Complete Monster: Sir Hugo Drax, though his plan is smaller in scale than his eventual film counterpart's, is no less vile. Born "Hugo von der Drache" in Germany and an avid fan of Adolf Hitler, Drax ran undercover missions against Britain for the Reich until he was mistakenly wounded by his own side and nursed back to health by the British. Stealing the identity of a MIA soldier with a similar name and feigning amnesia, Drax murdered the first rich man he could find after leaving the hospital for startup money and began plotting to avenge Nazi Germany's defeat. Using his holdings in rare metals, Drax paid out of his own pocket to design the Moonraker, a state-of-the-art nuclear missile meant to defend Britain from the Russians, with Drax's philanthropy elevating him to a national hero. The only problem was, the missile was set to destroy London on its first test-firing with a real atomic bomb. When Drax describes the intended death toll for this catastrophe to him, Bond, a hardened killer himself, is left almost catatonic. Other crimes include running a motorist off the road and over a cliff due to the mere possibility he might've been a spy, and having people tortured for information with welding torches. For Drax, the mere destruction of their greatest city was not enough; he made himself into the British people's greatest hero just so their collective spirits would be crushed when the nuke hit.
Once Original, Now Common: Moonraker was the origin of the 'Bond investigates an evil industrialist with good publicity and uncovers an apocalyptic Take Over the World plot' that is practically the template for a generic James Bond story, and perhaps a generic spy fiction story altogether, particularly after the Cold War ended. Even as Moonraker is still beloved today, there is a sense that its focus on corporate espionage was incredibly ahead of its time, making the story feel far less groundbreaking than it would've been in the mid-1950's.
Values Resonance: Sir Hugo Drax as an ultra-rich aerospace magnate who uses his philanthropy and public image to hide his ulterior motives is a character archetype that perhaps plays better in today's age of Silicon Valley tech billionaires than it did in the 1950's. Moonraker is perhaps the Bond novel that fans most hope for a Truer to the Text adaptation of for this reason.
The film:
Alternative Character Interpretation: Did Bond not break the vase because he didn't want to smash a very expensive item? Or was he just annoyed by the alarm?
The US military and Drax himself are able to launch fully-crewed and fully-fuelled space shuttles into orbit in only a matter of hours. In truth, the space shuttle took an average six months of preparation before it could be launched, and even the most optimistic prospects for the program still called for several weeks of such work if multiple flights were to be worked into the span of a year. The only possible explanation would be that in this universe, maybe the US military had an always ready shuttle, since in this universe it also has trained space soldiers and hand-held laser weapons.
Drax is somehow able to deploy an entire space station, larger than anything to have existed in reality, without attracting the attention of the world below. Such a feat would have required perhaps dozens of launches in seeing all the components eventually assembled, and the station's radar jamming system certainly would not have covered for these. Further compounding this absurd scenario is no apparent interference caused by the station's orbit to the world's expansive network of telecommunications or anybody with a telescope taking note of it, not to mention you could see it with the naked eye from the ground — true, it would only be a moving point of light, but visible nonetheless.
The Destroying The Globes track is a suitably tense, well-done piece that plays as Bond and Goodhead desperately try to prevent the deaths of a hundred million people.
The movie itself. For many fans and critics, the space sequences and the camp humor cements this as one of the most absurd Bond films in the series and is often looked upon with disdain. For many, however, it is either a guilty pleasure or a genuinely exciting movie. The latter camp is helped by the absolutely stunning and massive set pieces designed by Ken Adam, the excellent special effects to accompany them by Derek Meddings, and the top-notch John Barry soundtrack.
Complete Monster: Hugo Drax is a cold, snobbish, understated executive who wishes to exterminate the human race except for those he considers "superior beings". To this end, Drax captures men and women whom he sees as physically perfect, planning to keep these people in his giant space station while he covers the Earth in a rare toxin that will kill every human being on Earth. When one of his Moonraker space shuttles is hijacked, Bond is sent to investigate. Fearing that Bond will discover his plans, Drax sends his assassins to kill him, not doing the job himself because he wants Bond's death to amuse him. When he discovers that his personal pilot, Corrine Dufour, helped Bond uncover his plan, he fires her, then sends his dogs out to rip her apart. After he tells Bond his plan, he traps him and one of his scientists, Dr. Holly Goodhead, under one of his rockets, planning on burning the both of them. When he discovers Bond and Goodhead on his space station, he threatens to shoot them both out the airlock. When Bond corners him after his plans are failing, Drax finds a gun and threatens to shoot him, knowing that he'll at least "have the pleasure of putting [Bond] out of my misery". Drax is a chilling, dark villain who stands out in such a campy, silly movie.
Critic-Proof: It's widely thought of as one of, if not the worst, Bond movies, but it was the highest-grossing film in the franchise until GoldenEye was released.
Hollywood Homely: Dolly, the girl Jaws falls in love with, is almost a parody of the trope. Blanche Ravalec's pigtails and big glasses seem meant to make her look unattractive, but she's still clearly an impressively proportioned blonde woman in a low-cut dress in a Bond film.
Inferred Holocaust: See all those beautiful women on the poster? See the same beautiful women and handsome men exercising on Drax's estate and later romancing each other on the shuttle flight up to the station? Consider now that every one of them are likely slaughtered either by the good guys — the space marines — or perished in the destruction of the space station, as with the sole exception of Jaws's girlfriend (who was never one of their number anyway), the film gives zero indication of there being any survivors, casting a grim light on what is otherwise an exciting space battle. Of course, it can be argued that they all have Asshole Victim status given that they were totally cool with working with Drax the Omnicidal Maniac.
Mandela Effect: Many people recall Dolly having braces, when in fact she did not.
Memetic Mutation: "We're not science fiction, we're in fact science fact."Explanation An infamous quote from Albert R. Broccoli in an interview about the film. "Science Fact" is an in-joke among Bond fans, describing any of the series' less plausible moments.
As spectacular a sequence as the freefall fight otherwise is, it ending with Jaws crashing into a circus tent at the end of his fall serves as a serious case of Mood Whiplash.
For some, "Dr. Goodhead" certainly qualifies.
Bond's female contact in Brazil being named Manuela tends to elicit some snickers among Latin American fans, as in the region "Manuela" is slang for fapping. Considering the aforementioned "Dr. Goodhead", this might have been an intentional pun.
Chang's expression when Bond escapes the G-Force simulator, which looks more like the girl he asked to prom turned him down.
Bond's miniature camera is emblazoned with "007" around the lenses.
The entire gondola scene, particularly the moment Bond drives it upon land through a gawking crowd of onlookers.
Chang showing up in a kendo outfit and swinging around a bokken while screaming every time he attacks, all the while acting more like a bull in a china shop than someone actually trying kill Bond. It's hard to take the fight scene seriously, as it looks more like a fight between Inspector Clouseau and Cato (though the fact that it comes directly after a very intense scene involving the deaths of two scientists via nerve gas suggests this was intentional).
Narm Charm: The entire concept of James Bond going into outer space is one of the better parts of the film for many fans.
Never Live It Down: The only film to date in which Bond ventures into outer space, and for good reason as it was a blatant effort to cash in on the science fiction craze launched by the release of Star Wars two years prior.note The previous film had even stated that next up was For Your Eyes Only in a big sign of just how much they rushed this one out. For many a Bond fan it provides for a fun and exciting ride, if an over-the-top and absurd one at that. For many others, though, it is the sheer absurdity of this premise that has made it impossible to take seriously.
Not So Crazy Anymore: With Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson competing to go into space, the idea of a billionaire private citizen with access to the finances and resources to go into space for their own purposes makes one of the sillier Bond films seem more plausible with the passage of time.
The Scrappy: Holly Goodhead isn't as actively despised as Mary Goodnight, Stacey Sutton or Christmas Jones, but she's often considered one of the dullest and least interesting Bond Girls in the entire series. Many fans think her dynamic is just a less interesting copy of Bond's dynamic with Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me (though Real Life Writes the Plot here, as Lois Chiles was pregnant during filming, meaning she couldn't be as involved in the action sequences as Barbara Bach was). This is made worse by the fact that her book counterpart is Gala Brand, one of the few great women characters that Fleming wrote.
Sequelitis: Many consider it one of the worst Bond films, if not the worst for its bizarre premise.
The doubletaking pigeon. Not only is it clear that they just replayed two frames of it looking at and away from Bond's gondola, but it double-takes three times. Also qualifies at Stock Footage Failure.
At the start of the Venice chase, a knife hurled by an assassin missed Bond, embeds into a wall, and wobbles as if it's made of rubber.
The bluescreening for Jaws jumping between the cable cars. His actor clearly fakes a jump, then his stunt double is seen flying to the next car.
The ludicrously fake snake Roger Moore wrestles.
The US shuttle sent to intercept Drax's station is shown in one shot to be far too small for the multiple platoons of marines deployed into battle.
We have a shot of Moonraker 6 on approach to the station, then docks, then a few seconds later we have a view of the station and the shuttle is not docked again from a recycled shot.
Considering how campy the movie is, one might expect Michael Lonsdale to ham it up. But he doesn't, instead giving a subdued, chilling performance as main villain Hugo Drax.
Shirley Bassey's performance of the title theme could also count.
An inversion (though only at the time of its release): at the time, NASA was intending to launch its first space shuttle in 1979, which would have made the film very timely. Unfortunately, NASA had to delay the launch for two years, rendering the film unexpectedly something that was before its time. Even more so now that the Space Shuttle has been retired as of 2011; in this film it is headlined and touted as the pinnacle of human spaceflight, with none of its viable replacements yet ready to succeed it.
The opening sky-diving scene. Keep in mind that this was pre-CGI. It took some 70 jumps to accomplish, and it still looks great nearly forty years later.
Now that is a space station. Incidentally, it was the last set built for the Bond films by Ken Adam, who was production designer since Dr. No, and boy, did he leave on a high note.
All the shots of the astronauts floating in zero-g. This film is the record holder for the largest number of invisible hanging wires to be used in a single scene.
The laser battle aboard the space station. Not quite up there with Star Wars but it still makes for an impressive climax.
The space assault was done in-camera, meaning after an element was filmed, the canister was rewound and the next element was filmed over the same length of film. They did this dozens of times, not knowing if the film was getting damaged inside the camera or if any elements overlapped with one another because if any of that happened, they'd have to start all over again. Luckily, once the film was finally developed, the sequence turned out to be perfect.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Drax kills his secretary by having her be eaten alive by his dogs. Bond also accidentally murders two scientists when he infiltrates a lab, takes out a canister and looks at it in puzzlement, before sloppily putting it down and hiding in an adjacent, airlocked room when the scientists come back, the scientists fail to notice the moved canister until one of them knocks it off the table, shatters it, and both give Bond a demonstration of the canister's contents and purpose as the scientists immediately die horribly. And then there's the final scene where Bond, er, "attempts re-entry".
WTH, Costuming Department?: The heroes' school bus yellow spacesuits and matching Chuck Taylors has raised some eyebrows.
. Moonraker portraying NASA as having a team of Space Marines on standby ready to protect their facilities isn't a million miles away from reality.