Moonraker (1979) | Self-Plagiarism

Despite the little tag at the end of The Spy Who Loved Me that claimed James Bond would return in For Your Eyes Only in his next adventure, the world would have to wait another two years before that movie came out. Instead, Moonraker was pushed up in production. The reason given for this decision? A little movie called Star Wars came out and changed the landscape of film and audience expectations. Looking to capitalize on the science-fiction craze that had infected the public, the producers and studio decided that it would be better to push the James Bond film that could fit into this genre. The downside to this decision, however, is the fact that the plot, villain, climax, and everything else about Moonraker feel very much like the previous film. Pushing it out another couple of years wouldn’t have changed that, but it certainly wouldn’t have made everything so obviously familiar.

Pros

Models and miniatures look good
Some decent stuntwork with memorable scenes like the gondola ride in Brazil
Entertaining in its dumber moments
An antagonist’s motivation for switching sides suddenly that makes sense and isn’t another Pussy Galore

Cons

Copy & paste of villains and henchmen
Copy & paste of evil plot
Copy & paste of joke in the final scene
Some really stupid-looking costume designs and effects in the final act
The most cartoonish Bond film thus far, especially with the indestructibility of Jaws
A rather unimpressive and uninteresting end for the villain

Plot & Thoughts

Spoilers ahead in this review.

A space shuttle has mysteriously disappeared and it’s James Bond’s (Roger Moore) responsibility to find out what happened. The trail leads him to a wealthy mogul named Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale). He travels to the Drax’s estate to find any leads. While there, he encounters Dr. Goodhead (Lois Chiles)—uh-huh, that’s her name—a woman who claims to be one of the lead scientists at the facility, but there is more to her than the surface-level pretenses. This estate/scientific facility has huge tracts of land along with built-in astronautical testing rooms, including a fully functional g-force device that James Bond willingly gets strapped into and narrowly escapes death after the henchman sabotages the machine.

It’s clear that Drax is some evil mastermind, and not just by his preferred style of clothing or his stilted speech—while Dr. Evil from Austin Powers is clearly inspired by the physical appearance of Donald Plesance’s Blofeld, the mannerisms of Drax feel more similar to the character. His Oddjob-knock-off henchman, Chang (Toshiro Suga), is constantly lurking and following Bond around. Bond knows it and has no qualms about making sure Drax is aware that he knows it. There’s even a scene in which Bond shoots an assassin hidden in a tree while standing in a field next to him during a pheasant hunt.

Having outstayed his welcome at Drax’s home, Bond follows other leads to Venice where he discovers a poisonous gas being developed in a secret lab on another property owned by Drax. There’s more detective work and yet another boat chase with Bond, this time in the canals of Venice. While investigating Drax in Venice, he runs into Goodhead again and she reveals much more about herself in the moment. Can you guess what it is? Also, Jaws (Richard Kiel) comes back after Bond eliminates Oddjob Chang, because the formula demands that a henchman follow Bond around for the entire movie.

If it sounds like I’m just glossing over everything, it’s because I am. Despite being the movie in which Bond literally goes to space, I find Moonraker to be the dullest of all the Roger Moore Bond movies. It feels like a rushed retreading of old ideas and tropes. The reuse of henchmen in both the literal and figurative sense stands out. The discount Oddjob manages to not only be ineffective at killing Bond, but in his final scene he tries to ambush Bond in the dark with the bamboo shinai sword used in practicing Kendo. This is a dumb scene for a couple of reasons. Shenai are not nearly as lethal as a real sword would be, for one thing. For another thing, he ambushes Bond in the dark but screams out loud before he strikes, negating his element of surprise.

There are also a number of things that happen in Moonraker that feel like we’re retreading familiar ground. There’s, obviously, the return of Jaws, the only instance in which a henchman returns in a film other than their first. This isn’t really a bad thing, as Jaws is a competent and intimidating threat to Bond. He also switches loyalty at the end and heavily impacts the conclusion—similar to Pussy Galore’s sudden loyalty change, but it makes sense when he does this. Then there’s Dr. Goodhead. She turns out to be a CIA agent working undercover and teams up with Bond to find out what Drax is planning. This is similar to The Spy Who Loved Me, but there’s no undercurrent of rivalry or animosity between them as Amasova had with Bond.

What really gives me deja vu, however, is the character of Drax and his evil plot. While Stromberg was a mostly hidden villain who didn’t interact directly with Bond until the second half of The Spy Who Loved Me, the similarities he shares with Drax are too obvious to ignore. They both have a similar taste in clothing. They both hide their evil plans behind scientific philanthropy with the aim of discovery. They both have enormous lairs, capable of housing numerous loyal troops, which somehow manage to be undetectable by the British, United States, or Russian governments. Finally, they also share a distaste for the human race to the extent that they intend to cause a worldwide genocide and wipe out humanity on the earth. The only difference between the plans of the two villains is that Drax intends to eugenically repopulate the earth after all of humanity is wiped out, while Stromberg just intends to live beneath the ocean with all of his troops. I’m more willing to believe that there would be as many people willing to die for Drax’s dream in Moonraker than the many people willing to work for and be cooped up with Stromberg under the ocean, so I guess that’s a point in favor of Moonraker in that case.

The point is that I was bored by Moonraker because of how familiar everything felt without really doing enough to differentiate it from previous films, especially The Spy Who Loved Me. I’m not sure exactly how much of the script suffered as a result of the decision to push up Moonraker to capitalize on Star Wars’ popularity, and I’m not sure how much of Ian Fleming’s story was used in the writing process, having not read it. However, Moonraker feels rushed when you see all the similarities and the way the final act goes down. First of all, there are Drax’s soldiers. They are so goofy-looking—their helmets look like the crotch guards that boxers wear while sparring. Then there’s the climax. The laser battles between soldiers look cheap and dopey as people spin around in “zero-gravity” and shoot laser beams everywhere. This movie may have been meant to capitalize on Star Wars, but its effects are not even close to competing with it.

The film ends with a mix of good and bad moments. I find Drax’s end to be particularly unsatisfying. While Bond doesn’t always need to kill his enemy in poetic fashion, it seems like a missed opportunity to do something with the fact that they’re in a collapsing space station when he dies. Bond just shoots him with the same wrist dart gun that he used at the beginning of the movie and Drax dies from the poison in its tip. It would have been more satisfying to me if the poison was a paralyzing agent and Bond used the airlock to suck a still-alive Drax out into space after saying some insulting quip to the wannabe space Nazi.

With the space station collapsing, Bond and Goodhead get into a space shuttle to chase down the toxic bombs meant to wipe out the earth’s population. It’s not believable they would be able to catch up with the bombs without burning up in the atmosphere, but it still manages to be a tense moment when Bond attempts to shoot them down with the shuttle’s laser. Of course, they succeed in saving the earth and Moonraker ends with yet one more moment stolen from The Spy Who Loved Me. Bond and Goodhead are both entwined with one another and likely in the middle of penetration when a convenient video feed is shown to M and the other members of MI6 or important diplomats in the room. It might have been funny the first time, but don’t start a tradition with this joke, please. Then again, I already know that Christmas comes more than once a year…

TL;DR

Moonraker simply does not do enough to separate itself from other James Bond movies. While there are certainly other films during Roger Moore’s era that mimic previous movies in the franchise, they don’t feel quite as copy-and-paste as Moonraker does. The story, characters, and costume designs are rushed and stale, and the better moments do not do enough to overcome those faults. As a result, this is my least favorite Roger Moore James Bond movie.

Hair of the Dog Drinking Game Rule

With how by the numbers this movie is, I could arguably make the rule to drink anytime something happens or is said that distinctly resembles a previous film. However, there are plenty of movies to go which will take cues from other Bond films so I think we can afford a little self-plagiarism for this one. Let’s just use one of our Universal rules: Titular Line.