Remember when I said that I was splitting
this Moonraker business into three parts? Well, I lied. I
just have so much material to work with that we are going to have to make it
four posts now. I hope you can handle it. This post will be about the customary
traits of the Bond movies, and the next post will be traits of the Bond
character. These are the various little details that show up all throughout the
franchise (pre Daniel Craig at least). For standard movie characteristics, I
have familiar scenes, stunts, gadgets, and henchman.
Familiar Scenes
There are many scenes that appear in a similar form in many of the Bond
movies. First is introducing Bond with an action scene. This helps to establish that James lives a life of constant danger and excitement. He is
always foiling attempts at his life and just generally being a stud. Random
make outs are also generally involved. Moonraker
fits the pattern with Bond smooching a lady in a plane before she pulls a gun
on him. She and the pilot don parachutes and shoot the plane controls (instead of Bond obviously),
intending to leave James in the crashing plane. This then leads to the
skydiving action scene and is the first outrageously designed assassination
attempt in the movie (I will discuss these more later).
The first action scene is then followed by the ubiquitous musical title
sequence (typically featuring nudey silhouettes). Moonraker feature a theme song by Shirley Bassey (her third
in the franchise), and the title sequence is said to have cost more than the
entire budget of Dr. No.
Seducing a women in the villain’s employ to gather information is a much
used weapon in the Bond arsenal. This time around he finds himself a nice French girl who can fly a helicopter, but who never learned to read (at least not
lists of what not to do on a first date?). James “turns her” to his side and
then pulls a nice trick where he reads her eyes to find Drax’s safe. He the
shows off some of his gadgets (not his genitals, she already saw those, and yes I will use this joke multiple times),
showing her his x-ray cigarette case for cracking the safe, and an adorably
small 007 camera for photographing the files. Unfortunately, the women who sleep
with a Bond have a habit of ending up dead, and this one is no exception, with
the poor woman getting killed by attack dogs (I guess this is a lesson in the importance of loyalty?).
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| I liked her, but I guess no girl can resist a bad boy |
Later on, Bond gets his final showdown with the villain Drax. These can happen in at least two ways; Bond finishes the villain as his plans collapse around him, or he turns the tides in one last assassination attempt. This movie combines those options. Drax pulls a laser pistol on Bond in an attempt at revenge as his space station breaks apart, but James shoots him with a cyanide dart and launches him into space, because you always
have to kill the villain in the most extreme way possible.
The climax scene is more typical of all action movies and not just to Bond
movies, but it is still worth mentioning. Globes of nerve toxin are falling toward the Earth and their is only one man to stop them (also a women). The auto targeting on the laser malfunctions as James is trying to
shoot the last globe, so he has to switch to manual controls. Goodnight is basically dead sticking the space shuttle and tries to hold it steady as they skip on the atmosphere (which is probably a lot harder than using the laser, but whatever). Bond blasts the globe like a champion, just before it enters the atmosphere, and saves the day once
again.
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| Intense red glow compliments of friction with the atmosphere |
My favorite repeated scene has to be Bond's celebratory sexy times with
his leading lady, which inevitably gets interrupted by the guys back at MI6,
eager to congratulate him. Moonraker
pulls off this scene better than any other movie in my opinion, with some zero
G hanky panky, which is show live to the Queen and the Whitehouse. What
really makes the scene though is a line from Q as he is observing some
technical readouts, oblivious to what is on the screen behind him, and delivers
a deadpan “I believe he is attempting reentry, sir”, which is my favorite line
ever.
I also want to throw the James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only in here since that line ends the credits of many
Bond movies and I always liked it (it wasn’t always accurate though, because For Your Eyes Only was named at the end
of The Spy Who Loved Me as well).
Stunts
Bond movies were always good
at pushing the movie stunt envelope. Iconic stunts in other movies include the boat jump and crocodile walking in Live
and Let Die, the car jump in The
Man with the Golden Gun, the ski to parachute stunt in The Spy Who Love Me, the bungee jump in Goldeneye, and the car roll in Casino Royale (I’m really impressed that Casino Royale had a record stunt and got
out of the CGI hole that the later Brosnen movies had dug). Mooraker had a few notable stunts. First
was the sky diving stunt at the beginning of the movie. Special low profile
parachute packs were developed that could be worn inside clothing so that the
stunt men could apear to be jumping without parachutes. A special camera was
also developed to film the scene that was mounted to a jumpers helmet (it had
to be light enough not to break his neck when the chute opened). The scene also
took a total of 88 jumps to film, for two minutes of screen time, which I think
is impressive. During the cable car scene the stuntman slipped off the side of the car
and was filmed actually hanging from the side of the car unsupported, so you can't beat that for realism. The fight
in the glass shop had the largest amount of break away sugar glass ever used in
one scene, and the largest number of actors on wires ever filmed occurred during
the “weightless” scene in the space station. Moonraker was none to shappy stunt wise.
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| Wires and slow-mo = free-fall |
Gadgets
Gadgets; because if you establish it beforehand, it doesn’t count as deus ex machina. Bond’s go-to gadget for this movie was a wrist mounted dart
launcher that could shoot armor piercing or cyanide darts. It was able to save him
twice; once in the centrifuge, and again in killing Drax. Probably one of
James’s more practical gadgets really. Without special introductions, we got two
separate tricked out boats, his x-ray cigarette case and camera mentioned
before, and a watch filled with plastic explosives (which was a little deus ex
machine, but you gotta expect his watch to do something). We did not get a
tricked-out car this movie (he doesn’t even drive any cars the whole movie), and
no signature Walther pistol (the only gun he shoots is a shotgun that Drax gave
him), but I think a ride in a space shuttle and a laser pistol are suitable
replacements. As a CIA agent, Goodnight ended up with about as many gadgets as
Bond. She has a hypodermic pen (that Bond steals), a diary that shoots dart (darts… all spies use
them), a perfume flame thrower, and a purse radio that uses Morse Code apparently (all
standard CIA equipment).
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| They will put a radio in anything these days |
We also get the always entertaining Q’s workshop scene but this time with a twist
(another repeated scene that I could have mentioned above). After James
finishes pretending to be a vaquero (while listening to some Magnificent Seven music), he goes
to an austere catholic monastery, and visits the local MI6 branch office. Q has
all sorts of Latin American themed gadgets ready, featuring some explosive bolas, a
machine gun disguised as a sleeping guy in a poncho, and a face melting laser
gun. Always happy to see you Q.
Henchman
The
henchman in Moonraker really go the
extra mile to be stereotypical. They are numerous and anonymous, wear some
super snazzy yellow jumpsuits (often complete with silly helmets), go along
with the most outrageous plans, and are masters of standing around in the
background pretending to be busy. Inept guarding is also among their fortes,
going by the part were Drax orders double guards on all the entrances when the
marines break into the space station, but then the henchman stand with their
backs to the entrances and all get taken by surprise (my theory is that there
is some sinister henchman hiring-service who hires out brain-washed peons who
will follow any order but lost most of their problem solving skills). We also had some eugenics subjects working for Drax, but they didn't really do anything but stand around and look good.
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| Henchman; the foundation of all evil empires |
Product Placement
I just had to throw this in because product placement and Bond movies are pretty inseparable. Consumer goods seen in this movie include Glastron Boats, Seiko Watches, Bollinger Champagne, Air France, Seven Up, Marlboro, Christian Dior, Canon Cameras, and British Airways. They have to pay for those elaborate title sequences somehow.
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| Subtle |
That does it for Bond movie characteristics. I will really try to finish this up next post (no promises though).
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