I am very fond of the James Bond film
Moonraker. While it's generally regarded as one of the weaker films in the 007 canon, I find it difficult to find too much fault with it. It's just too important a part of my life-long obsession with science fiction
and spy-fi films for me to be too critical of it. And it is notable for showing just how influential the success of
Star Wars and
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and other 70s sci-fi were - even
Albert R. Broccoli, producer of
ten highly profitable spy adventures starring British secret agent James Bond, felt commercially
compelled to insert outer space elements into his eleventh cinematic escapade.
I was fifteen when the movie came out in 1979 (the same year as
Meteor, The Black Hole and
Star Trek - The Motion Picture), already a die-hard fan of science fiction and space-oriented films, and coverage of the movie in my monthly bible,
Starlog, truly whetted my appetite. I had also just recently seen my first Bond film,
Goldfinger, on HBO, so the prospect of seeing a 007 flick on the big screen was very exciting.
In the weeks leading up to its premiere, I picked up the Warren tie-in magazine, the fold-out poster magazine published by the
Starlog folks, and the Jove Books novelization by screenwriter
Christopher Wood. I also purchased and built the
Moonraker space shuttle model. So when I went to the theater that fateful evening in May of 1979, I was pretty much predisposed to love the film.
For this 15 year-old,
Moonraker had everything I could possibly want in a movie: space shuttles, lasers, beautiful women, exciting stunts and special effects, and most of all, a cool, suave, unflappable hero (admittedly, one with a somewhat juvenile wit).
Moonraker was the first James Bond film I saw in the theater, and I haven't missed one since. And while
Goldfinger made me a Bond fan, it was
Moonraker that made me a spy-fi fanatic. I
still love it.
Sure, I wince now at Jaws' (
Richard Kiel) ridiculous antics and his goofy romance sub-subplot, and
Lois Chiles' performance as Dr. Holly Goodhead, NASA astronaut cum CIA agent, is astoundingly robotic... but she is quite lovely. And say what you will about the movie's faults – it
looks spectacular (especially on Blu-Ray), with some of
Ken Adam's most imaginative sets. Also, director
Lewis Gilbert really keeps the film moving at a brisk pace. It's never boring and nearly always entertaining. On top of all that, it has
John Barry's best Bond score of the 1970's.
Roger Moore looks great and has a couple of very effective scenes. The centrifuge sequence is a stand-out, and he even manages to give some weight and suspense to the video game climax. And, best of all, are
Derek Meddings' remarkable miniature effects, all of them produced in traditional, hand-crafted manner (they didn't even have computerized motion-control cameras at their disposal). Some of the shots - like the
Moonraker shuttles in their silos, or villain Hugo Drax's space station in orbit, still look incredibly convincing, even today.
By the time
For Your Eyes Only came out two years later, I had seen many more 007 films on ABC TV, and had decided that I liked the more down-to earth, grittier Bond films better than the more fantastic ones. I had also decided that Sean Connery was the superior James Bond. I still believe that. But – you know, I really like Sir Roger, and sometimes I'm just in the mood for the more far out flix.
I still have my Warren tie-in magazine, poster magazine and paperback novelization. In fact, I really like the novel a great deal. Wood follows his own screenplay, of course, but still manages a fair approximation of I
an Fleming's style and characterization. His
Spy Who Loved Me novelization is quite good, as well.
My love for spy thrillers continues to this day - in large part because of seeing
Moonraker in the theater when I was 15... but I probably wouldn't have been in that theater at all if it wasn't for my devotion to sci-fi and space opera.
