Moonraker

Moonraker was released in June 1979 as the eleventh film in the James Bond Saga. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert, who also directed the previous 3 Bond films. The film cost $34 million to produce and had a box office revenue of $210 300 000 worldwide. Moonraker received an Academy nomination for best special effects.

The Movie

The plot revolves around Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale), a supremacist lunatic devising a grand plan to repopulate the earth with a superior race. It all starts with the mid-air heist of a space shuttle.

Bond and Goodhead

Bond is dispatched to investigate the theft of the space shuttle, which leads him to Drax’s spacecraft manufacturing plant. Here he discovers Drax’s evil plan and also meets up with Bond girl, Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles).

Drax in his compound.

The film culminates in Bond and Goodhead commandeering one of the space shuttles en route to the space station orbiting the earth, from where Drax would exterminate mankind.

Epic space battles

Marines are dispatched in space shuttles to attack the orbiting station, and it is in this part of the film, that an epic space battle erupts, straight out of the Star Wars movies. Drax releases the capsules down to earth that carries the deadly poison to kill everyone alive. With battles raging around them and scuffles with Jaws (Richard Kiel), Bond and Goodhead set out to shoot down the capsules before they enter the earth’s atmosphere.

The Movie Trailer

Reference

Wikipedia. 2021. Moonraker. [ONLINE] Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonraker_(film). [Accessed 12 January 2021].