore, the entire sequence required 88 jumps and five weeks to film, just to produce the two minutes of footage in the final film.
Okay everybody, all together now, BOND IN SPACE!!!!!! This was EON Productions attempt to capture some of the phenominal success of Star Wars. Originally, For Your Eyes Only was to follow The Spy Who Loved Me. This is by far the cheesiest Bond movie yet with poor Jaws becoming a cartoon character that is indestructible. If you don't beleive me look at some of Richard Keil's facial expressions when he pulls the ripchord of his parachute and nothing opens, or when he realizes that the cable car is about to crash into the building. At least they gave him a girlfriend. One good thing is that during the documentary Cubbie Broccoli said that they were going for more humor, is it was intentional. They did do an admirable job at portraying the space shuttle considering this was before any launch so they didn't know exactly what it would really look like (though you can see some corny special effect at times). I also think it is funny to think that NASA would have allowed a foreign country to just borrow a shuttle (even if it was England).
So now I am more then halfway through the Bond Movies! Next Up: Bond 12, For Your Eyes Only. Agent 007 is assigned to hunt for a lost British encryption device and prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
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