It’s always been one of my favorite Bond movies, purely for Scaramanga, a completely unique villain in the Bond canon, and actually believable why he might keep Bond alive after capturing him rather than killing him on sight.
Yes, he has no dreams of global domination, no, his motive is more basic. He’s bored! Killing people is too easy. He needs a challenge. Unfortunately for him, he met his better.
He’s Jean Girad looking for Ricky Bobby:
Jean Girard or maybe Scaramanga: My husband Gregory and I want only that what every other couple wants: to tame komodo dragons in Sri Lanka and teach them to perform Hamlet, but before I can do that…
… I must be beaten by a driver/killer who is truly better than me.
I will battle you with the entirety of my heart and you will probably lose. But maybe, just maybe. You might challenge me. The Beatles needed the Rolling Stones. Even Diane Sawyer needed Katie Couric. Will you be my Katie Couric, Mister Bondy?
I love that the landlady from Kung Fu Hustle is one of the martial arts schoolgirls in The Man with the Golden Gun!
I agree with you about Scaramanga. But I was underwhelmed by his and Bond’s final confrontation.
Looking back over my review, it comes off as mostly negative. I didn’t really dislike the film; it was just frustratingly full of unrealized potential.
The Dick Shawn Bond never got any recognition. 
This is my opinion of it, as well. The final conflict, as you say, was disappointing. A lot of the film was cartoonishly absurd. I think one reviewer called this and Moonraker the most puerile of the Bond films, and it’s true. From the unwelcome reappearance of Sheriff Pepper to the inept agent Goodnight to the absurd Mob villains (“Sorry, Al!” . But, to give the blame where it belongs, Fleming didn’t know how to write American mobsters. read Diamonds are Forever sometime.) to Band’s unconvincing speech about solar power, the film is a collection of cringeworthy moments. It’s saved by Christopher Lee as Scaramonga and Herve Vellechez as Tattoo and by Maude Adams. and, of course, the great scenery. But this is way down on my list of Bond films.
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
I really enjoyed this one.
While I did like both Live and Let Die and The Man With the Golden Gun (the first more than the second), Roger Moore’s third outing feels like he’s truly hit his stride as Bond. He’s out of Connery’s shadow and done trying to differentiate himself; he just is James Bond now.
And the film itself is a very tight thriller in its own right. From the great ski stunts at the beginning to the explosive finish, there’s lots of action with clear and high stakes. Well done.
There are, of course, the usual bits with Bond trotting the globe gathering intelligence before things really get going, and even those parts were stepped up. The scene at the pyramids was terrifically moody - almost Hitchcockian, if I dare say so.
Barbara Bach is one of the more formidable Bond girls to date, a match for 007 in many ways and also a character with her own agenda, not just window dressing.
And then there’s Jaws. I’m not sure what to say about Jaws. He’s one of the most iconic - yet most ridiculous - of all the Bond baddies. He’s super-strong and indestructible with powerful metal teeth… But why? And how? I guess that doesn’t matter. Richard Kiel nails the part.
Stromberg, on the other hand, is kind of a poor man’s Blofeld. I didn’t find him particularly menacing or intimidating. But a Bond film needs a supervillain and I suppose he filled that role.
I noticed some parallels to From Russia With Love (the train scene) and You Only Live Twice (a similar plot with spaceships instead of submarines), which were certainly intentional. Ten films in, the franchise is bound to start getting self-referential. Not necessarily a bad thing, if done right.
Next up: Moonraker (though the closing credits of TSWLM said “James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only.” What’s up with that?)
Star Wars happened.
The only thing really wrong with TSWLM is as you noted its derivativeness. The supertanker hiding stolen subs is just a variation on a hollow volcano hiding stolen spaceships.
My favourite scene is where the two spies keep trying to one-up each other when analysing the microfilm.
I believe that was my first Bond movie in the theaters (I was 10), so it’s always got a special place in my heart. The Lotus that turned into a submarine was unbelievably cool. And the fact that Agent XXX knew how to launch the SAM because she stole the plans a year ago was hilarious. And Jaws killing the shark was very meta, before there was such a thing.
I’m sorry for you. Moonraker is the most cringeworthy and embarrassing Bond debacle imaginable. If I had a choice between watching Moonraker or being dropped into a shark tank by Dr. No, I’d think about it for a bit.
Oh god.
Miss Goodhead! Geeze. Before that there was Goodnight and here Goodhead; we fully expected the next movie to have Miss Goodfuck.
“He’s attempting reentry!”, if a character named Goodhead wasn’t horrible enough.
And that damn pigeon doing a double take.
But the SPAAAAAACE FOOOOOOORCE was pretty damn cool.
Moonraker was the first James Bond movie I saw. I was a young impressionable kid and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Jaws! Spaceships! Laser fights! Pew pew pew!!!
I came to appreciate how cheesy it was once I was a little older. And I’d agree it was the most cringeworthy and embarrassing Bond movie, if A View to a Kill hadn’t come out. I don’t know how a movie with Christopher Walken, Grace Slick, and a great theme song ended up so terrible.
I think I’ve said this before, but apparently not in this thread, so here goes.
TMwtGG was the movie that made me stop watching Bond movies. Bringing back the TV-commercial sheriff was bad enough, but the slide-whistle sound effect on the corkscrew jump told me that the producers wanted something very different from what I wanted in a Bond movie.
Years later, I caught The Spy Who Loved Me on cable. I don’t remember why I decided to watch it, but I thought it was quite good. So I decided to give Moore/Broccoli another chance.
Unfortunately, that chance was Moonraker.
Grace Jones.
Like you, Moonraker was my first Bond film. And like you, I loved it! As a sci-fi loving kid fresh off seeing Star Wars, I thought all those space battles and laser beams were super-cool. And Jaws was one of the scariest bad guys I’d ever seen, right up there with Darth Vader!
I now recognize that these impressions are not strictly true.
And that’s a damn shame, because Scaramanga is one of the best Bond villains. Lee totally nailed that character.
You’ll never hear me arguing that A View to a Kill is a good movie. I haven’t seen it in a long time, but my recollection is that it is exceedingly boring.
But JAQ has identified the absolute nadir of the entire Bond franchise, that moment when you gaped at the screen in wonder at the audacious stupidity of it all, wondering if you really just saw that; wondering about the decision-making that went into such a shot; wondering if you should just slit your wrists and end it all:
It never did and never will get worse than that.
Moonraker (1979)
Okay. James Bond in space. What can I say?
I was hoping for a fun campy ride, and I was prepared for a terrible piece of garbage. I got neither, really.
There’s a lot of dumb here, for sure, but there’s also a good bit of fun. The very definition of a mixed bag, I suppose. Before getting to the space part, the first three quarters of the film are a pretty mediocre by-the-numbers version of a 007 movie. The Venice gondola sequence falls squarely under the “dumb” category. Someone here mentioned the pigeon double-take. Yeah. The other gondola sequence in Rio and the Amazon boat chase were better, but both suffered from too much green-screen in a franchise that built its reputation on live stunts. The earthbound portion of the film just seemed kind of rushed and thrown together. And the all-too-obvious science fiction homages – the 2001 and Close Encounters themes, the sword fight which very closely resembled a Star Wars light saber battle – served little purpose.
Then James blasts off into space, and of course the whole thing is silly and ridiculous… But you know what, it’s pretty entertaining. There’s a plot, there’s action that resolves the plot, the special effects are OK, and it’s kind of exciting if you just go with it. Thing is, it’s a lot to just go with, if you’d been a Bond fan previously and took it at all seriously. Moonraker marks a turning point toward the series becoming a parody of itself, a cartoon. I get it. But I didn’t hate it.
Michael Lonsdale was a suitable villain as Drax, but I was distracted by how much he looked like a tall Peter Dinklage. (Come to think of it, Peter Dinklage would make an awesome Bond villain! Calling all Hollywood casting directors…)
Lois Chiles was a good, sexy Bond girl, but not really much of a character there. The evolution of Jaws was somewhat interesting, but would have been more so if he’d sacrificed himself at the end (as I thought was going to happen) rather than being rescued.
So… I’ve seen it now. Time to move on.
Next up: For Your Eyes Only
[And finally, since the recent conversation had turned to Moonraker and A View To A Kill, I’d like to again request that we not get ahead of ourselves in this thread. I know I’m taking my damn time with this, but it’s my thread and I don’t want to talk about any movies I havent watched yet. Thanks!]
He’s already made an awesome X-Men villain.
Moonraker is the film that got me thinking about Bond’s inadvertent body count.
He sleeps with the one Drax drone to get information, and the next day she is murdered by Drax because of that. This happens out of sight of Bond, and he never knows.
It struck me that he is as responsible for her death as much as if he shot her himself. What did he think would happen? Did he care? Did he even give it a thought? It’s not like she was a hired killer henchman. She was what? a tech? Did she even know she was working for a supervillian?
PS FYEO is one of the best films, IMO. You’ll like it I predict.