In my continuing adoration of Moonraker as a sort of monument to wanton excess, I’ve often cited the stainless steel-looking conference table in the pyramid HQ; a large and functional furnishing that folds in on itself and retracts when the blast doors open for the shuttle take-off. The fact that funds would be spent for Ken Adam to design this wonderful thing, and for the prop department to build it and make it work, given that it has less than a minute of screen time, is something I’ve always loved.
However…recently I was perusing the great “Thunderballs” site and found this image of the table with every chair occupied, in what looks for all the world like a high-powered business meeting. Everyone except Drax is dressed in a dark business suit and all eyes are on the villain, as if this were a meeting of the Board of Directors for Drax Industries and he’s holding court.
So I turn to this august assemblage of Bond experts for enlightenment: what is the story behind this photo? Does it actually reflect a scene that was scripted and filmed, but then edited out? If so, it’s interesting that none of these “suits” were invited to the space station. Were the board members unaware of Drax’s scheme and believed he was a legitimate businessman? If so, did they find it at all odd that they were attending a meeting inside the pyramid of a lost civilization? Was it supposed to be astonishing for us as viewers when the ceiling opened later and we thought, “Wow! They never knew there was a space shuttle over their heads the whole time!” If so, is this a precursor to Zorin’s meeting in AVTAK where an attendee apparently thought it was normal to start walking down a flight of stairs in an airship in flight? Is this some kind of comment on the corporate world’s lack of situational awareness?
Alternatively, is this a photo of an Eon or United Artist meeting? I’m guessing not as Lonsdale is in costume and everyone seems deferential to him. Or was the photo staged merely to establish scale and show that yes, those were functional chairs?
Color me intrigued. Any insights would be much appreciated, thanks.
On the one hand, it would’ve added a bit of “wow” when the table later transforms (even if there was a precedent of sorts in GF), but on the other hand, it would’ve presented some problems in logic, like how could the meeting attendees not know something weird was up if they had to travel to the jungle to gather? Or if they did know the big picture, why did they not push for seats on the shuttles? Did they, and Drax immolated them for daring to ask? (again, echoing GF, so maybe it was deemed too repetitive?)
But then, MR is not exactly without it’s logic issues. Like, how do you hide a space station from radar while it’s being constructed? How do you conduct multiple shuttle launches from multiple locales in order to build the station, all without anyone noticing? How do you then land those shuttles after each mission, again without tripping radar on air traffic control boards and military defense systems? And so on.
Anyway, I’m happy Holly got out of that chair when she did.
Also, I neglected to provide the link to the Thunderballs page, with lots of great photos from every Bond film: https://www.thunderballs.org/
As usual, I watched my favorite Bond film again on my birthday yesterday in the late evening and at the first meeting between Dolly and Jaws, when they look straight at each other for the first time, you see a close up of Dolly and then of Jaws looking at her, grins with his steel teeth and perhaps you will unknowingly remember that in your memory like braces on her? It’s still a guess, but I’ve always thought she had braces too and I’ve seen the film at least a hundred times and now I’m not exaggerating, but maybe also because she 's the type of girl in movies who always have braces and you just make this up in your mind and like we all know the mind can do very strange things with you.
I think the “braces” thing is a case of some viewers’ brains fixing the scene. It just makes sense to expect braces there: Jaws and Dolly meet, Jaws smiles to reveal steel teeth, Dolly smiles to reveal metal in her mouth as well, and it’s love at first sight. It’s how it SHOULD have been filmed.
Similarly, when I was in the 3rd grade, the television debut of Goldfinger on ABC was the talk of the schoolyard the next day, and one kid insisted that when the crushed-up cube that had been the car containing Mr Solo was lowered into Oddjob’s pickup truck, a stream of blood was trickling out of it. Since we only had a black and white TV set at my house, I couldn’t call him out on that with confidence, but I was still pretty sure he was bonkers. And yet, I understand it: we’re supposed to be thinking “My God, there was a man in that car!” so it’s kind of logical that a brain – and especially a young brain at the height of the horror craze – would edit in…and maybe even SEE…a dose of Hollywood hemoglobin.
Things were different in the days before home video and on-demand instant replays.
Forgot to add: in fairness, while I think braces would have been the better choice, it might have been risky to include braces AND that Pippi Longstocking hairdo, lest Dolly came across as a minor. Biting jugulars certainly makes Jaws a naughty boy, but pedophilia is a line not to be crossed.
Yeah. I’ve wondered what was discussed in the scene for a while. If Drax was being deceptive or completely honest, and if the footage actually exists outside of stills. There was also a scene on board the space station with Bond and Holly walking through a meditation chamber.
The complete score is also very interesting to me in just how much Barry score wasn’t included in the final version of the film. I can’t say I expected that, and would be keen on watching a version with it all reinstated. Moonraker still has secrets to be uncovered after all this time.
Certainly not. While some big glossy pictures would be nice, all we’d get would be another official version of the story. This would be a job for an independent writer like Helfenstein or Sellers.
MR is perfect for a Charles Helfenstein style book. Celebrating something that has been typically portrayed as a black sheep, showing historical reviews and reappraisals, along with the whole process in getting the film made.
There’s an old book released around the time called James Bond 007 Moonraker Special, which I don’t have but will get sometime soon. From what I’ve seen it’s fine, but nowhere near the detail I’d be wanting now.
It’s absurd when you think about the reputation Moonraker has with the likes of Barry, Adam, Bassey and the original MI6 team all involved. Paraphrasing here, but soundtrack reviews usually say “Moonraker does not deserve a majestic score such as this.” Sorry, but I’m calling a comment like that cognitive dissonance. The score reflects the overall craftsmanship involved.
Built in negativity can make people shy, but it’s okay to like Moonraker and many people actually do. When you look at merchandising it’s usually front and centre, which shows there’s a market. Laser guns, t-shirts, a shuttle figure and soundtrack are all readily available for purchase right now.
There was definitely a long period there where the schoolyard bullies of Bond fandom liked to kick around us lovers of Moonraker. Personally I consider “gatekeepers” the ugly part of fandom, and I’m glad that sort of thing has never fully taken root in the Bond fan community the way it has so many others. Anyone who says “real fans have to like this” and “if you like that, you’re not a real fan” can go take a long dip in the piranha pool as far as I’m concerned. It was particularly annoying in the early to mid-80s when a handful of jumped-up fanboys managed to get books published so they could pass off their own biases as gospel, as if they’d carried down the tablets from the mountain top to speak for all of us.
The idea Moonraker met with a critical drubbing in '79 is revisionist history, and a lot of the “every fan knows…” BS about the film is based on readings of texts by those fan-authors who felt entitled to declare what’s good and what isn’t. It all came as an early and valuable lesson to me that just because something is in print does not make it either objective, informed or true. It’s a lesson that, thanks to the internet, we get to relearn pretty much every day of our lives.
I’ve only seen the cover of “James Bond 007 Moonraker Special” and a couple pages of preview images on Amazon, but it looks like one of those British “annuals” they used to do for Batman or Superman…which is to say, a mess. Recently I found the movie magazine Warren released in the summer of '79, reproduced over at the Internet Archive. I wouldn’t call it all that wonderful, either, but it did the trick for me at the time, and now it’s free, which is always a plus. Ian Fleming's Moonraker: The Official Movie Magazine : Warren Publishing Company : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Yes, it is an annual and more for kids, almost no information and most of the pictures are not realy sharp or beautiful, the only annual with actual interesting information and even an interview with director Glen is the FYEO annual.
The magazine is much better and that’s what the annual should have been.
It’s true that this is a relatively slim book with few fotos and a weird mix of literary and film ‘articles’ (more like a mosaic of brief snippets, not even features in the traditional sense; it’s what you’d get in the tv guide magazines of that day).
BUT…
It was a time where we fans had few widely accessible publications other than the Joe Hembus book. German film magazine Cinema did a special to MOONRAKER with a silver cover - for a long time the bible of many fans - about four times the page count of this. But that also contained two pages about all the films up to MOONRAKER and two pages on the books, the music and the special effects. It wasn’t an in-depth special on the latest film.
And other than this there was hardly anything accessible to us. The Steve Rubin book - that other ‘Bond bible’ for German fans - only came out two years later.
So we gobbled up everything else we could and were happy. This ‘special’ was outstanding in that it contained a double page of Bond’s personal file and a fictional assessment of the agent. Also, it’s one of the few publications of the era that dipped into the Fleming background on Bond and let us know that Bond enjoys sailing and relaxes with jazz. As a fan back then you would have to dig deep to gather this from Fleming interviews (that usually weren’t translated into German yet).
MOONRAKER itself…
It was ruthlessly chastised by some fans for the sf angle and the way Jaws turns on his boss. During the 90s and early 00s I had a bit fallen out of my love with MOONRAKER myself. Looking back though I think those flaying the film - that some claimed they didn’t watch - came largely from the ranks of hardcore Connery fans. Who just often happened to be in the more influential positions in the media back then. It’s been much the same with ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE in reverse during the last twenty years.
Those hardcore Connery fans had a hard time after TSWLM - and must have realised with MOONRAKER that the ‘new’ guy was likely going to stay. I don’t believe they had high hopes for Connery’s return to the role after 1979. There were some fairly depressed guys - usually guys - in that crowd who hated everything about MOONRAKER*.
