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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shutyertrap" data-source="post: 293316" data-attributes="member: 134">I’m over half way done with my Bond Binge! Good thing cuz these 3 films I just watched were rough. This also marks the point at which I only saw these on TV, if at all, versus seeing them in the theater first. Some new trends emerged, starting with Bond not smoking at all. Also the end credits now started displaying some of the crew as opposed to only the cast. Lastly, Cubby Broccoli is sole producer, Saltzman having sold his rights away.MOONRAKER (1979)At the end of The Spy Who Loved Me, we were told the next film would be For Your Eyes Only, but instead we got this. Well to catch the zeitgeist of Star Wars, it was decided to put Bond into space, so best I can tell this script was thrown together in a hurry. This movie is practically nonsensical. How so? Movie opens inside a small private aircraft with only Bond, stewardess, and pilot. Pilot shoots controls, puts on parachute as does stewardess, time for Bond to die. Fight ensues, pilot jumps out of plane, and then Bond gets tossed out by, wait for it, Jaws! Where the hell was he hiding? Some cool aerial stunt work happens oanly to end with Jaws’ parachute failing and him falling into a circus tent, collapsing the whole thing. Oh that Jaws!Opening credit song is the worst to date, as I don’t think there’s a cool way to incorporate Moonraker into any lyrics. Location shifts to California, where space shuttles are being built by this Drax guy, who lives in a French castle he shipped stone by stone. He apparently also shipped in the French countryside and some society people for his pheasant hunts. One Dr Holly Goodhead(!) is head of the shuttle program. With no warning, for no reason as to be seen, Drax doesn’t even attempt to be a good person, ordering his martial arts henchman to ensure Bond has an accident. First from a centrifuge for astronauts going to 15 g’s, then by having someone take a sniper position in the trees during the pheasant hunt. Bond casually misses the bird and kills the sniper, Drax doesn’t bat an eye. Next thing you know we’re in Venus (why not?) visiting a glass factory that you know is going to get smashed up real good. Sure enough, out of the blue some people start trying to kill Bond, no idea who they even are, just so we can have a chase through the Venus canals. At one point Bond’s gondola becomes a hovercraft, and we get lots of people doing double takes, including a goddamn pidgeon. I mean really? And yes, he has a fight with martial arts hench, who destroys every piece of glass on display before dying.Bond sneaks into a laboratory that cracked me up because it had fine art on display. It’s a giant lab, very full of tech, and Bond (after getting some ‘sleep’) brings the authorities to bust it. Except it is not just completely gone, but now looks like the grand Italian office of one Mr Drax. Those are some efficient movers! Meanwhile Drax, no longer having a cohort, calls dial-a-hench and hires Jaws. Now I’m gonna take a moment to acknowledge the brilliance of the cartoon The Venture Bros, as the bad guys all belong to The Guild of Calamitous Intent, and you indeed can order up henchmen in just such a fashion. I had no idea that was a parody of Bond, and I love it all the more because of it.Action now moves to Rio, where Bond makes contact with a female and literally after 2 minutes of dialogue, they get right to getting naked. I mean wow. It also happens to be Carnival, so after smashing, the two go about spying yet another lab. In a sea of people, and despite not sharing travel itinerary with the bad guys, Jaws emerges from the crowd having spotted Bond and his lady friend who is hanging out in a dark alley while Bond investigates. Jaws proceeds to do the slowest walk up to the girl, who could have run away any time, picks her up, and does she scream? Nope. A group of people walk by, she doesn’t call for help or anything. It’s like a silent film. This winds up being a trend in the whole movie, where other than the main principal actors, no one speaks, screams, dies while making noise, nothing. People nod and point, that’s about it. Anyway, Bond and the girl escape, I forget how, it doesn’t really matter. Wherever Bond goes, bad guys suddenly appear and try to kill him, as if he has a homing beacon on him. Jaws bites completely through the cable of an aerial gondola Bond is in, not that it does anything other than look menacing. At the end of that escape, Jaws emerges from a pile of rubble and is greeted by some busty blond in pigtails. It’s love at first sight! I honestly was disappointed when she smiled that she didn’t have braces on, seeing as how much she liked Jaws’ smile. Bond meanwhile takes this moment immediately after escaping death to make out with the new lady he is with. Shall we talk about the blatant product placement? I noticed this even when I was a kid. There are giant 7-Up signs present, one of which gets smashed through. Seiko watches also get heavy screen time. In subsequent films there’s no attempt at hiding who paid to get advertising in, as their product name or logo sticks out like a sore thumb. I mentioned how hastily this script seemed to be thrown together, as really it just seems like they came up with a bunch of stunts they wanted to do and through some dialogue to bridge the gaps. We had skydiving, boat chase in Venus, cable car gondola fight in the air, and then there’s the Jungle Cruise of death down the rivers of the Amazon. This ends with Jaws going over a waterfall (is it Angel Falls?) presumably to his death. Like I believe that. Bond meanwhile, now on foot in the midst of the jungle, sees a hot chick running around, so of course he follows. Wouldn’t you know it, she leads him right to Drax’s lair. Where he then fights an anaconda! Drax once again captures Bond, and at least admits he wants Bond to have an interesting death. Here’s the thing, you’ve tried killing him how many times now? Don’t you think you should just put a bullet in him at this point? No? Okay. How Bond escapes is hilarious, as it’s through a vent shaft for where a launching space shuttle’s exhaust flame would travel. He travels about 20 feet and escapes the oncoming flames. Totally believable. Then he and Goodhead hop on a space shuttle as pilots, where they are at 10 on the countdown and the two haven’t even buckled in yet.Turns out Drax has a space cult, trying to create the master race in outer space. The entire space portion of this film is ridonkulous, whether it be the acting while weightless, the ‘science’ of fake gravity, the laser battle, everything. Jaws and his lady friend become heroes, saving Bond but setting themselves up for certain doom on a destructing space station, except the part that breaks off with them inside apparently lands safely back on earth. Jeez-us.FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981)I had hopes this would be way better than Moonraker simply because it was supposed to be ready first. The Bond writer responsible for Blofeld was suing, and so the producers decided they needed to end that villain for good. The opening of the film has Bond visiting the grave of his wife, who Blofeld killed. A helicopter picks him up at the cemetery, but oh no, Blofeld takes control and flies it via remote control. For some reason Blofeld is in a wheelchair by the way. By the opening credit sequence, Blofeld is dead, but not before trying to bargain for his life by saying, and I have no idea why, “I’ll buy you a delicatessen, in steel”. I mean what? The opening credits are essentially a music video for Sheena Easton, and the score is done by Bill Conti, famous for Rocky. I’m just gonna get this out of the way right now, he’s the worst. Not only is the Bond theme barely used, when it is it’s been completely murdered by Conti with some disco beats. Instead the tune of For Yours Eyes Only is used over and over and over, in various music styles.Most of this film takes place either in Greece or the Italian Alps. A lot of the action beats seem to be in an effort to one-up prior Bond movie stunts. Oh, you liked the alpine skiing before, including the bobsled fight? How ‘bout an even longer ski chase with motorcycles chasing, and then they continue down a bobsled run! It’s quite well done actually. There’s multiple underwater sequences in Greece that are also rather good, and of course there’s sharks. Sorta dumb sharks though, as they don’t attack a bleeding Bond but instead go for the rando thrashing bad guy. We also get some rock climbing action, including a very nice fall stunt where the safety line saves Bond. While the action sequences are rather decent, probably great for ‘81, the story is incredibly low stakes. Russians want a device that went down with a British spy vessel. It’s discovered first by Bond girl Melina’s parents, who get killed, causing her to want revenge. Two Greek ‘business’ men become the prime suspects of who ordered the hit, Bond and Melina investigate. No fate of the world at stake, no giant evil lair, just the threat of the Russians getting something that will expose British naval positions. The main henchman this go around is a German olympic bi-athlete, so excellent skiier and marksman, except when it comes to actually shooting at Bond. At one point he literally throws a motorcycle at Bond. He gets the lamest death because he barely even got to put up a fight at the end. The true villain baddy gets taken out by the other Greek businessman before dying himself, so neither Bond nor Melina actually get to do the killing. Lame.Perhaps the most shocking development in this movie is Bond’s sex life. First off, he meets Melina and doesn’t so much as look lasciviously at her or even attempt to hit on her. Then he meets BiBi, an olympic hopeful ice skater who is maybe 20. She makes it very obvious she wants some old man Bond (Moore was in his 50’s by this point), and he almost looks disgusted at the prospect. The only person he has sex with is a ‘countess’, who really is a high class hooker, and he does it purely to pump info out of. Like for once, he does it purely for Queen and Country. It’s not until the final moment of the movie that Bond beds Melina, a development that comes with no warning and seems like a tacked on afterthought. A thought I had during the casino scene was enough with the Bacarat. Nobody in the audience has any clue what is going on, other than it looking like pretentious black jack. The guards in this movie broke rank from being the typical color coded minion henchmen, but they are still simply the worst guards in the world. No discipline, zero awareness, and they can’t shoot for ****. And once again we see many times where Bond gets randomly attacked with the intent to kill, but the minute he is cornered they settle for capturing him and setting up some elaborate way of killing him. I get it, do that a couple of times, but then call it a day and kill immediately as you are getting closer and closer to your main evil goal! There’s also a moment where Melina is doing her wreck diving in a very skimpy wetsuit while everyone else is in full skin coverings. Bond swims up on her, she indicates they should swim topside, and proceeds to take off her scuba tanks before doing so. I was like, that’s random and unnecessary. Well later, after an underwater battle that finds the pair needing air, guess what they find on the ocean floor? Her scuba tanks! Total eye roll.OCTOPUSSY (1983)I honestly don’t know if I ever saw this or not, as nothing rang a bell for me. Remember when I said Moonraker had the worst song? Song this time is called All Time High and it might very well be a new low. The rest of the movie is sorta average. Good stunts on a train, some precision flying of a mini jet plane in the opening, and Bond on the outside of a flying Beechcraft plane that clearly was what Tom Cruise outdid for his Mission Impossible stunt, but everything else is going through the motions. Story has Russians again, with one wanting to invade the rest of Europe because who really is going to oppose them, but most of it involves a double crossing smuggler, and Bond girl Octopussy, who also smuggles, operates a circus, and lives on a sapphic island in India with her own female warrior cult, some of who dress in red unitards and look like Mrs. Incredible. Oh, there is a guy with a saw blade yo-yo, but he requires a balcony to properly use it so it’s kinda lame in that respect.We do get to see another double 0 in action, who in hindsight is terrible at his job. He was undercover as a clown in Octopussy’s circus, and tries making his escape in full clown gear, with a bright red balloon tied around his wrist. I mean he may as well have been yelling his location to the baddies. There’s an Indian henchman who’s name I never got, so I just called him Thuggie Cultist. What’s funny is later there is a dinner scene that Temple of Doom totally outdoes the next year. What’s more, the palace exterior almost looks the same. Bond is back to his sexist ways, at one point in Q’s lab aiming a video camera at a woman’s chest and then zooming it in and out quickly, requisite lurid sound effect added. When he lands on hot woman island, he’s practically giddy at the prospects. Instead he settles for Octopussy by forcing himself on her. He fights back and says no, giving into him moments later. Boy do some things not age well! At the end of the movie, he’s apparently very injured, leg and arm immobilized, until Octopussy suggests they can’t smash, and boom, just like that he’s healed. What a sympathy whore!-----------------------------------These movies shows all the signs of a franchise that is running out of gas. The ideas aren’t fresh, there are so many tropes a Bond film supposedly has to live by, all of which just weigh things down. The opening credits by Maurice Binder show no originality, as he’s been doing them this entire time. The humor is silly and childish, going for the easy laugh. Moore’s Bond seems bored, going through the motions of being a secret agent, where the booze, gambling, travel, and women no longer offer any thrill. Even the escapes from death come across his face as been there, done that. Unfortunately these next 3 official Bond films and the return Connery flick probably aren’t going to fix this. We’ll see.</blockquote>

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