Voting closes June 6.
Third Place Death-Off
- Goldfinger
- Klebb
0
voters
THE FINAL
- Silva
- Drax
0
voters
3 Likes
I voted for:
Third Place:
Auric Goldfinger (G) over Rosa Klebb (FRWL)
1st Place:
Hugo Drax (M) over Raoul Silva (Sk)
2 Likes
Drax and Goldfinger are my two favorite villains, so that was easy.
3 Likes
Isn’t it interesting how Drax always fares so well in these things? I’m old enough to remember the real-time reviews for MR and even the critics who praised it (and there were a lot more than you might think) tended to put down Drax as a drab and unexciting villain compared to the “Good Old Days” of Dr No and Goldfinger. I think they blasted Lonsdale for being low-energy or some such, but it’s his detached coldness that makes him so effective in my book. Hitler without the histrionics is actually more terrifying.
8 Likes
From Vincent Candy’s review in The New York Times, June 29, 1979:
What’s it about? It’s about movie making of the kind Georges Méliès pioneered in films like “Voyage to the Moon” (1902) and “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea” (1907). It’s the unimaginable most satisfactorily imagined.
Almost everyone connected with the movie is in top form, even Mr. Moore who has a tendency to facetiousness when left to his own devices. Here he’s as ageless, resourceful and graceful as the character he inhabits. Mr. Lonsdale is sometimes uncomfortably wooden and square, but then he’s not supposed to be a barrel of laughs.
Full at (gift link):
7 Likes
The rest of the world needs to accept MR is a masterpiece - otherwise more globes will be released in honour of the great man, Hugo Drax.
6 Likes
The reappraisal of MR is probably the most surprising and overdue development of Bond fan taste. I remember how hated the film was in certain circles, also by the critics.
Time and experience equals better judgment. In some cases.
4 Likes
I always loved the movie. I became Bondfan in 1981, so the first couple of years I didn’t see it and the movie became for me more and more magical, because I remembered the scene’s I saw on tv at Dutch movie tv shows like “Simon’s Scope” and it also was the first Bond book I bought (the Christopher Wood one) which became my favorite book and for years I read it twice a year.
Then in the summer of 1984 I bought my first vcr (from my savings as a teenager) so I could rent (on V2000!) the old Bondmovies and ofcourse Moonraker was one of the first I saw on video and I was hooked for life. I am a huge Bondfan, but I don’t take it all that seriously, maybe that helps loving this movie and also Spy and DAF.
7 Likes
Seconded. The 1970s opens with DAF, and closes with MR. What more could be asked of a decade of cinema?
6 Likes
I would add that when taken on its own terms, MR hits all the rights notes, and harmonizes them perfectly. Outside of its Bondian qualities, as a work of film art, MR is amazing. I quote again, Tom Allen from The Village Voice:
"…enter the James Bond of Moonraker, a conceit of pure reflex action and the centerpiece symbol of a fully streamlined catalytic formula… it is as stylized as animation, and as choreographed as musical comedy… The people who made this impudent, wry, and exhilarating movie completely left out the '70s and its predominating motif of realism. Moonraker is the most expensive avant-garde movie since Barry Lyndon."
5 Likes
It’s interesting that US critics apparently were much kinder to MR.
Here in Germany the movie was slaughtered by reviewers.
Of course, this nation is not known for having a good sense of humour.
4 Likes
It’s been a satisfying turnaround inside the fandom. The product has always been good, it’s just the angle from which it has been viewed. Someone who wants another FRWL is naturally going to hate MR. But another who wants escapist fantasy is going to think it’s the best thing ever. But at the same time, it’s a mistake to think it’s devoid of Fleming touches and a non stop laughathon. Tension and horror are still present amongst the double taking pigeons. I’m glad we have the variety. If all the films were stripped down, serious affairs the series would be missing a lot of what has made it so distinguishable.
8 Likes