BEFORE: Well over the hump now, after tonight there will be 13 Bond films down and just 10 to go. Roger Moore's fourth appearance out of 7, and I'm honesty surprised that the same support staff is still with him. I had no idea the actors who played M and Q made so many appearances before being replaced, especially since they were changing Bonds every few years.
THE PLOT: James Bond investigates the mid-air theft of a space shuttle and discovers a plot to commit global genocide.
AFTER: From what I've read, the next Bond film in the series was going to be "For Your Eyes Only", but then the success of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", and also a little film called "Star Wars" pushed them into an outer-space direction. OK, an Earth's orbit direction, but you get the idea. The first Space Shuttle (Enterprise test flights) was in the news at the time, I think, so they just kind of worked that in.
But the effects here can't hold a candle to "Star Wars", I don't know if they just used cheaper mattes or what, but the spaceship models look mainly like models, and the Star Wars models looked more like real ships. Again, I'm not an expert, but I know what looks phony.
When I think about the low production values, combined with all the poorly dubbed dialogue in the Bond franchise, the simplistic plots and the overall campiness - I'm starting to suspect that I've been duped into watching Europan cinema! You think of Bond and you think of big-budget Hollywood productions, but the truth is that they seem to have been filmed around the world, mainly outside the studio system, and that means they're foreign films!
As far as plot goes, this is an exceptionally silly film, even by Bond standards. The villain's techie-thing is a space station, where he plans to live after wiping out Earth's population - is there much money in doing that? No? Then why do it?
NITPICK POINT: If the Space Shuttle were being loaned to the U.K. (though I'm not sure why, what would THEY do with it?) and they were transporting it on top of a plane, why would the shuttle have fuel in it? Also, why were there no safeguards to prevent someone from stealing it? They left the keys in it? Seems rather stupid.
NITPICK POINT #2: I'm not an expert on lasers, either, but even at its strongest and most focused, I believe it functions best as a cutting device, not an explosive one. So many times in this film (and bad sci-fi in general), you just aim a laser at something, and BOOM, the thing blows up. That's just now how they work, not in 1977 and not now.
LOCATIONS: Africa, Venice, Rio de Janeiro, outer space
VILLAINS: Hugo Drax, Chang, Jaws (the only repeated henchman in the series?)
BABES: Holly Goodhead, Corinne Dufour, Manuela
ALLIES: M, Q, Moneypenny, Gen. Gogol
PASTIMES: Hang-gliding, sky-diving, Carnivale dancing
CARS: Jeep (briefly)
GADGETS: Cyanide-tipped darts with wrist launcher, explosive watch.
THEME: "Moonraker" by Shirley Bassey (the only repeated theme song performer?). Nearly sung to the tune of "Goldfinger"...
Also starring Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell, Richard Kiel, Walter Gotell (all 5 carrying over from "The Spy Who Loved Me"), Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale,
RATING: 3 out of 10 airlocks
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