It´s a stretch.
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I’ll be the lone voice to go the other way and give the Dam Jump a vote. Both are great stunts, but the dam jump has some added nostalgia being the first Bond stunt I saw in the theater. Also a potentially more dangerous stunt considering the possibility of slamming up against the side of the dam after jumping.
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June 3
One for the bin, please
- Thunderball - the rack
- Moonraker - the centrifuge
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voters
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No contest for me - the centrifuge is a truly terrifying experience for Bond, with Moore acting thoroughly weakened and angry about it.
The rack always had me think: it looks silly. Although I wouldn’t want to be racked either. Is that the word?
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This is really tough. Both are amongst my favourites, Bond in danger without having an immediate way out. Both give a sense of danger - and are somewhat on the silly, surreal side. A reminder Bond may literally out of the blue end up in peril.
Both are also somewhat implausible from the inner logic of their respective films. If the representative HMG sent to enquire about the shuttle’s whereabouts (or apologise) ends up the victim of a tragic accident right after he arrives that’s probably not going to alleviate suspicions, is it?*
Likewise, having Bond stretched mechanically wouldn’t lead to him being less suspicious about Lippe - unless we accept it was meant to kill him. Unlikely but not impossible.
So why must my beloved MOONRAKER centrifuge go?
I think Bond’s escape is a little too neat. He’s got that ludicrous dart bracelet that would have gone off a couple of times already during the ride - but that would likely just shatter some display in his cabin - if it’s not loaded with the cyanide dart, that is.
The Wood film tie-in even addresses this, describing Bond’s arm aiming along the centrifuge towards the hub, which would be a different setup to that seen in the film, with Bond facing always towards the hub.
*Because Bond films are fictional.
In the real world that would likely lead to Drax getting a peerage and his own private tv channel because a dead civil servant practically proves he cannot be a villain. Bond was probably a member of the woke civil service cabal and the country better off without such lefty elitist mandarins…
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Basically the same thing, and in two films where Bond is otherwise at his most superhuman it’s nice to see the rotten little sod suffer now and again. However, rack comes as comeuppance for Bond having raised the ire of the villains whereas centrifuge just seems to be a decision by Drax to deliberately be a villain. He has done nothing sinister to this point other than try to press Bond to a cucumber sandwich, which does sound painful, I admit. Centrifuge gets shaken away, accordingly.
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The rack scene looks ridiculous as it’s been so crazily sped up, but maybe that’s to prep us for the finale on the Disco Volante. Its also not entirely clear whether Bond’s predicament would be somehow fatal or just really miserable.
The centrifuge scene has several problems as Dustin notes. Why would firing the dart at the display panel stop the machine? How is it Bond just happens to have an armor-piercing dart loaded when he needs it (although this is at least part of a consistent pattern: his first shot is conveniently loaded with cyanide so it fails to blow a hole in the side of M’s office and his last one happily posions Drax rather than ripping a hole in the already compromised hull of the space station). Who designs a centrifuge with a “fatal” setting, anyway? Where’s OSHA when you need them?How does Drax think its a good idea to quell the (at this point half-hearted) suspicions of MI6 by killing Bond as soon as he shows up? (Although his next attempt, on the pheasant shoot, would take even more explaining).
In the end, however, Moonraker NEEDS the centrifuge scene more than TB needs the rack. Together with Corrine’s murder it establishes Drax as a scary opponent and a nasty piece of work, and adds a moment of real suspense to a film that can otherwise be too laid back and breezy. Cutting it would hurt the film in a way that cutting the rack from TB woukd not. So for me the rack has to go.
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The rack goes. And here’s my reason. SC’s Bond, while crying like a kid while in danger, seems to get over it all too coolly and suavely. Quick stretch, and then off to the shower with Nurse what’s-her-face.
On the other hand, Sir Rog stumbling around, grabbing and then dismissing Golly Holly’s hand, is a wonderfully human moment, played by the man that never got credit for those moments. SC’s Bond - I was in danger but now time to stretch my thingy, is far closer to the Austin Powers stereotype, whereas after the centrifuge Sir Rog Bond and Craig Bond are very much the same person.
Sorry rack, you’re de-chained.
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Damn, Dustin.
Bet you sat in the first row in science class.
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A.K.A. fan service (though I much prefer your iteration).
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Question is: are the fans served with nods to previous films or rather the supposed collective memory of the mass audience?
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Depends on the fan and their mindset.
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It‘s a long-established template of Bond‘s (cinematic) world: Bond appears onstage and things just start happening. In DR NO he arrives and is already picked up by the opposition. In THUNDERBALL, out of the blue, he’s punching - apparently - a widow. And in MOONRAKER he’s knocking at the shuttle manufacturer (not the Kremlin or Beijing) and right after being introduced he’s targeted by the villain‘s head henchman.
None of this makes really sense from a strategic perspective. As audiences that doesn’t worry us. We’ve learned that, once a device like the rack or the centrifuge appears, Bond must necessarily have to battle it in some form. A similar example is the trapdoor lift in Stromberg‘s Atlantis; itself a repeat of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE‘s bridge-over-troubled-piranhas.
In Bond‘s world Murphy‘s 007th law demands what can go wrong must go wrong in the most entertaining fashion - and that’s what we collectively expect.
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Just like he always gets in that situation where only exactly the utterly absurd gadget which he was given by Q earlier in the movie can save him (the wrist dart gun is a perfect example).
But that’s Bond: he’s a man with a job that gets him into situations that don’t happen to ordinary people and he gets away most of the time. And that’s what makes the stories worth telling. Or would you prefer stories about John Doe who gets into everyman’s situations and fails miserably? Would only work as comedy, and many comedies work exactly that way. That said, most comedies would have much more trouble getting through a reality check than most Bond movies.
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Also, comedy actively pursues the absurdity of situations while Bond films - for the most part - try to hide it behind the veneer of drama and the sweep of events. And we’re fine with it since that’s the convention of the genre.
When Bond places a bug in a Fabergé egg he naturally arrives just in time to pick up a crucial conversation. The much more realistic turn of events would be he has to listen to 16 hrs of blather or, hardly worse, daytime tv laced with domestic sounds of constipation. In a comedy he probably would.
Christopher Wood‘s MOONRAKER novelisation offers another example: unpacking in his room at Drax‘ chateau Bond takes in the furniture, an antique flamethrower-shower, a huge bed with ornately carved headboard in the shape of a dragon or basilisk or gargoyle, I forget.
Out of a whim, Bond dares himself to put his hand between the jaws of the beast - and immediately touches something that turns out to be a bug. He’s not even been searching for surveillance; he just reaches out and it appears under his fingertips.
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My favorite is YOLT, wherein Bond removes his “Japanese” fisherman disguise to reveal a ninja suit complete with a set of suction cups he donned that morning just in case he stumbled onto a secret evil lair in the course of his day and it featured smooth metal walls he might need to climb around on. Which, naturally, is exactly what happens.
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It‘s also nice that a secret agent has a parachute with the Union Jack, just in case the bad guys get confused: Are we following the right guy?
But the third nipple is a logical gadget.
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4 June
For one of these, it’s time to say goodnight. Parting is such sweet sorrow but, y’know, cope. Jeez.
- Diamonds are Forever - Moon buggy chase
- Dr No - hearse chase
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voters
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I‘ve just watched both on YouTube - did I just see that moon buggy wheel come off and roll through the shot of a wrecked limousine?
Scratch it from history.
No really, I mean it. That chase conveys neither danger nor slapstick convincingly. It’s probably the first moment in the film where the shoestring budget left after Connery‘s paycheque makes itself felt. Some of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER is a sendup of its surreal genre habitat - but this belongs in the unintentional pathetic category, sorry.
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“I think they were on their way to a funeral” is a simplistic but hilarious line to me. I was inclined to go with the Dr. No scene just for that alone.
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