Moonraker (1979)

Bond. In. SPACE!!!

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CW: Violence including violence against women, casual sexism, sexual harassment, murder, mild mention of genocide.

This used to be one of David’s favorite Bond movies. We emphasize the used to, because after the real promise of The Spy Who Loved Me, this movie…is a total dud. It’s almost a remake of its much better predecessor, and after watching about half the film you start to realize you’ve already seen this before. No one in the movie is giving a particularly interesting or compelling performance, even Roger Moore. The only saving grace is the visual effects, which do a pretty decent job of portraying space travel. It’s a mediocre homage to 2001 and a lazy rewrite of The Spy Who Loved Me this week as Macintosh & Maud review 1979’s Moonraker!

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Excerpt taken from "James Bond Theme," written and composed by John Barry, and performed by the John Barry Orchestra. ℗ 1962, 2012 Capitol Records LLC.

Excerpt taken from “Main Theme” from the film Star Wars, written and composed by John Williams, and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. Copyright 1977 20th Century Records.

Clips from Moonraker are copyright 1979 Danjaq, LLC and United Artists Corporation.

Excerpt taken from “Fly Me to the Moon,” written by Bart Howard, arranged by Quincy Jones, and performed by Frank Sinatra with the Count Basie Orchestra. Copyright 1964 Reprise Records.

Excerpt taken from “Moonraker,” written by John Barry and Hal David, and performed by Shirley Bassey. © 1979 Danjaq, S.A. & United Artists Music and Records Group, Inc.

Excerpt taken from “For Your Eyes Only,” written by Bill Conti and Mick Leeson, and performed by Sheena Easton. Copyright 1981 Liberty Records; Danjaq, S.A. & United Artists Music Co., Inc.

Intro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.