History Awesome / Moonraker

-->'''Drax''': You missed, Mr. Bond.
-->(Drax's sniper falls out of the tree, dead)
-->'''Bond''': [[ExactlyWhatIAimedAt Did I?]] ({{Beat}}) As you said, [[IronicEcho such good sport.]]

* Bond, M and the Minister of Defence walk in to Drax's laboratory wearing gas masks and find it has been entirely refurbished with a "surprised" Drax waiting for them, utterly humiliating Bond in front of his bosses. MagnificentBastard indeed.

** Gala Brand actually ends up being the one to save the day. After stealing Drax's notebook and ''doing rocket science in her head'', she determines the true target of the Moonraker and also how to prevent it without a sacrifice. Bond is simply needed to free them from captivity and adjust the gyros.

* Bond's plan for averting the Moonraker launch if they can't successfully redirect it away from London before it takes off. He's going to get Gala to safety, head out into the dangerously fume-filled silo under the rocket, and... [[StuffBlowingUp light himself a last cigarette.]] Gala knows her chances of survival are slim anyway, and declares if it comes to that [[HeroicSacrifice they'll do it together]].

* Bond manages to survive getting thrown out of a plane without a parachute by fighting the villain in mid-air and stealing his. And note that this was 1979, meaning you're actually seeing a pair of stuntmen fighting in freefall with a cameraman falling beside them.

*** Stuntman Jake Lombard tested all of this new equipment, then they shot the final scene, with Lombard as Bond, Worth as the pilot and Ron Luginbill as Jaws. It took ''88 skydives'' to shoot, and everything except the closeups of Moore and Kiel are from the real skydive footage.

[[caption-width-right:350:A space battle in a Film/JamesBond movie. [[RuleOfCool Why not?]]]]

----
!!The Film

* Bond's plan for averting the Moonraker launch if they can't successfully redirect it away from London before it takes off. He's going to get Gala to safety, head out into the dangerously fume-filled silo under the rocket, and... [[StuffBlowingUp light himself a last cigarette.]] Gala knows her chances of survival are slim anyway, and declares if it comes to it [[HeroicSacrifice then they'll do it together]].

* Bond's plan for averting the Moonraker launch if they can't successfully redirect it away from London before it takes off. He's going to get Gala to safety, head out into the dangerously fume-filled silo under the rocket, and... [[StuffBlowingUp light himself a last cigarette.]] And for her part, Gala works out what he's planning, and given her chances of survival are slim anyway, says if it comes to that, [[HeroicSacrifice then they'll do it together]].

** Of course, they had one of the greatest model-effects artists ever in Derek Meddings, who was nominated for his first special effects Oscar for this film (which they lost to ''Film/{{Alien}}'', in a year that also included ''Film/TheBlackHole'' and ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture''.)

** Bond getting Jaws to his side in the first place, despite being one of his most formidable recurring opponents, without even using any deception or dirty tricks: he simply points out a single detail in Drax's plan that clues Jaws in that Drax [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness doesn't plan on keeping Jaws or his girlfriend around]] after his mission is done.

-->'''Bond''': [[ExactlyWhatIAimedAt Did I?]] ({{Beat}}) As you said... [[IronicEcho such good sport.]]

* [[SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome The space special effects.]] ''Holy shit.'' Even nowadays, on the Blu-Ray version, those model shots and laser guns look damn good. If they stole from ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'', they at least stole one of the things ''Star Wars'' did right.

* Bond and Goodhead destroying the globes. Not a hint of the corniness and cheesiness that has marred much of the movie, just deadly seriousness.

** As great as that sequence is (and it's generally regarded as ''one of the best stunts ever committed to film''!), the behind-the-scenes aspect is even more awesome:
*** Stunt supervisor Don Calvedt and skydiver BJ Worth invented a new parachute that was only one inch thick and could be concealed under a suit jacket (which had velcro seams to allow the parachute to open).

!!The Film

** The final bridge game deserves special attention. Courtesy of Bond rigging the deck beforehand, Drax gets what looks like an incredibly strong hand, consisting mostly of Aces, Kings and Knaves. Meanwhile, Bond makes a "grand slam" bid[[note]]i.e. a promise to win ''every single trick'' in the game[[/note]]. At first it appears that Bond has no chance of winning whatsoever... and then it's revealed that Bond has cleverly rigged everybody's hands in such a way that it's ''Drax'' who has no chance of winning, no matter what he does.
* Bond's plan for averting the Moonraker launch if they can't successfully redirect it away from London before it takes off. He's going to get Gala to safety, head out into the dangerously fume-filled silo under the rocket, and... [[StuffBlowingUp light himself a last cigarette.]] And for her part, Gala works out what he's planning, and given her chances of survival are slim anyway, says if it comes to that, [[HeroicSacrifice then they'll do it together]].

* [[SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome The space special effects.]] ''Holy shit.'' Even nowadays, on the Blu-Ray version, those model shots and laser guns look damn good. If they're going to steal from ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'', they at least stole one of the things ''Star Wars'' did right.

* The space special effects. ''Holy shit''. Even nowadays, on the Blu-Ray version, those model shots and laser guns look damn good. If they're going to steal from ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'', they at least stole one of the things ''Star Wars'' did right.