Sex and Guns and Judi Dench — Moonraker— A Reactionary Transcript #15

In the hunt for the finest of the Bond pictures, I must take notes during my viewing. Here are my notes for the fifteenth of these case studies; Moonraker.

The results will be posted heeeeeeere.

Moonraker spoilers ahead.

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ROAR

that was always the start, now we got a logo or two after it

Roger with a slow spin and shoot there, I reckon I coulda got ‘im

Shuttle getting a lift off a plane

Pilot brags about the RAF

feckin idiot’s about to get hijacked

the shuttle is called ‘Moonraker’, so there ya go

the hijackers start the shuttle and jet off, burning the plane with a big bang

M gets the news

M wants Bond in the building but Moneypenny says 007 is on his last leg

cut to Bond rubbing some leg

the leg turns a gun on him

on a plane

the leg and her friend try to push Bond out the plane

Bond fights ’em off, but then Jaws rocks up and pushes Bond out

The music’s gaan, this is gonna be sweet

Bond catches up to one of the guys he pushed out and nicks his chute

this looks pretty outstanding

Bond thinks he’s safe, but Jaws is comin down

Jaws tries to nibble Bond’s leg but Jimmy pulls his chute

Jaws tries to do the same, but rips it clean off, he tries to fly, but lands in the middle of a circus

some lovely shadow work

OPENING CREDITS

Moneypenny has no time to be cracking wise

007’s gotta meet M, Q, and the Minister of Defence

Q gets a mirror to turn into a tele — genius

the shuttle was being borrowed by the UK from the US, so America’s mad that we done lost it

Q’S GOT SOME TOYS

lovely watch — wrist muscles tense up and fire some poisonous darts into one of M’s lovely paintings

Bond’s off to Cali

gets a helicopter ride off Corrine Dufour, one of the pilots for the Drax corporation, which is where they’re going

Bond sees a load of space shit as they fly over, but he sees a sprawling manor house and he’s like ‘wowzers’

every stone of the house was brought from France apparently

got the astronaut trainees in his house as well, Bond finds ’em all fit

Bond meets Hugo Drax himself, playing the piano

oh no, very obviously not playing the piano

Drax introduces two models, i assume Bond will try to feck em later

Drax wants an apology for his missing shuttle and then feeds two dogs that aren’t hungry

Drax says a lot of big words

Bond needs to work out why the Moonraker shuttle wasn’t in the plane wreckage

oh, the dogs weren’t eating cos Drax had to tell them when to

Here we go, Bond’s about to meet Dr. Goodhead, prep for the joke

Ooo, shit, Drax not even hiding that he’s evil, telling his servant to ‘make sure some harm comes to him’ — no beating round’t bush

Bond is surprised Dr. Goodhead is a woman, classic stuff
Goodhead zings him though

Bond tries to show off his space knowledge

Holly (Goodhead) tries to get Bond to go on the centrifuge trainer, one of them things that spins faster and faster while you sit in it

Goodhead straps him in and straps him up

It goes 20 G’s in speed, most folk pass out at 7

Bond makes a decent joke about old people

Goodhead is called away as Bond gets going in circles
Drax’s servant takes over control and has a jolly good time spinning Bond

gaan a bit fast now

Bond don’t like it

HE’S GONNA HURL

EMERGENCY STOP AIN’T WORKIN

calm down, mate

bowl cut servant’s lovin it

Bond’s being spun so fast he’s havin’ flashbacks

remembers his watch, shoots the thing to a stop

Goodhead comes to let him out

Bond’s a laal bit shaken, not stirred

Sees the servant wandering away from the controls

Bond wanders in on Dufour, but he only wants information
i let myself into people’s houses for information as well, all the time

still ends up getting his end away, i bet

Dufour tells Bond that everything secret has been moved to a secret location, regarding Moonraker shit

Then she tells Bond she can’t read and that pushes him over the edge, sex is on

Ooo, servant’s having a malicious wander, Dufour hides her nips, Bond’s gone a-snoopin’

Dufour’s come to stop him
But she ends up helping him

Bond cracks a safe under a clock with some fake ciggies(?)

it contains… scripts?

BLUEPRINTS

Bond takes some pics on his 007 branded mini-camera

SOMEONE’S COMING

Dufour high-tails it after a kiss

Servant saw her leave

And then Bond

Grouse shooting the next day
Lots of funny hats and socks
feathers in hats

Drax looks the funniest

He gets a visit from Bond
He must be embarrassed
Actually, he looks pretty fly

Drax introduces two more models

Drax invites Bond to shoot with him

There’s a fella in a tree and he’s got his sights on Bond

Bond misses the grouse but shoots the fella in the tree

So he has just found out that Drax is trying to kill him but he gets back in a Drax car

Drax fires Dufour who rides in on a lovely golf cart

Drax’s servant sets the dogs on her

RUN CORINNE

oh no

‘To cause a dog to discontinue any action, flick it on the nose’ — learned that from Scooby Doo

She’s fast, like, she might get away

but since Bond has already slept with her…

Yeah, nah

VENICE

Bond’s gone for a wander to look for Venini Glass, which was on a card he found in Drax’s spot

A handy tour guide tells us that the glassworks was taken over by Drax Industries

Holly Goodhead is on the tour
But she’s gone off on her own

Bond puts the tour guide off by standing there handsomely

Bond follows the doctor on a stroll along the canal

She’s there for a conference

Bond hounds her and she keeps rebuffing, so Bond goes for a solo gondola ride

A big ol’ canal boat motors up to his one
it’s a funeral boat
but the guy in the coffin is alive
throws a knife and stabs the gondola man, but Bond gets him back
then Bond’s boat sprouts a motor, AND WE’RE OFF

GONDOLA CHASE

These shots are very close to Bond, he’s a lucky duck

Some lad’s gondola gets cut in half as the baddies drive through it

NOW BOND’S FECKIN GONDOLA HAS WHEELS

HE’S ON LAND

The locals are questioning their faith

A pigeon does a double-take but they apparently couldn’t get a talented enough pigeon, so they just looped a pigeon doing a single-take — Best shot of the film so far

Classic agog looks — overpouring beers and whatnot

Great sequence, the set pieces are on point, they’re like Stoke circa 2015

Bond breaks into a facility by cover of night

some evil shunts doing tests on mice

They’ve got a big orb that looks a bit dangerous

Bond grabs some of the chemical shit they were working on

The two scientists come back in and accidentally smash some of the chemical shit that Bond left lying about
AND THEY’RE DEAD WITHIN SECONDS

Good heavens

Bond tip-toes outside and is met with a judo man
He proves pretty ineffective, getting one kick in on Jimmy
He might be a kendo man actually, i’m not down with my martials

They are smashing a lot of glass

Kendo man is Drax’s servant

He runs upstairs after throwing a vase at Bond — classic kendo move

Comes at him with a chain noo

Get some opera music in the background now

They be duking it out in a clocktower

Bond throws him from said clocktower

He goes headfirst through a piano, lovely stuff

Dr. Goodhead is in her hotel room, she gives a terrible gasp when Bond sneaks in

She’s got a load of weaponry, like darts and a flamethrower and a radio handbag

Jimmy may or may not make a joke about simultaneous fellatio/cunnilingus

SHE WORKS FOR THE CIA

SHE GOT ME

He works her out and they kiss
Are they playing each other?

Yeah they are

Sex has been had

Bond takes his leave
Goodhead was pretending to be asleep while he left and then she picks up the phone and tries to get the feck outta there

Bond has invited M and friends to see the lab where the scientists were poisoned

But there’s nowt there

Just Drax in a fancy room

Drax assumes that their gas masks are some English sense of humour

The minister of defence says that he’s never been more humiliated in all his life — he walked into a room with a gas mask on — get out a bit more, minister

Bond gives M the vial of chemical shit he took, so they gonna play it very close to the chest

Drax’s kendo man servant was called Chang, but everyone is pronouncin it Charng
Anyways, Drax needs a replacement for Charng and is on the phone with a certain fellow who can get him Jaws
Great reintroduction to him as he tries to get through airport security but the metal detectors go wild

Bond’s in RIO

the guy who shows Bond round seems a cunt

his hotel room has its own bar staff
that’s annoying

Her name in Manuela, and she works with MI6 over in Brazil
M got her in to help Bond

Bond and her do the fuckers

CARNIVAL

There’s always a feckin carnival, like every other Bond film has one

Bond and Manuela go a snoopin’ for C&W industries but they are being followed by a clown with a big-ass head — like them Mardi Gras masks

it’s pretty horrifying actually

The clown with horrible eyes looks at Manuela who’s waiting outside for Bond
She picks her up to try to bite her, but some party-goers rock up first
He dances to hide his cover, then goes at her again
This is the whitest carnival Brazil has ever seen

Jaws gets carried off by carnival-goers
Bond and Manuela assume they’re safe

The next day there is samba music! Despite all the musicians playing only trombones, I can hear all the instruments

Bond spies on an airfield from underneath Christ the Redeemer
And he locks telescopes with Dr. Holly Goodhead
Oh, she was like six foot to his right

The planes on the airfield have been moving Drax’s incriminating gear

Jaws has come up for a wander as Holly and James head down in the cable car
Jaws stops the mechanism and then bites through the cable, lookin like an absolute G

Jaws’ mate knocks out the cable car operator as Jaws climbs along the remaining cable and gets on top of another cable car
Jaws’ mate starts the cars back up and they’re about to meet in the middle

Fantastically staged jump from one car to the other

Now for some janky punching atop a cable car

Goodhead gets slapped by metal man who then gets dumped inside the cable car by Bond and the doc

Bond wraps a chain around the cables and ziplines down with Goodhead wrapped around him
Jaws’ mate starts up the cable car and gets it gaan at top speed

As he’s about to catch up with Bond and the doc, they drop off onto the soft grass below and Jaws goes crashing into a building, cable car and all

Jaws meets someone he likes the look of and they run off hand in hand when she helps him take a wheel off his head

Bond and the doc share a kiss to celebrate their survival when a coupla doctors come up to help ‘em
Bond says they’re fine so the doctors make them not so and kidnap ‘em

Bond and Holly use some blisteringly good eye contact to confound the guards and get loose as they get driven away in an ambulance

Bond and the goon fly out the back of the ambulance and Bond defaces a British Airways billboard

Now he’s dressed like Sancho Panza on the back of a horse — i think they were going for Eastwood

He’s hitting up a monastery where the monks are learning kung fu
the past five minutes have been wild
THE MONASTERY IS A COVER FOR MI6 WHO ARE HANGING OUT THERE

Q’s got an exploding lasso on the go

As well as a suitcase that opens and shoots ya, AND A LASER GUN THAT MELTS YER HEAD

The chemical Bond picked up is a nerve gas that has no effect on animals

Q sends Bond upriver with a lovely boat to look for the flower used to make the gas, cos that’s where the evil folk’ll be gettin it

SOMEWHERE UP THE AMAZON

Bond is immediately shot at with a grenade launcher

he drops some mines that send the Drax lads flying

but Jaws is back in town

and the chase is on

WATERFALL

brings any chase to an abrupt end

Bond straps in though, and his boat has built in hang glider

Handy

Jaws is like ‘do we got one of those?’

pulls the steering wheel off trying to turn around

goes off the edge as Bond drifts away before unceremoniously dumping himself in some trees

Under another waterfall, he sees a woman clad in white pottering around

Obvs follows her

to some Mayan looking temple

She knows he’s there like

This film has the same director as You Only Live Twice and they’ve used the same undergroundish base

The lass leads Bond to a lot more lasses and they’re all the astronauts in training an models that Drax introduced Bond to at his house

A fake rock tips Bond into the pond, where an anaconda/python/big snake comes at him
The close ups of him rasssssslin’ it make it obvious that the only real snake in that pond is between Bond’s legs

Jaws is waiting for the winner though
Unlucky, Jimmy

Drax admits that he is trying to kill Bond theatrically, good on ‘im

Bond says he killed the python cos it had a crush on him, nice

Drax is now gonna explain his evil plan to Bond by bringing him into his space centre
Bond even asks what his plan is, and he full on tells him

Drax is killing folk with the flower cos he don’t like people

One of Drax’s shuttles lifts off successfully
and another three follow suit

Drax tells Jaws to put Bond somewhere he can be assured of warmth so he puts him in a meeting room with one Dr. Holly Goodhead

This meeting room is right under the rocket engines like

Drax uses the word munificence

So Drax is gonna kill everyone and start a new race with lots of fit people who do what he says

Bond and Goodhead escape out the vent and scurry fast when the fire comes for ‘em

That’s Moonraker 5 away with Drax on board

Moonraker 6 is next

cos that’s how numbers work

Goodhead is in the CIA, can she come up with some clever shit? Bond’s doing all the work here

Bond and Holly hijack a car and get on a rocket
very ballsy move
Moonraker 6 is up and away

AND WE’RE GAAN TO SPACE FOR THE LAST HALF HOUR OF THIS ONE, FOLKS

they’re having fun with the zero gravity stuff for a wee bit

all the models that Drax saved are making out
Bond calls it Noah’s Ark which is a neat parallel

All the rocks are gaan for Drax’s space station

mighty and not the deathstar

all the rockets dock on the Draxstar and some folk have fun floating around before turning the gravity on I assume

All of Drax’s fitties get on board and Jaws was even allowed to bring along the lass he met in Rio
Say what ya will, Drax is a sentimental psycho

Bond and Goodhead are just walking around the station with like no disguise

Drax gives his big God speech and Jaws is like ‘uhhh, what?’

Bond and Holly have to make the station pop up on a radar, so they’re going a snoopin’ once more to stop the radar jammer

Bond casually strolls around the control room

Goodhead does all the work this time
Then Bond rips the wires out and everyone on earth spots it

Even General Gogol’s mad
But then he goes and has sex, so he’s aight

one of Drax’s chemical orbs is fired towards earth as Jaws sneaks up on Bond and Holly
Yeah, what did you think was gonna happen you undisguised tarts

Jaws has a metal dong

Drax gives Bond some more spiel about being annoying
then launches another load of chemical orbs

US have deployed a space craft to get Drax but Drax tells someone to blow it up

Then he says he’s gonna send Bond and Holly out into space
Cos Holly always wanted to be the first woman in space
He does have a sense of humour

Bond calls it a flying stud farm

But then tries to get in Jaws’ head cos Drax only wants perfect specimens to reproduce, so Jaws’ feelings of inadequacy begin to kick in, even though he should have none cos he’s beautiful

Drax gives Jaws an order, but Jaws TURNS FACE fighting off Drax’s lads
numbers game catches up though

Bond pushes the emergency stop, sending everyone flying
Or, floating, at the very least
Look fun

Coupla Drax lads head out in space jetpacks as the US send their own space-jetpacked platoon, and we got a laser fight
People exploding and flying off
It’s like an 80’s rave for children

But the US Shuttle manages to dock and they’re onboard
Gravity is restored

Bond and Goodhead deal with a goon each while Jaws gets like nine of ‘em

THEY’RE IN
LASERS
EXPLOSIONS
FLIPPING
FALLING
JAWS
ZIP
PEW
Drax is trying to escape

Bond backs him down a corridor
But Drax pulls a gun
Bond’s got his poison darts though
Bond pushes him out the airlock, tells him to take a giant leap for mankind

This space station is made of paper
The walls are wobbly as all shit

IT’S GOING DOWN

Bond and Goodhead just watch on not really bothered by explosions
The American astronauts seem fine leaving them behind as well
Goodhead can’t be that popular at work

Bond and Goodhead board Moonraker 5 to try and shoot down the chemical shit that’s already been deployed

Jaws is still on the space station and he finds his lady love as well as a bottle of the bubbly to enjoy
Are they just gonna get blown up
Jaws said something at least

The docking release system is jammed, but Jaws just pulls it loose
Then Jaws and his missus just fly out into space
Bond’s all like ‘don’t worry, they’ll end up on Earth, i’m sure of it’

Bond and Holly go chemical shit hunting
Gonna laser ’em out the solar system

ONE DOWN, easy peasy

Bit of atmosphere creeping in now

TWO DOWN

lotsa heat as they approach earth pretty feckin rapdily

Goodhead’s risking it all with that steep angle

THEY’RE GONNA BREAK UP

MISS

Lasers starting to malfunction

Bond’s gotta take it out manually

Get it in your sights, Jimmy

MISS

entering the atmosphere

STEADY

STEADY

BOOOOM

nailed the fecker

Jaws and his missus have been rescued

NASA are gonna get visual confirmation of Bond and Goodhead’s survival, so the video feed is gonna go to NASA, but since it’s the first American/English team-up in space, the feed is gonna be broadcast right into Buckingham Palace and the White House

cue

Bond and Goodhead doing it in zero gravity

Minister of Defence: My god, Bond, what are you doing?
Q: I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir.

CLASSIC

FIN

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Keep it streets ahead,

C.L.R.