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Algren
now we know
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 9:31 pm
Posts: 67039
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 Moonraker  Quote: Moonraker is the eleventh spy film in the James Bond series, and the fourth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The third and final film in the series to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, it co-stars Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Corinne Clery, and Richard Kiel. In the film, Bond is sent to investigate the mysterious theft of a space shuttle, leading him to Hugo Drax, the owner of the shuttle-manufacturing firm. Along with the space scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead, Bond follows the trail of clues from California to Venice, Italy, Rio de Janeiro, and the Amazon rain forest, and finally into outer space in a bid to prevent a plot to wipe out the world population and to re-create humanity with a master race.
Moonraker was intended by its creator Ian Fleming to be turned into a film even before he completed the novel in 1954, since he based the novel on a manuscript he had written even earlier than this. The producers of the James Bond film series had originally intended to do Moonraker in 1973 with Roger Moore making his debut as Bond, but the making of this movie was put on hold and it was finally released in 1979, coinciding with the rise of the science fiction genre in the wake of the Star Wars phenomenon.
Moonraker was the highest grossing film of the series until the Pierce Brosnan Bond film GoldenEye (1995). Moonraker earned a total of $210,308,099 worldwide — surpassing the preceding Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Moonraker was also noted for its high production cost for a Bond film, spending almost twice as much money as The Spy Who Loved Me. Derek Meddings, a long-time contributor to the James Bond series, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for the special effects used in this movie and its space scenes. _________________STOP UIGHUR GENOCIDE IN XINJIANG
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Last edited by Anonymous on Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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| Mon Nov 13, 2006 3:58 pm |
 
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Maverikk
Award Winning Bastard
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 12:03 am
Posts: 15310
Location: Slumming at KJ
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| Mon Nov 13, 2006 4:27 pm |
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jb007
Veteran
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:47 pm
Posts: 3917
Location: Las Vegas
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Great f/x. The script is weak.
B
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| Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:41 pm |
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zennier
htm
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 2:38 pm
Posts: 10316
Location: berkeley
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I'd agree that the special effects are fun, but this might be the worst Bond in terms of writing and (lack of) class. Lame is a good word, I guess.
C.
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| Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:21 pm |
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Excel
Superfreak
Joined: Sat Aug 20, 2005 12:54 am
Posts: 21882
Location: Places
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the spy who loved me in space.
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| Mon Nov 13, 2006 10:13 pm |
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Jmart
Superman: The Movie
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 8:47 am
Posts: 21150
Location: Massachusetts
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[font=century gothic]The chase sequence through the canals of Venice are fun to watch, but once Bond gets into space it just becomes flat out stupid.
C+[/font]
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| Tue Nov 14, 2006 12:44 am |
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Johnny Dollar
The Lubitsch Touch
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 5:48 pm
Posts: 11019
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Pretty much impossible to watch from start to finish.
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| Tue Nov 14, 2006 6:24 pm |
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xiayun
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 3:41 pm
Posts: 25109
Location: San Mateo, CA
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Worse Bond film, although The Day After Tomorrow came close. C.
_________________Recent watched movies: American Hustle - B+ Inside Llewyn Davis - B Before Midnight - A 12 Years a Slave - A- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - A- My thoughts on box office
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| Tue Nov 14, 2006 6:47 pm |
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Shack
Devil's Advocate
Joined: Sun Jul 31, 2005 2:30 am
Posts: 37977
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xiayun wrote: Worse Bond film, although The Day After Tomorrow came close. C. Tomorrow Never Dies you mean?  _________________Shack’s top 50 tv shows - viewtopic.php?f=8&t=90227
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| Tue Nov 14, 2006 6:57 pm |
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xiayun
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 3:41 pm
Posts: 25109
Location: San Mateo, CA
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Shack wrote: xiayun wrote: Worse Bond film, although The Day After Tomorrow came close. C. Tomorrow Never Dies you mean? I just found The CGI in The Day After Tomorrow and the invisible car stuff were too much, and it became a generic action film instead of having the classic Bond feel. _________________Recent watched movies: American Hustle - B+ Inside Llewyn Davis - B Before Midnight - A 12 Years a Slave - A- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - A- My thoughts on box office
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| Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:07 pm |
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Shack
Devil's Advocate
Joined: Sun Jul 31, 2005 2:30 am
Posts: 37977
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xiayun wrote: Shack wrote: xiayun wrote: Worse Bond film, although The Day After Tomorrow came close. C. Tomorrow Never Dies you mean? I just found The CGI in The Day After Tomorrow and the invisible car stuff were too much, and it became a generic action film instead of having the classic Bond feel. Hehe, don't think you got what I mean. Day After Tomorrow is no Bond film, you got the name mixed up... Thought you might be thinking of Tomorrow Never Dies, but CGI and invisible car = Die Another Day, which must be your thought. _________________Shack’s top 50 tv shows - viewtopic.php?f=8&t=90227
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| Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:31 pm |
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xiayun
Extraordinary
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 3:41 pm
Posts: 25109
Location: San Mateo, CA
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  I got all the bad movies mixed up. _________________Recent watched movies: American Hustle - B+ Inside Llewyn Davis - B Before Midnight - A 12 Years a Slave - A- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - A- My thoughts on box office
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| Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:41 pm |
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andaroo1
Lord of filth
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2004 9:47 pm
Posts: 9566
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One of the worst of the Bond series. Surprisingly it holds up okay until they actually launch into space, then it just falls flat.
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| Tue Nov 14, 2006 10:45 pm |
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Jmart
Superman: The Movie
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 8:47 am
Posts: 21150
Location: Massachusetts
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Re: Moonraker Once the nod The Magnificent Seven begins, shit hits the fan and fast. The first 75 minutes or so are entertaining if a little dumb, but once Bond is launched into space, holy hell the movie turns to shit. There are two laser shootouts in the finale. Two! See, Bond is supposed to have some sort of realism to it no matter how large in scope the film might be. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure we don't have handheld laser guns yet. This was 1979! I don't believe Bond exists in the world of Star Wars and Star Trek.
Of course as we know, the finale of Moonraker was heavily influenced by the huge success of Star Wars and for the third time in the, up to that point, four Moore outings, once again 007 was seen trying to capitalize on the success of other films instead of trying to set the trend like they had done so well before. It worked before in Live and Let Die and it was so-so in The Man with the Golden Gun. Following the trend just fails 007 here in Moonraker.
As for the standard James Bond checkpoints: The ladies are cute if a little on the dull side. Lois Chiles as Dr. Goodhead (GET IT! HAAAAAAAA!) is about as bland as they come. The villains? Well Jaws is back so that's a plus, but we get Hugo Drax who is just a carbon copy of Karl Stromberg, except instead of building a city in the ocean, he gets a bunch of beautiful people to try and procreate in space so he can send them back to Earth to rule over the human race, because that makes sense. And the action scenes, well the ones on Earth are fun. Once we get to space? No.
Its clear off of the success of The Spy Who Loved Me, the Bond producers (Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson who gets an executive producer credit here for the first time in the series) thought the audiences demanded that the films become grander. Well, Moonraker is one of the most successful Bond films ever made, but I think they smartly realized that James Bond belongs on the ground.
Unless I get quite the surprise during the next 11 films (halfway through!), Moonraker is quite easily my pick for the worst film in the Bond franchise.
** (C)
1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) - ***** (A+)
2. Goldfinger (1964) - ***** (A+)
3. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) - ***** (A+)
4. From Russia with Love (1963) - ****½ (A)
5. Live and Let Die (1973) - ***½ (B+)
6. You Only Live Twice (1967) - *** (B)
7. Thunderball (1965) - *** (B)
8. Dr. No (1962) - *** (B)
9. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) - **½ (C+)
10. Diamonds are Forever (1971) - **½ (C+)
11. Moonraker (1979) - ** (C)
_________________My DVD Collection
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If I’m not here, I’m on Letterboxd.
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| Mon Nov 05, 2012 3:38 am |
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Heinrich Himmler
Cream of the Crop
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 5:17 pm
Posts: 2716
Location: Berlin, Germania
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Re: Moonraker watched this yesterday with a friend of mine. i'd say watching this cheesy bad movie in a group is more fun than watching skyfall alone in a theatre.
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| Sun Nov 18, 2012 2:40 pm |
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Riggs
We had our time together
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:36 am
Posts: 13270
Location: Vienna
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Re: Moonraker I liked it much more than I thought I would, but like others mentioned it completely falls apart at the end. Couldn't believe my eyes when the big laser-gun battle started. Everything before is pretty entertaining with great locations and Moore is solid as Bond.
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| Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:52 am |
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Thegun
On autopilot for the summer
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 10:14 pm
Posts: 21634
Location: Walking around somewhere
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Re: Moonraker "His name is Jaws, he kills people"
Yeah Moore was solid all right, solid like wood. Probably the biggest drop off in quality from a good Bond film to the next. Even Jaws, who was a great addition last time out is awful most of the way through. Probably the last of the series where at least Moore could at least pretend to run. First Half B-, 2nd half D- overall C-/D+
_________________ Chippy wrote: As always, fuck Thegun. Chippy wrote: I want to live vicariously through you, Thegun!
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| Tue Nov 20, 2012 11:39 pm |
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