Moonraker Revisited

Moonraker In 1979, James Bond went into space, two years before the space shuttle flew. Now a new magazine and soundtrack revisit the movie, which long held the Bond franchise box office record. (credit: MGM) Moonraker revisited by Dwayne A. Day Monday, January 6, 2025 James Bond is in a bit of a rut. According to The Wall Street Journal, Bond producer Barbara Broccoli does not trust Amazon, which owns MGM and has the rights to the Bond movies, and she won’t agree to another Bond movie. Broccoli was reportedly unhappy with turnover at the studio and, following her late father’s advice, she allegedly said, “Don’t have temporary people make permanent decisions.” The last straw for her was apparently when an Amazon executive referred to James Bond as “content.” For her it’s personal, not business, and she is apparently unwilling to let Amazon’s entertainment algorithm grind up James Bond and extrude it like it does so much of the rest of Amazon’s content. In a saner world, we might accept that Bond, who was a product of the Cold War, is past his time, just as many once-popular comic strip and movie serial characters eventually died out because they could not evolve into the post-World War II environment. But we don’t live in a sane world, and giant media corporations that own intellectual properties with name recognition will always try to squeeze more money out of them, no matter how ridiculous or pathetic that is. Moonraker In the film, an evil villain named Drax has built a space station and plans on wiping out all of humanity so he can repopulate the Earth with pretty people. The special effects were not cutting edge, but benefited from top quality design and model work. (credit: MGM) The James Bond franchise has done ridiculous and pathetic before, and perhaps never more than when James Bond went into space in the 1979 movie Moonraker. Although Bond had some core attributes—exotic locations, supervillains, bold stunts, beautiful women with ridiculously suggestive names—the franchise often seemed to lack a center and chased after whatever was happening in the zeitgeist, copying themes that other movies made popular. This was particularly true in the 1970s, when Bond adopted tropes from kung fu movies, blacksploitation movies, and other genres. After the 1978 box office hit The Spy Who Loved Me, the plan was for the next Bond film to be For Your Eyes Only. But the wild success of Star Wars prompted a change in plans and Barbara’s father, the late Cubby Broccoli, decided to send James Bond into space, this time aboard the most futuristic spaceship available, the American space shuttle. Moonraker is regarded by many Bond fans as one of the worst of the movies, although a good argument can be made that several others, such as The Man With the Golden Gun and Octopussy, deserve that title. The movie’s plot echoes its immediate predecessor—megalomanical billionaire seeks to destroy the world for weird and dubious reasons. Bond movies have long been written by committee, starting out with exotic locations and stunts and action sequences and only later adding in characters and often thin pieces of an actual story. Moonraker has much of that feel, with Bond traveling from California to Venice to Rio de Janeiro to the Amazon before ending up in space to chase a villain with a genocidal manifesto. Drax wants to kill everybody on the planet and re-seed it with a new race of supermodels who we see but never hear talk. We also have no idea why they’re apparently okay with the deaths of everybody they know on Earth. That must be a powerful cult, but Drax is not the most charismatic messiah. I will confess that although the film has many flaws, I still have a bit of a soft spot for it, having seen it in a theater on the same day that Skylab fell from the sky. (See: “Have tuxedo spacesuit, will travel,” The Space Review, May 30, 2017.) The plot device of a rare orchid that killed the tribe that cultivated it, and now serves as the basis for a deadly nerve gas, is poetically clever. And a villain who has his own space fleet and space station is really kinda cool (in fiction rather than reality.) Moonraker Moonraker To counter the evil Drax, the United States launches a space shuttle operated by the US Marine Corps and deploys Marines for a laser battle in zero gravity. (credit: MGM) The story and acting were often weak. Roger Moore and Lois Chiles had all the chemistry of a glass of water, and Michael Lonsdale, in the words of one producer, played the evil Drax as “so laid back he was almost horizontal.” The film also self-sabotaged its exciting action sequences by punctuating them with dumb jokes. Moonraker did have some fantastic sets and locations. But its two best attributes were the movie’s look—its set design and model and special effects—and its score. In the past year, fans were treated to new products devoted to both. In late 2023, MI6 Confidential, a magazine celebrating the James Bond franchise, released a limited-run, 100-page bound issue about the making of the film, “Moonraker: Science Fiction or Science Fact.” The magazine contained a detailed production history of the film as well as many never-before-published photographs, primarily focusing on the special effects work. Moonraker The magazine, released at the end of 2023, is filled with artwork and behind the scenes photos, many never published before. They illustrate the incredible artistry that went into a movie that many reviewers and fans considered silly, if not outright absurd. (credit: MI6 Confidential) The visual effects for Moonraker still hold up well more than 40 years later. They were not state of the art at the time but represented early 1970s technology. The production lacked the latest cutting-edge equipment developed for Star Wars and instead used older techniques, such as filming a portion of a shot and then painstakingly winding the exposed film back through the camera to shoot another element, at one point doing this over two dozen times. If the technicians had made a single mistake, or if the film had broken, the entire shot and days of work would have been lost. Fortunately, this did not happen. Moonraker was not a great film. Despite the criticism, it did extremely well at the box office and made more money than any other Bond movie until 1995’s Goldeneye. Even if they do lack the sheer power of a shuttle launch, some of the launch sequences are still great, with shuttles rising over the Amazon rain forest from their underground lairs. However, the space laser battle sequences are more static than they should be, primarily because of concept and composition than technical limitations. The magazine shows some of the complexity of this sequence, such as eight stunt men in spacesuits hanging from wires on a soundstage. The magazine’s photo reproduction quality is not the best, and some of the images are muddy, but it is still wonderful to see Ken Adam’s amazing concept artwork and then final set designs, and to witness up-close photos of model maker Derek Meddings’ incredible work. Much more recently, La-La Land Records released the Moonraker 45th Anniversary Remastered and Expanded Limited Edition 2-CD set. The release took many people by surprise, because it had long been rumored that the original recordings had been lost. Decades ago, following the single vinyl album, a CD soundtrack was released, missing much of the music from the movie. John Barry was the composer for most of the early Bond movies, and Moonraker was arguably one of his best scores. He used an 80-piece orchestra and 12-vocal choir and recorded in Paris in late 1978 because Barry could not set foot in the UK due to tax evasion. Barry abandoned the heavy reliance on brass of his earlier scores and instead used slower string compositions. The title song is not one of the more beloved of the franchise and had a troubled start. According to the liner notes, Frank Sinatra was originally recruited to sing it, a real coup for the franchise. But contract negotiations broke down and Paul Williams, who wrote the lyrics, was disappointed that he would not get to write for “Ol Blue Eyes.” They were running out of time, and by happenstance, Barry ran into Shirley Bassey, who had previously recorded the theme songs for Goldfinger in 1964 and Diamonds Are Forever in 1971. He asked her if she wanted to sing the title song for Moonraker; she agreed and was in the recording studio within a week. Barry brought in Hal David to rewrite the lyrics to match the newly produced title sequence. The new CD set includes two alternate recordings of the song by Paul Williams, who was a talented songwriter but had very limited range as a singer. Moonraker The newly remastered score features many previously unreleased music and alternative sound cues. John Barry’s score is impressive, romantic and lush. The movie may not be highly regarded, but the music was definitely a high point, as the newly-release 2-CD set demonstrates. (credit: La-La Land Records) The first disc presents the score in chronological order, featuring music never before available, followed by source music recorded for the film and additional versions of score cues. The second disc presents the original 1979 soundtrack album, newly assembled for this release, followed by alternate versions of the title song by Williams. Barry’s compositions are often lush and romantic, and the remastered sound, like all of La-La Land’s products, is excellent. There is a notable difference in audio quality compared to the original CD and it sounds incredible. Whereas physical media continues to die slowly, it remains alive in limited specialty releases like movie soundtracks. Moonraker was not a great film. It received mixed reviews, was called “campy” and “extravagant,” with some critics noting that the comedy tended to undercut the drama. Having the villainous Jaws fall in love and turn into a good guy by film’s end as an obvious ploy to younger audiences left some critics cold. Despite the criticism, it did extremely well at the box office and made more money than any other Bond movie until 1995’s Goldeneye. Nevertheless, it remains one of the more memorable films from the middle era of this now-tired franchise, and a reminder that NASA’s space shuttle program would have been much cooler if it had also featured racing stripes. Dwayne Day thinks that a “world famous spy” is a ridiculous idea and prefers reconnaissance satellites and spyplanes. He does not like Bond movies other than Moonraker. He can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.