The problem with Moonraker is the villain, Drax -- an evil billionaire who is intent on genetically-selected humans forming a community in space is just so unrealis....
Never mind.
Never mind.
Rewatching Bond films
- Thread starter Morrus
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Guest 85555
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Mine was Dr. No I believe, but the first one I saw in a theater was The Living Daylights
Ruin Explorer
Legend
This is true and somewhat funny as soon as one realizes it.
I think he might be but I feel like there's one I'm forgetting. And yes Bond pressing the "Exploit Disability" option to defeat his enemies always been a little bit
It actually does, as it contains its own oxidizer. The main problem with guns in a vacuum is that unless they're specially made for it, the metal "spot welds" itself together and they jam (quite likely before you even fire them). Even if it doesn't, it'll be damaged unless there's some special lubrication or the right materials are used. Also without an atmosphere to dissipate heat, they're going to overheat real fast because they're only getting hotter. Well yes that and the recoil but you could also use that.
You could straightforwardly modify (I mean, mostly make out of special materials) an M16-type weapon to be able to get at least a few clips off in a vacuum before it inevitably overheated and became unusable.
Yeah, there’s some room for real world references in a remake.
In the book, Hugo Drax is an English industrialist developing the Moonraker rocket as part of Britain’s space project. He turns out to be a poorly disguised Nazi ex-commando (his real name is Hugo von Drache) who intends to revenge himself on Britain for WW2 by flying Moonraker (which now has a nuclear warhead) into London.
In a modern remake, I’d make Hugo Drax an American billionaire whose fortune is based on cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, and rocketry; his StarStorm company is a NASA contractor putting the Moonraker satellite network into orbit to provide precise and reliable internet access wherever it is needed. Investigating the suspicious death of a Welsh engineer at StarStorm in Texas, Bond and Moneypenny discover that Drax is one of the last KGB sleeper agents in North America, and through his old masters has obtained a nuclear warhead for one of his rockets and is planning to aim it at New York, but has no actual ideological commitment to Russia (after all, he was a teenager when the KGB sent him to Pennsylvania). The idea is to destroy and disrupt the global financial system so that DraxCoin is the only reliable currency, enforced by blockchain via the Moonraker network. When Bond points out that nuking New York and killing 10 million people might have slightly more complex externalities than simply crashing the dollar and the world economy, Drax shrugs and takes some more ketamine.
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Guest 85555
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I think he might be but I feel like there's one I'm forgetting. And yes Bond pressing the "Exploit Disability" option to defeat his enemies always been a little bit
I think characters like Dr. No are cool. He was so cool, Enter the Dragon ripped him off. We've had these discussions before but I think movies really lose something when you take tropes like this off the table. At this point point is a signature staple of the franchise. I rather like how it was used to give Silva some pathos in Skyfall (overall I wasn't a big fan of that film but his character was a real stand-out for me)
MarkB
Legend
Gunpowder works just fine in space. It's not like cartridges have air holes in them, after all. The main issue with guns in space is more frequent maintenance - lubricant tends to boil off in a vacuum.
But yes, recoil.
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Guest 85555
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On Moonraker, this video seems to cover it a little bit from an expert science opinion. This video also gets into it a bit
Science? What does that have to do with Bond films? You’ll be talking about realism next…
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Guest 85555
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Science? What does that have to do with Bond films? You’ll be talking about realism next…
Lol. I don't expect science in Bond, but thought people might be interested since it was being discussed (especially since they seem to have got a few things right). But I agree. Realism isn't what Bond is about
Well, no - Dr No in the film is a classic yellow peril villain, of a tradition going back decades in films and novels, right down to being played by a white guy, and of course being foiled by another white chap. Han in EtD doesn’t rip him off, he’s an actual Chinese villain played by a Chinese guy in a Chinese setting and opposed by a Chinese hero.
In the book, No at least has a consistent and understandable back story (half-Chinese former Tong treasurer, maimed by his boss for stealing money, buys a Caribbean island with the money and then is paid by the USSR to observe and then interfere with US rocket tests). He’s a proto-Blofeld who wants to make the Cold War hot. Apart from his racist physical description he’s not particularly a Fu Manchu knock-off.
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