James Bond. You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.
— Hugo Drax
The 11th James Bond film, starring Roger Moore. Bond is sent to investigate Drax industries after one of their shuttles is hijacked in mid-transit, which turns out to be part of an Evil Plan to exterminate the world population and replace it with "ideal" specimens.The movie was blatantly made to cash in on the science fiction craze that Star Wars had started*
How blatantly? The end credits of the older Bond movies always announced the title of the next one in the series. The previous movie, The Spy Who Loved Me said "James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only." Moonraker was made instead.
Animal Assassin: Drax sets his dogs on Corinne after discovering that she's been helping Bond.
Animal Reaction Shot: A pigeon has a double take while Bond is driving his gondola on the street of Venice.
Apocalypse How: Class 3a (Engineered Human Extinction): lethal spores that will eliminate all human beings on Earth.
Balls of Steel: James Bond knees Jaws in the groin while fighting him in the space station. There's a "clang" sound when Bond does so, indicating that Jaws has Balls of Steel, just like his teeth.
The Beautiful Elite: Drax' whole plan is to destroy all human life on Earth so it can be repopulated it with only genetically perfect specimens that he selected.
Cable-Car Action Sequence: A fight between Jaws and Bond happens aboard the gondola leading to Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro.
California Doubling: Weird inversion - Bond is flown to Drax's base in California (aerial plates shot in the US) and lands on a castle which "Drax ordered to be brought from France" (shot in an actual French castle, of course).
Chekhov's Gunman: The people shown working out at Drax's estate at the beginning of the film are later revealed to be the same people intended by Drax to seed his "master race".
Faux Action Girl: For a CIA agent with proper spy equipment, Dr. Goodhead sure doesn't get a lot of action (pun not quite intended) until the finale. Justified trope, as Lois Chiles was pregnant during shooting.
I Shall Taunt You: Bond does this to Hugo Drax in the novel in a desperate attempt to make him leave behind a blowtorch (intended for torture) that can be used to burn through Bond's ropes. It works.
Improvised Zip Line: Bond and Holly Goodhead use a chain to slide down a cable car cable.
Irony: While Bond is driving a gondola in Venice, a hearse ship with a laid-out coffin floats by. Suddenly, an assassin rises from the coffin, and tries to hit Bond with a couple of throwing knifes. But Bond swiftly manages to kill the assassin on the spot, causing his body to sink back into his coffin. The only time a minor Bond-villain gets a real proper funeral.
Just Plane Wrong: The entire sequence in which the Space Shuttle blasts off from the carrier aircraft; it's never carried with fuel or live batteries, and needs the external tank and SRBs to achieve orbit.
While true, there are a few differences, and he's arguably a lot more sinister and dangerous. Stromberg is more or less an Orcus on His Throne, mostly just sitting around Atlantis all day, pressing buttons when he wants something done (or someone killed), and leaving Bond's fate mostly up to his minions. Drax does a lot more globetrotting, comes up with amusing deaths for Bond and others who have displeased him. Plus his plan is more evil, since at least Stromberg didn't try and select which members of the human race he was going to spare. Drax is far more egomaniacal, ruthless and controlling, a much more evil bastard.
Priceless Ming Vase: The glass art objects in the fight between Bond and Chang in the museum.
Product Placement: Yes, we all know that all James Bond movies have it, but this chase scene is a blatant example. (See it in the second half of the clip!)
Reality Is Unrealistic: One of the most criticised aspects of the movie was how easy it was for the United States to launch a space shuttle with only a few hours notice. Except that this was during the height of the space race, and NASA was expected to have at least one orbital space mission a month. Thus, depending on how close they were to the next launch, its quite possible that a shuttle was indeed prepped enough to pull this off.
Yet the latter film is considered one of the best in the series and of the Moore era, while this one is mostly reviled.
And annoyingly enough, both steal from You Only Live Twice, where James Bond works with a female foreign secret agent (Japan, this time) to stop Ernst Stavro Blofeld from causing World War III (i.e. destroying the world) so that another global power can take over. All three plots involve stealing exotic government vehicles of some kind. All three were directed by the same dude, Lewis Gilbert*
Though You Only Live Twice had a different screenwriter, namely Roald Dahl, whereas this and the previous film were written by Christopher Wood
. All three end with Bond and the girl being "interrupted" by their superiors as well.
Gilbert admits this in the "Spy Who Loved Me" DVD "making of" featurette.
Safecracking: Bond opens the safe in Drax's headquarters with an X-ray device.
Scenery Porn: In addition to natural beauties/cities, there's the space station.
Steel Ear Drums: Bond and Goodhead are completely unaffected by the sound of a space shuttle blasting off even though they're only inches away. Never mind being deafened by the noise, in Real Life they probably would have been killed.
Storming The Castle: U.S. Marine astronauts with lasers vs. Drax's space station.
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