Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4250 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-07-17
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Box set, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Greek, Dutch, Hindi, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, English, Swedish
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 122 minutes

Special Features
THE ULTIMATE EDITION CONTAINS: NEVER BEFORE RELEASED ON DVD:

NEVER BEFORE RELEASED ON DVD: Newly Recorded Audio Commentary Featuring Sir Roger Moore DECLASSIFIED: MI6 VAULT 007 in Rio - Original 1979 Production Featurette • Ken Adam’s Production Films • Bond ’79 Learning to Freefall - Skydiving Test Footage • Skydiving Storyboards • Circus Footage Cable Car Alternative Storyboards 007 MISSION CONTROL Interactive Guide Into the World of Moonraker THE COMPLETE SPECIAL FEATURES LIBRARY: MISSION DOSSIER Audio Commentary Featuring Director Lewis Gilbert and Members of the Cast and Crew • Inside Moonraker - An Original Documentary The Men Behind the Mayhem - Special Effects Documentary MINISTRY OF PROPAGANDA Original Trailer & Photo Gallery

Synopsis
In the 11th installment of the 007 series, director Lewis Gilbert delivers a visually thrilling progression in filmmaking. Roger Moore returns as dashing secret service agent James Bond. This time around Bond must investigate the theft of a space shuttle with help from beautiful CIA agent Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) and sexy Euro supermodel Corrine (Corrine Clery). Agent 007 discovers that genocidal maniac-millionaire Hugo Drax (Michel Lonsdale) plans to poison all of humanity from outer space and repopulate earth with only the most perfectly bred humans. A variety of traps and villains awaits Bond, including the recurring character Jaws (Richard Kiel, also featured in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME). Filmed in such exotic locations as Southern California, Venice, and the Amazon, Gilbert delivers the formula Bond packet of girls, gadgets, and guns. However, he also goes further, sending Agent 007 into space. MOONRAKER takes great risks in blending the spy and science fiction genres. In spite of such an unruly coupling, the film rewards viewers with its finale of climactic plot twists and stellar special effects.

Customer Reviews

I'm not a Bond fan..but
The reason why this movie is great is because it packs alot of action into 2 hours and the viewer is never left bored. It is the most cartoonish of all the Bond movies reaching its peak of silliness right off the bat with Jaws, returning from The Spy Who Loved Me, surviving a freefall from an airplane. The absurdity is made all the more tragic in that it follows one of, if not the most spectacular Bond opening in the entire series. Moonraker is a movie with sky high highlights and some pretty bad lowlights. The pre-credit sequence with Bond being shoved from an airplane sans parachute is thrilling and leads into the spectacular Moonraker theme sung by Shirley Bassey. This movie may have the best musical score of any of the Bond movie and that is no small feat.



I fully understand if people don't like this film. It is the least serious entry in the series existing in a completely different universe than films like `From Russia with Love' and `Casino Royale' but Bond was never meant to be serious and thats why i will never be a Bond fan.
The double entendres and the silly dialogue will never make me laugh; they will only make me cringe.

Selah,
Brendan Clarke

Bond in space? Well this was 1979 ...
Moonraker, and James Bond struts his stuff where no Bond has ever been before, yes, outer space. Following hot on the heels of the massive box office successes of films like Star Wars, the Bond producers must have felt the need to keep Bond 'current' - after all, how do you keep the most successful movie series in cinema history hot and topical?

Apart from the space scenes (which, when viewed from the lofty perch of 2008, do seem rather amateurish) this is still a great Bond movie. All the formulaic stuff is there - an amazing opening sequence (involving parachute jumping), the briefing by M, the crazed villain (Drax), his henchman (Jaws), the leading lady (Holly Goodhead, who is also a CIA spy), quips, Q's gadgets and exotic locations (such as Venice, and more impressively, Rio).

Moonraker was a smash at the box office at the time of its release. Incidentally, it has very little resemblance to Ian Fleming's novel of the same name, but still, the producers got it right and this is two hours packed with action and adventure.

See James Bond movies for what they are - a bit of fun and escapism.

You Only Live Thrice
Roger Moore's biggest box-office hit during his tenure as Bond, Moonraker has seen its reputation plummet to the point where its widely regarded as the worst film in the entire series. It's not exactly difficult to see why. The ill-advised jokes that end the otherwise stunningly shot pretitle sequence of Jaws and a parachuteless Bond battling midair unfortunately give a hint of what is to come, but for the first 35 minutes it chugs along very competently, even throwing in one good setpiece in a G-Force simulator. Then comes the gondola/hovercraft sequence, a setpiece that abandons any notion of internal logic for cheap gags and illustrates one of the film's biggest problems: there's no real menace when we know Bond doesn't need to rely on his wits because he's got an absurd gadget for every occasion, and without any sense of threat the action scenes constantly fall flat. Many of them aren't even particularly well-staged but look rather haphazardly thrown together. Worse still, by offering the second consecutive reworking of You Only Live Twice's plot (all from the same director, Lewis Gilbert) it all feels like it's just going through the motions because they can't think of anything better to do.

While it doesn't show the contempt for Bond that Octopussy seemed to revel in as it seemed to go out of its way to humiliate Bond by making him literally butt of all the jokes, it constantly winks at the audience as if to say "We know it's nonsense, but at least it's very expensive nonsense." Unfortunately, it does set up two of the least welcome future developments in the series - as well as being the one where the product placement started to get out of control (my, didn't 7-Up and British Airways do well?), it also started the unfortunate tradition of the Michael G. Wilson cameo. Still, it's nice to see Bernard Lee getting to play a warmer M in his final Bond, finally proud of the boy (the film is very much the end of an era, with most of the surviving members of the old team breaking up - this was Lee, Gilbert and Ken Adam's last film), the great special effects are genuinely impressive even 28 years on and Michel Lonsdale provides the series with one of its best villains and gets all the best lines ("Look after Mr Bond. See that some harm comes to him") even if he is wasted by the derivative plot.

There's not a huge amount in the way of new extras on this two-disc Ultimate Edition - Roger Moore's audio commentary, a 1979 making of featurette, footage of the Rio shoot, test footage for the skydiving sequence and a couple of storyboard sequences. Sadly the teaser trailer sending up hairspray and perfume ads is still not included, although all the extras from the original edition have been carried over.