Moonraker (1979) | Story

Plot Summary

A space shuttle disappears and its creator pretty much raises his hand and says, "I did it!" so that Bond can catch him while hoping to evoke Star Wars and copy everything about The Spy Who Loved Me.

Influences

The end of The Spy Who Loved Me announced For Your Eyes Only as the next movie, but Cubby Broccoli had made that decision before he knew about Star Wars. After 1977, everyone was trying to cash in on Star Wars' popularity and the Bond movies were no exception. Moonraker, the only Bond novel that hadn't yet been adapted, had the perfect title for a scifi film. Or at least Bond's version of one.

By 1979, everyone was buzzing about NASA's new space shuttle program. The first test flight wouldn't be until 1981, so the program was still a huge source of excitement and speculation when Moonraker was being developed. That made it a perfect science fiction plot element for Bond and the bad guys to fight over.

The space stuff doesn't really come into play until the final half hour, but the movie reminds viewers of where it's headed by throwing in references to other scifi movies from around that time. Drax's gamekeeper signals the end of the pheasant hunt by sounding the first three notes of Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra," made popular in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And a Drax laboratory is protected by a keypad that opens the door when the five-note tune from Close Encounters of the Third Kind is entered.

But it's in that last half-hour that everything goes nuts with laser gun battles on a space station. The biggest homage to Star Wars is when Bond is in a space ship trying to blow up a planet-destroying globe (and even has to switch to manual at the last minute to do it).

But for all the scifi references, Moonraker is just as inspired by the huge success of The Spy Who Loved Me.

How Is the Book Different?

In the novel, Hugo Drax is trying to destroy London, but that's not enough for a movie following Karl Stromberg's plot to wipe out all life on Earth. Moonraker lifts several plot points right out of The Spy Who Loved Me, including Bond's relationship with a rival agent from another country. In the novel, Bond doesn't end up with the girl, which makes that story unique and cool, but we certainly couldn't have that in the movies. I'll point out other similarities to Spy as we go.

Moment That's Most Like Fleming



Holly Goodhead is very different from Gala Brand in terms of personality, but the idea of Bond's working with a female agent while dealing with some mutually adversarial feelings is right out of the book.

There are a couple of other nods to the novel, too. One is the Minister of Defense's reference to playing bridge with Drax (though it's M in the book). The other is the scene where Drax leaves Bond and Goodhead in an office that's going to be destroyed by rocket flames. In the movie, they escape through the exhaust vents, which is also a reference to a scene from the novel. The movie's just putting them closer together.

Moment That's Least Like Fleming



Like with The Spy Who Loved Me, it's all the gags. The Bond films have always put a light, humorous spin on the stories, but now we're getting into over-the-top, goofy territory like the couple who won't stop kissing after their gondola is destroyed by the villains' speedboat. Or a smoker with a hacking cough who throws away his cigarette when he sees a coffin floating by.

There are also a couple of recurring gags from The Spy Who Loved Me that I'll mention in the Continuity section below.

Cold Open



Moonraker's teaser doesn't quite top The Spy Who Loved Me's, but it's in the same ballpark. The focus is on another big stunt and Moonraker has a good one.

The teaser begins with the theft of a space shuttle off the back of a plane that's transporting it. It's a cool idea, but not all that exciting to watch in execution. Still, it's weird and raises questions about what we're dealing with.

Since the shuttle was on loan to Britain from the US, cut to M who's trying to get a hold of Bond to give him the assignment of solving the mystery. Bond is still in transit home from his last mission though and in some trouble since everyone on his plane are actually bad guys out to kill him. We don't know anything about his mission, but it seems to be one of those situations where Bond has succeeded and some of the henchmen (including Jaws, another Spy Who Loved Me element) are trying to get revenge.

The evil pilot bails and then Jaws shoves Bond out without a parachute. In one of the coolest things Bond's ever done, he catches up to the pilot, fights the guy, then steals his parachute. It's more thrilling than the Spy parachute trick, but I give Spy the edge for leading into it with an awesome ski chase and a ski pole rocket.

Also, Moonraker loses points by having Jaws' parachute not open, then showing Jaws flapping his arms ridiculously as if he's trying to fly. The music turns goofy and Jaws crashes into a circus tent, but of course he'll be okay later on. Ludicrous.

Top 10 Cold Opens

1. The Spy Who Loved Me
2. Moonraker
3. Thunderball
4. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
5. Goldfinger
6. The Man with the Golden Gun
7. From Russia With Love
8. Diamonds Are Forever
9. You Only Live Twice
10. Live and Let Die

Movie Series Continuity



Again ripping off The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker opens the same way after the credits with agency leaders (M, Q, and the Minister of Defense this time instead of Gogol) looking very serious and waiting for their agent to arrive. This is the Minister of Defense's second appearance and it's not immediately clear why he's there. Bernard Lee (M) is getting older, but he's in the movie quite a bit and doesn't appear to be slowing down. He doesn't need the extra help running MI6, so I don't know what's up with the MoD's micromanaging. I'll see if I can figure this out in the next post.

Meanwhile, we still have lots of field action by M as he shows up in Venice with the MoD and then South America with Q and Moneypenny. This continues to make no sense to me, but it's a standard part of Bond films by now.

Bond continues to be an international celebrity even among those who aren't in the intelligence community. Drax knows who Bond is and what he does and tells him, "Your reputation precedes you."

Bond acts like a know it all about the way a space shuttle works, which is pretty lame. In 1979, everyone knew that the cool thing about space shuttles was their ability to be reused. Bond talks about it like he's just broken the DaVinci Code. He makes up for it later though when he's not only able to recognize a chemical formula from memory, but identify the specific orchid that produces it and discuss the history of the missionary who discovered it. Nicely done, you irritating bastard, you.

The crowd reactions to the surfacing Lotus were so "hilarious" in The Spy Who Loved Me that Moonraker makes sure to throw some in, too. When Bond's weirdo hovercraft gondola takes its lap around the Piazza San Marco, the same wine guy from Spy is there to look strangely at his bottle. And am I mistaken or is that the same dog in the crowd looking very "been there done that" this time? His nonchalance is more than made up for though by the single dumbest thing to happen in any Bond movie ever: the pigeon double-take.

Finally, Bond's hat rack trick makes a strange return when he tosses his gondolier hat onto the boat's fórcola. Too bad Moneypenny (or anyone else) isn't around to see it.

Podcast Catch-Up, Pt 3: Starmageddon

I don't think I've actually mentioned this on the blog, but I'm the co-host of a weekly Star Wars/Star Trek podcast called Starmageddon. It's the brainchild of writer Dan Taylor (Hero Happy Hour) who also used to edit Star Trek comics for IDW before returning to writing full time. Dan's a huge nerd for both series and knew that I am too, so we decided to start talking about them regular-like.

I won't be giving updates on when new episodes come out, because... every week. But we've got three episodes up so far and the next one's being edited. You can find them all on the website or through your usual way of listening to podcasts.

After an episode 00 where Dan and I just talked about our history with the shows, we've settled into a format where we use recent news to springboard into other discussions. Should we be getting our hopes up about Star Trek Beyond? Would it be cool to see a live action Ahsoka appear in The Force Awakens? What should a new Star Trek TV series be like? What does "canon" even mean in the Star Wars universe? I'm having a blast hashing this stuff out.

Starting with our next episode, we're also adding guests to the format. Some will be other passionate fans and some will be actual Trek and Wars newsmakers. And sometimes we'll have both in the same episode. I hope you'll give it a try.

Podcast Catch-Up, Pt 2: The Nerd Lunch Strikes Back

Kay and I were back on Nerd Lunch last week (Was it just last week? All the Star Wars is starting to run together) talking about The Empire Strikes Back. That's most people's favorite Star Wars movie and there's no doubt that it's the best made, but Carlin and I contend that it's impossible for us to judge purely on its own. If Return of the Jedi had been better, we'd like Empire better.

I'm not going to speak for Carlin about this next part, but I also have issues with the revelation of Vader as Luke's dad. It's a moot point by now, but for me it does mark the moment at which Star Wars became something other than what I wanted it to be. It changed the series from a pulpy fight between good guys and bad guys to a redemption story. And that's cool. It helped Star Wars to grow up a little. My issue is that the series never really handles that redemption story very well. Empire sets up something that the following movies don't deliver on.

But that's a problem for the later movies. To the extent that it can be taken on its own, Empire is undeniably a great film and there's a ton to love about it, all of which we cover in the episode.

Podcast Catch-Up, Pt 1: Dragonfly Ripple's Star Wars episode

During writing breaks, I like to record a podcast or three and I just realized that I haven't mentioned some of the recent ones. This blog is very Bond-focused right now, but in Podcastland I'm all about Star Wars lately. Dragonfly Ripple is the Nerd Parenting podcast I do with Carlin Trammel and our respective kids and the newest episode is all about the Wars. Carlin interviews David and I about our experiences watching animated Star Wars, including both Clone Wars cartoons and Rebels. Then I talk to Carlin and Annaliese about her first experience with the original trilogy. There's also a Jetpack Tiger segment on the Lego video games and a discussion about whether or not it's necessary to introduce kids to all the backstory of a thing before they watch or read the thing itself. As always, I hope you'll give it a listen and then help us continue the discussion here, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

Following up on the previous episode, we'd all watched some weird Westerns and the topic of steampunk came up. Carlin and I admitted that we love the concept, but haven't actually read or seen much steampunk that we liked enough to share with our kids. We put the call out for some recommendations and got a couple.



First was The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Gibson and Sterling are both fathers of the cyberpunk genre and they also helped popularize steampunk with this novel. I've never read anything by either of them, so this sounds like a good way to correct that in a genre that I'm also curious about (unlike cyberpunk).



The other recommendation came from the author himself, Beyond the Rails by Jack Tyler. Jack is a super nice man who came to Dragonfly Ripple by way of Nerd Lunch and Carlin and has commented here a few times. If I enjoy his book half as much as I enjoy talking with him, I'm in for a great read. He offers a free sample of Beyond the Rails on his site and as soon as I get a spare moment, I'm going to check it out. Thanks, Jack!

The Sword of Charlton, Part 1: Herc and Thane [Guest Post]

By GW Thomas

When you say "sword-and-sorcery comics" you usually think of Roy Thomas and Barry Smith in Conan the Barbarian, back in October 1970. DC tested the waters in 1969 with "Nightmaster" in DC Showcase #82-84, then in 1971 there was a guest spot for Fafhrd and Grey Mouser in Wonder Woman #202 (August 1972), but DC didn't put them in a regular title until March 1973 with Sword of Sorcery. You would think Charlton - Marvel and DC's poor cousin - would be slow to take on the new fad of sword-and-sorcery comics, but in fact this was not the case.

Sword-and-sorcery titles exploded after Conan the Barbarian, but they had a good five-year initiation before the Cimmerian stomped the Halls of Marvel. The action was in the horror anthologies and undergrounds: Unearthly Spectaculars, Creepy, Eerie, Witzend, The Witching Hour, Web of Horror, Vampirella, House of Mystery, Chamber of Darkness, and on. Artists who became famous (or were already famous) for other kinds of comics experimented with sword-and-sorcery: Wally Wood, Steve Ditko, Gray Morrow, Reed Crandall, Jeff Jones, Tom Sutton, Alex Nino, and Berni Wrightson. The most prolific writer before Roy Thomas was Archie Goodwin. The anthologies were willing to take a chance on a sword-and-sorcery story as long as it had some horrific element. And why not? It was just one story.

The only exception was a Charlton title: Adventures of the Man-God Hercules (October 1967-December 1968), predating Conan by three years. The comic ran for thirteen issues, all written by Joe Gill and drawn by Sam Glanzman. The title sticks out because during this time at Charlton the majority of their comics were either horror anthologies like The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves or media-based comics like The Flintstones or Bullwinkle and Rocky. In 1967 there were no new Hercules films. From 1963 to 1965 there had been a spate of them starring Gordon Scott and others. On TV, the cartoon The Mighty Hercules had finished its run in 1966. For Charlton to do a new non-media-driven Hercules title, when the material seemed worn out, is unusual.

Until you consider sword-and-sorcery. Lancer books had been selling piles of Conan paperbacks starting in 1966. Someone at Charlton had noticed and that person was Denny O'Neil (scripting under the pseudonym Sergius O'Shaugnessy). In the letter columns the editors clearly identify the comic as sword-and-sorcery. A fifteen year-old Klaus Janson, who would become famous as Frank Miller's inker on Wolverine, asked why Charlton did not adapt Robert E Howard's Conan? The answer: too expensive. The public domain character of Hercules was a much cheaper alternative. O'Neil would leave Charlton for DC, giving him the chance to create Nightmaster for DC and write Sword of Sorcery, those DC titles mentioned above. Without the opportunity to explore the genre at Charlton, Denny O'Neil and DC might never have looked at sword-and-sorcery comics.

The thirteen issues of Hercules were based on the Twelve Labors of Hercules from mythology. Upon his mother's death, Hercules asks his father, the god Zeus, if he can become one of the gods. To do this he must complete twelve impossible tasks (erroneously nine in the first issue but corrected in the second). As Hercules attempts a different task each issue, Zeus' wife, the goddess Hera, tries to thwart him, since Hercules is the son of one of Zeus' lovers, Alcmene. These mighty challenges include killing the Nemean Lion, the three giants Gerion, returning Queen Alcestis from the dead and fighting Cerberus, entering another dimension and defeating the harpies for golden apples, stealing the Amazon queen's girdle, fighting the minotaur and the giant bull of Minos, the giant boar of Erymanthus, the flesh-eating horses of Diomedes, and the nine-headed hydra. Hercules ran out of labors shortly before the series ended. The feel of the series is quite similar to the films of Ray Harryhausen such as Jason and the Argonauts from 1963, with its heavenly game-players watching over the human pawns.

In terms of artwork, Sam Glanzman begins with a fairly tight style, then loosened up after the first two issues. Some letter writers complimented his art as being similar to Joe Kubert's work. By issue five Glanzman's distinctive look was in place, with Hercules' eyes being almond-shaped. There was discussion about the "slanted" eyes, but Glanzman never changed this, keeping his style the same to the end. The early issues feel stiff and dull. Though the later style is perhaps more cartoony, the lines suggests more action and flow.

It is doubtful Hercules had much influence on Conan the Barbarian as Roy Thomas had Robert E Howard's original stories to work from, but this can't be said for later comics (especially DC titles) like Michael Urslan's Beowulf: Dragonslayer and Gerry Conway's post-apocalyptic version of Hercules Unbound. The mythological hero-adventurer is part-and-parcel of sword-and-sorcery and these writers used it as well. What Adventures of the Man-God Hercules did do was get the ball rolling, allowing Marvel to establish their Conan franchise.

The back-up to Hercules was "Thane of Bagarth" (December 1967-Sept 1969) written by Steven Skeates and drawn by Jim Aparo and later San Ho Kim. This strip was set in the days after Beowulf. Hrothelac has his title of Thane of Bagarth taken from him by deceit. His enemies, including his brother, frame him for collaborating with the Swedes. In exile, he is captured by Vikings and made a slave. His ship sinks off the English coast and Hrothalec is imprisoned. He escapes with the help of the alchemist Mordwain. The series takes a weird turn at this point with time travelers coming to the past. What had been a complex tale of intrigue and power-playing shifts into science fiction. The series was partially reprinted in 1985 using fantasy-related strips from their vaults as back-ups, including Steve Ditko's "The Hammer of Thor" from Out of this World #11 (January 1959) and "Robin Hood Confounds a Rival" from Robin Hood and His Merry Men #32 (May 1957). Skeates left Charlton for Warren in 1971 where he wrote sword-and-sorcery in "The Dragon-Prow" (Creepy #39, May 1971) and "Musical Chairs" (Eerie #43, November 1972), drawn by Charlton pal, Tom Sutton.

After thirteen issues, Charlton dropped their one sword-and-sorcery title, but they weren't done with heroic fantasy just yet...

GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

7 Days in May | Aloha, Clone Wars

Aloha (2015)



I was geared up for Cameron Crowe's new movie from the first time I heard about it. I'm not the world's biggest Crowe fan, but I like more of his stuff than I don't. The real attraction to me was the cast and Hawaii as not only the setting, but a crucial element of the movie. It couldn't be set anywhere else and be the same story.

Unfortunately, early buzz wasn't good, starting with former Sony co-chairman Amy Pascal, who wrote in a leaked email that it "never not even once ever works." From there, the critics piled on. And I get it. I understand why a lot of people don't like Aloha. There's a lot going on in it, many of the characters don't act in believable ways, and it can feel preachy at times. But I like it a lot.

Mostly I love the actors. That helps me root for the characters and want to defend their story, so maybe that's why I don't see as many problems with the film as other people do. Yeah, there's a lot going on in the movie, but I disagree with the critics who interpret that as Crowe's inability to fine tune his tale. I think it's intentional. There's a lot going on for Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper) and the chaotic activity around him reflects that. It wasn't always a pleasant experience, but the structure of the story helped me get into his head.

And I don't think the movie is actually preachy. There are characters who aren't shy about sharing their very strong opinions, but I don't believe that those opinions are the point the movie's making. The point is about how Gilcrest reacts to those opinions. The major conflict is around a satellite that's being launched from Hawaii. There are people in the movie who think that's a very bad thing, but the movie itself isn't about whether or not it's inherently okay to launch a satellite. In fact, the people against it don't even completely agree on why it's a bad idea. What the movie cares about is that Gilcrest has made some assurances to these people - either directly or by implication - that there is no satellite, and when he finds out that oops there actually is... well, that's where the drama comes from.

Gilcrest is a messed up, very confused dude. One character tells him that he's sold his soul so many times that no one's even interested in buying it anymore. Maybe it's because I like Bradley Cooper, but I wanted to see this guy finally do the right thing and maybe be rewarded for it. That was the hook for me. I'm not going to spill what ends up happening, but that was plenty to keep me invested.

As for characters not always acting like real people: it's true that some of them behave in pretty strange ways. None of these actions are impossible though; they just seem unlikely. John Krasinski's character for instance is mostly defined by his inability to communicate with his wife (Rachel McAdams) using words. I've never met someone as dramatically closemouthed as he is. No one in real life actually behaves that way. The movie exaggerates that trait partly for comedy; partly to show how annoying it really is. I've seen plenty of movies with extremely reserved characters and my reaction is usually, "Hey, everybody. Leave the poor guy alone." This time, my reaction was, "Dude! Say something!" I think that same tactic of "exaggeration to form an impression" applies to a lot of the other characters, too. It's a tricky tactic though and we're seeing in audiences' reactions how polarizing it can be.

And that pretty much describes the whole movie.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Her (2013)



Speaking of experiments, Ned Benson's The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby is a very cool one. The history behind it is that Jessica Chastain apparently was a fan of one of Benson's short films, so he showed her the first draft for Disappearance and asked if she'd be interested in playing Eleanor. She was, but not as the character was written in that script. That led Benson to create a different version, telling the same story, but from the woman's point of view. The original version more or less became The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him, while the revised version got the subtitle Her.

When the movies were introduced on the film festival circuit, they were shown as a double-feature with one admission price. But when the Weinstein Company offered to distribute it, they weren't interested in showing it that way. They didn't believe regular audiences would want to sit through both films, much less pay for each of them separately. So the Weinsteins insisted on a third version, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them that edited the two into a more traditional narrative.

I was interested in seeing them the way that Benson intended and fortunately we can do that now on Netflix. Ideally, you're supposed to be able to watch them in any order, but I went with the way they were written and presented at the festivals: Him first and then Her. I recommend that approach, but maybe that's because I'm a dude.

Of the two films, I identified most with Him. Big shocker. It's the story of a man named Conor (James McAvoy) who's marriage is dissolving completely outside of his control. The death of the couples' child has affected both him and his wife (Chastain), but Eleanor is severely depressed and needs to disappear for a while to figure out who she is and where she wants to go. She tells him that she's leaving, and then she does, and he feels as resistant to, but helpless about the whole thing as I imagine that I would. Him does a great job of running Conor through a variety of difficult decisions and conflicting emotions, showing how fragile our lives are and how they can be so quickly changed by the choices of another person if we're deeply enough connected to her.

Having been through Him, and knowing a little about the origin of Her, my expectation for Her was that I would be challenged to then relate to Eleanor as much as I had to Conor. Surprisingly, that never happened. Her doesn't offer a rational explanation for Eleanor's behavior. It's not even trying to. Because there is no rational explanation. Making sense has nothing to do with it. She is - justifiably - an emotional wreck. Her life has been radically changed as well and though she and Conor both lost their child, they've dealt with it in different ways. What Her does is to let us see the aftermath of this from her point of view so that we can see just how confused and ungrounded it's left her. In Him, her leaving is something she did to Conor. In Her, it's something she's done to herself and it's no less painful. Neither version is interested in keeping score of who's hurting more though. And that's what I love most about them.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008 TV show)



We finally finished The Clone Wars. It was a rocky ride.

Season One was mostly about enjoying some fun and adventure in the Star Wars galaxy again after the darkness of the prequels. Season Two was also a kick, mostly focused on doing Star Wars riffs on other kinds of stories like The Seven Samurai, murder mysteries, or King Kong and Godzilla.

Seasons Three and Four got to be a slog though. They introduce some cool bounty hunter characters, but that's a problem when the show has to power down the Jedi in order to make the weaker villains seem like a credible threat. The Jedi characters were constantly forgetting to use their powers and it seemed like any bad guy could pick up a lightsaber and competently fight a Jedi with it.

Seasons Five and Six picked up again though. Season Five had longer story arcs that showcased some new and interesting characters, like a group of younglings that Ahsoka's helping to train, or a squadron of droids that R2 joins for a special mission. Season Six then starts to move purposefully towards Revenge of the Sith, with storylines that hint about things that happen in that movie and beyond. I'm extremely pleased with the last beats of the final episode.

As much as I liked Seasons Five and Six though, I found myself getting increasingly frustrated with the Jedi. They started using their powers again, but they - and especially the Jedi Council - were continually making bad decisions. At first I thought this was just bad writing, but it became so consistent that I realized it had to be on purpose. And I realized that it was also consistent with how the Council had acted in Phantom Menace (refusing to train Anakin, for example) and Attack of the Clones (easily getting sucked into the Separatist conflict, creating a situation where Anakin and Padme have to marry in secret, etc.). In the movies though, I'd always made excuses for the Council. "That's just their way," I thought. I might not agree with them, but I figured that was part of my responsibility in suspending disbelief. I bought that they were supposed to be wise, without ever questioning it. The Clone Wars made me question it. And by the end, I was actually ready to see the Jedi wiped out.

Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003 TV show)



We also went back and finished the Genndy Tartakovsky cartoon. Watching the shows in chronological order, we started with Tartakovsky and watched it to a certain point in the second episode of Season Three. That episode covers a lot of time, so if you stop it right after Anakin returns to Padme with the new scar on his eye, there's time for the entire Dave Filoni series to fit. Picking up after that scene in the Tartakovsky episode, Anakin looks like he does in Revenge of the Sith and the rest of the Tartakovsky series takes you right up to the opening scene of Sith.

We like both Clone Wars cartoons for different reasons. The Filoni show is strong on characterization and created versions of these characters (and completely new characters like Ahsoka) that we fell in love with. But its CG animation is limited in how fast it can move, which gives Tartakovsky's an advantage over it. Tartakovsky's show can't touch Filoni's for characters, but it is way more action-packed and full of awesome. Everyone is tough and amazing; good guys and bad guys alike.

The Revenge of the Sith (2005)



My hope for watching Filoni's The Clone Wars was that it would somehow make Revenge of the Sith better. My biggest issue with Sith has always been that I don't believe Anakin's transition to the Dark Side. I get the logical arguments that Palpatine presents to Anakin, but I've never felt what Anakin's supposed to be feeling. So I wanted The Clone Wars to help with that. I figured I was probably asking too much of it, but I want to like Sith more than I do, so I hoped.

And it does help. Quite a bit actually, but not in the way I imagined. Instead of showing Anakin get progressively angrier, The Clone Wars undermines his faith in the Jedi. One of the major ways that Palpatine tricks Anakin in Sith is to convince him that the Jedi are out to take over the Republic. Attack of the Clones set some groundwork for this by showing Anakin's impatience for all the deliberating that the Senate and the Jedi do. He believes that a just, all-powerful ruler is the answer the Republic needs. But feeling that way is a long leap from actually distrusting Obi-Wan, Yoda, and the rest of the Jedi.

What The Clone Wars does is call that whole organization into question. The Council isn't wise, they've never made good choices, and they're actually not to be trusted. They look to protect themselves and maintain the status quo. Exactly what Palpatine accuses them of. Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones both support this interpretation, but The Clone Wars makes it abundantly clear. So that, plus the chance to save Padme's life, are reason enough for Anakin to put some faith in Palpatine.

When Mace Windu and Palpatine are fighting and Anakin is forced to pick a side, this time I bought why Anakin backed Palpatine. Mace Windu is the absolute worst of the Jedi Council. He's a great warrior (especially in the Tartakovsky show), but he's also arrogant, foolish, and blind to both of those faults. And once Anakin chooses Palpatine and plays a role in Windu's death, he's forced to be all in. There's no going back for him after that; the first domino has fallen. His only option is to delude himself into believing Palpatine's lies, which leads him to march on the Jedi temple and murder everyone there, which drives him insane with grief and anger.

I still have some big problems with Sith. But now the largest of them is the way Padme dies. Could they not have at least left open the possibility that there were complications in childbirth instead of specifically stating that there was nothing physically wrong with her? I don't understand that at all. I'm glad to finally be able to believe in Anakin's transformation though. That's a major issue solved.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) | Music

John Barry wasn't available to work on the music for The Spy Who Loved Me, apparently not for scheduling or creative reasons, but because of his tax status with the UK at the time. To replace him, Broccoli hired Marvin Hamlisch, who had already won Oscars and Grammys for his work on The Sting and The Way We Were. He was an interesting choice because he was super talented, but not known for big action movies. And his theme song reflects that.

"Nobody Does It Better" is the first Bond theme song not to be named after its movie, though the movie title is included in the lyrics. Hamlisch wrote it with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, who'd had a big hit in the '60s with "A Groovy Kind of Love." True to the styles of both artists, it's a mellow song, what we used to call Easy Listening. I'm not sure if there is a modern equivalent of Easy Listening, which was more or less comprised of pop ballads that used orchestral music.

To record it, they got Carly Simon, who had only a slightly more rocking style. The result is a gorgeous ballad that was a huge hit, especially in the US. Like so much else in The Spy Who Loved Me, it would go on to influence the theme songs for the next several movies. And it's a truly great song in every way from the way it builds musically, to the sensual - but not crass - lyrics, to Simon's sultry voice. It's sexy, but it's also classy.

To go over the song, Maurice Binder doubled down on the silhouettes that had long been a feature of his title sequences, but usually in conjunction with other images. This time, they're the focus, with the only other image being a Union Jack at one point. For the most part, the silhouettes play against a solid background of slowly changing colors and light effects. There are plenty of female silhouettes of course, all naked and mostly performing acrobatic acts like jumping on a trampoline, doing cartwheels, and going through gymnastic routines on the barrel of a giant gun.

What's different this time is how often a man shows up. We've seen that before, but it's a major element in this sequence. Playing off the idea of enemies becoming lovers, Binder has the woman repeatedly threatening Bond with a gun before making out with him. (To make sure we know who he is, we even see a black-and-white representation of Roger Moore's face.) He also has a line of naked women marching with Soviet hats and then Bond (who's always fully clothed, strangely enough) tips them over. Hooray for Britain! Snottiness aside though, I do like how minimalistic the credits sequence is compared to the busyness of previous movies.

For the rest of the soundtrack, Hamlisch uses the "Nobody Does It Better" tune as a love theme, but also comes up with a cool, stringy theme for Stromberg and Atlantis. He also uses Bach and Mozart for key Stromberg/Atlantis scenes, further supporting the villain's pretense at sophistication.

The soundtrack gets weird in a couple of places though. There's a goofy fanfare that plays as Bond and Amasova drive Jaws' ruined van across the desert, but even worse is the bombastic men's chorus that belts out "Nobody Does It Better" at the end like it's some kind of bawdy show tune. Both of those moments are the car jump slide whistles of The Spy Who Loved Me.

For the most part though, it's a great soundtrack and it uses the Bond Theme more and better than any other movie so far. Hamlisch arranged his own disco version of it that plays over lots of action sequences from the teaser's ski chase to the Lotus' battles with helicopters and underwater villains, to the good guys' taking over Stromberg's tanker. He uses the traditional version too though: when Bond drives the Lotus up onto the beach out of the water, when he's riding the camera with a bomb to blow open Stromberg's command center on the tanker, and when he's riding the WetBike to go rescue Amasova. There's also a nice orchestral version of the Bond Theme when Bond and Amasova are in the Egyptian ruins looking for Jaws. This is how the Bond Theme ought to be used. Not sparingly like Barry, but creatively.

Top Ten Theme Songs

1. The Spy Who Loved Me ("Nobody Does It Better")
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Diamonds Are Forever
4. You Only Live Twice
5. From Russia With Love (John Barry instrumental version)
6. Live and Let Die
7. Dr No
8. Thunderball
9. Goldfinger
10. From Russia With Love (Matt Monro vocal version)

Top Ten Title Sequences

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2. Dr No
3. Thunderball
4. Goldfinger
5. From Russia With Love
6. The Spy Who Loved Me
7. Diamonds Are Forever
8. Live and Let Die
9. The Man with the Golden Gun
10. You Only Live Twice

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) | Villains

Karl Stromberg has all the makings of what should be my favorite Bond villain. He's what I'd want to be if I was a bad guy; from his cool, webbed fingers to his giant, submersible headquarters. The HQ is even called Atlantis and is appropriately located in the Mediterranean.

It's too bad then that Curt Jurgens plays him so lethargically. On the one hand, it makes him seem very powerful that he doesn't have to do much for himself. But on the other, it's dull to watch. It's not only that he's physically inactive; it's that he just looks so bored.

His plan isn't original either. He's basically copying SPECTRE's scheme from You Only Live Twice, but stealing submarines instead of space capsules. (That's even sadder when you know that the Spy villain was actually going to be SPECTRE through most of the writing process until Kevin McClory reminded everyone that he had the rights to that organization.) What saves Stromberg's plot from being totally derivative is his motivation. Instead of using the threat of nuclear war to make money, Stromberg means to just go ahead and blow the place up so he can start the human race over in an underwater civilization. There's a great moment when this confuses Bond, who thinks he's dealing with another Blofeld. It's a great twist; it's just too bad it gets repeated in the very next movie. But let me not get ahead of myself.

Stromberg's also pretty smart. He does leave a dead woman's arm in the shark tank where any visitor can see it, so that's kind of lazy and dumb. But that's not a fatal mistake. Bond's already onto him by then. The only way anyone catches on to Stromberg's plans is because he's betrayed from within his organization. Once that happens, Stromberg's pretty powerless to stop it even though he sends his assassins out to try to clean things up.

I even like how Stromberg captures the US sub with Bond on it even though he doesn't need it to complete his plan. Stromberg has no idea that Bond's on there, but it's obvious that the sub is tracking Stromberg, so it's smart to try to neutralize it before it can do anything to stop him.



Jaws is iconic, but he doesn't do anything for me. He's strong and ridiculously tough, but he's also slow. That would be a fine weakness for Bond to exploit, except that the movie likes to pretend that Jaws is fast enough to go head to head with Bond. I'd much rather see Jaws as a smarter villain who has to accommodate for his lack of speed by tricking Bond into getting within reach. That said, there are some great, effective moments with him, like when he's tearing apart the van and when he's fighting Bond in a confined railroad cabin.



It's interesting to me that Jaws and Sandor are a team and that Jaws is in charge. Jaws is never portrayed as very bright, but that doesn't mean he's dumb and I like that his leadership role implies that there's more going on there than we're seeing.

Of course, it could just mean that Sandor is even dumber, which is kind of born out when he meets Bond. He shoots once, kills Felicca, then runs as soon as Bond draws a gun. Even though Sandor has great cover and plenty of bullets left, he takes off and leads Bond to the roof for a hand to hand fight. Even if Sandor is really confident of his hand to hand ability, why give up the easy kill in the bedroom?



Naomi introduces herself as Stromberg's assistant, but she's also a helicopter pilot and assassin. I wish she had a bigger role in the movie, but it might be because she's so sparingly used that she's cool and mysterious.

Top Ten Villains

1. Auric Goldfinger (Goldfinger)
2. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (From Russia With Love and Thunderball)
3. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
4. Francisco Scaramanga (The Man with the Golden Gun)
5. Dr. Kananga (Live and Let Die)
6. Doctor No (Dr. No)
7. Karl Stromberg (The Spy Who Loved Me)
8. Emilio Largo (Thunderball)
9. Rosa Klebb (From Russia With Love)
10. Kronsteen (From Russia With Love)

Top Ten Henchmen

1. Baron Samedi (Live and Let Die)
2. Fiona Volpe (Thunderball)
3. Grant (From Russia with Love)
4. Nick Nack (The Man with the Golden Gun)
5. Naomi (The Spy Who Loved Me)
6. Oddjob (Goldfinger)
7. Jaws (The Spy Who Loved Me)
8. Irma Bunt (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
9. Miss Taro (Dr. No)
10. Tee Hee (Live and Let Die)

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) | Women

Maybe because the film makes Bond wait so long to get into bed with Amasova, it gives him plenty of other women to spend time with early on, starting with an enemy agent in Switzerland. We don't know anything about her or even Bond's mission there, but she tries to delay him until a group of Soviets can arrive to either kill him or take him in. We're not even sure if Bond knows she's a bad guy, but she's not able to keep him there once he gets the extraction order from M.



The next woman is troubling, because she's a slave to Bond's old buddy from Cambridge. The sheik gives her to Bond for the night, meaning that Bond is going to have sex with a woman against her will. Sadly, that's not exactly out of character for him.



Bond never has a chance to get in bed with Felicca, the woman at Fekkesh's house whose job it is to "entertain" Bond while Fekkesh is off meeting Amasova about the microfilm. Felicca's not on screen long, but she's an intriguing character. What's her relationship to Fekkesh? Is she an employee? His wife or lover? She seems very okay with her job to keep Bond distracted with sex. Is that because Bond's a handsome man or because she does this sort of thing a lot for Fekkesh? You can read it either way.

It's too bad that her death scene is so clumsily shot and edited. It's hard to tell whether Sandor murders her on purpose or if he's trying to kill Bond and she gets in the way. We're used to Bond's being the target in these situations, but the only thing that makes sense to me is that Sandor is trying to kill Felicca.

His orders from Stromberg are to murder everyone who knows about the microfilm. That possibly includes Bond, but it for sure has to include Felicca. And even if he's trying to shoot Bond first, there are only two explanations for Felicca's taking the bullet. Either she purposely jumps in front of it or Bond spins her around, purposely killing her to save himself. There's no reason that she'd be loyal enough to Bond to want to die for him. And as horrible as Bond is to women, I can't imagine his murdering one in cold blood, especially when she's just warned him that someone's about to shoot. That means that Felicca's got to be the first target. Bond probably would have been next if he hadn't drawn his own gun.

At any rate, it's almost certainly Felicca's murder that makes Bond pissed enough to kill Sandor in cold blood up on the roof.



It seems like every actress who plays a "Bond Girl" talks about how her character is going to be different from the stereotype. Frankly, I'm not even sure what the stereotype is, because they're all pretty different when you look closely at them, but Anya Amasova does have something special about her. Unlike Bond's previous co-stars, Amasova is also a superspy. She's his equal, up to a point.

Barbara Bach isn't a great actress, but she plays "amused" well and that's Amasova's defining characteristic. As long as she's supposed to be lightly entertained by Bond's shenanigans, she's great, and that's a lot. It's when other emotions are supposed to come up that she's not so hot. That's a big problem when the story calls for her to discover that Bond murdered her lover. That should be a powerful, dramatic moment where Amasova struggles with anger, regret, and vengeance, but Bach just goes with "mildly pissed."

On the other hand, maybe her reaction is entirely plausible. She refers to her dead boyfriend as "the man I loved," but she hasn't exactly been grieving over him in the three weeks since his death. She's been first flirting and then fooling around with Bond. She's moved on.

I think what's happening when she finds out that Bond killed her boyfriend is that she's as angry at herself as she is at Bond. The kill-or-be-killed speech Bond gives her is heartfelt by him, but not necessary for her. She knows this stuff already and that's why she's not grieving super strongly. But then she feels bad about not grieving and declares that she's going to take it out on Bond. Her heart's not in it though, which is why she drops her vendetta against him like a hot potato at the end. It's an anticlimactic way for the script to resolve that storyline, but it makes sense.

Amasova never turns dumb at any point, but the movie does lose interest in her as a character once Stromberg captures her. The movie cheats by moving from that to her being all tied up in a chair at Stromberg's HQ. There had to have been about twelve different times in between those two scenes where the Amasova from early in the film could have gotten herself out. Instead, Spy sets her aside and has her wait around for Bond to rescue her. There may be a perfectly valid reason that she wasn't able to escape, but I wish the movie cared enough about her to show it to me. She's cool enough to crack the Top Ten, but this lame bit at the end keeps her low on the list.

My Favorite Bond Women

1. Tracy Bond (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
2. Paula Caplan (Thunderball)
3. Tatiana Romanova (From Russia With Love)
4. Fiona Volpe (Thunderball)
5. Domino Derval (Thunderball)
6. Mary Goodnight (The Man with the Golden Gun)
7. Andrea Anders (The Man with the Golden Gun)
8. Honey Rider (Dr. No)
9. Anya Amasova (The Spy Who Loved Me)
10. Sylvia Trench (Dr. No and From Russia With Love)

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) | Bond

Actors and Allies



The script for The Spy Who Loves Me gives Roger Moore a lot more to do than the previous films did and he's totally up for it. I mentioned yesterday that there are a couple of great moments for him. One is when Anya Amasova (Agent XXX) brings up the death of Tracy Bond and he suddenly turns hurt and serious, dropping the banter and ending that line of conversation.

The second is towards the end of the movie when she realizes that he may be the one who killed her boyfriend. She questions him about it and he gravely reminds her about the hazards of their job. He could have been flippant about it, but as he talks about the kill-or-be-killed nature of espionage, he makes me feel it. I replay that exciting teaser sequence in my mind and I realize that it wouldn't be all that fun for Bond. Roger Moore always plays it like it is fun, but this brief conversation reveals that that his self-confidence in those moments is at least partly an act.

Back to the fun though, Moore is never funnier than he is in The Spy Who Loved Me. It's not even the quips; it's the way he acts around Amasova. People give Barbara Bach's performance a hard time and it's true that she's not a great actress, but I do think she's serviceable as Amasova and her amused reactions to Moore do help build some chemistry between them. I don't know if that's what I'm noticing or if it's the fact that she and Bond begin as adversarial colleagues so he's not actively hitting on her in every scene. Instead, he's able to just relax and joke and it's a pleasure to see.

Moore really does have great comic timing. One of my favorite moments is one that I screen-captured at the top of yesterday's post when they're in the back of Jaws' van and Amasova falls asleep on Bond's shoulder. He puts his arm around her, but the van jolts and she wakes up, looking at him like, "What the hell do you think you're doing?" His faked innocence as he pulls back his arm his hilarious. Another fantastic moment is when she tries to take the van and abandon him, but he shows her that he has the keys. It's all about his expression.

Moore's facial expressions are what makes a lot of his quips so funny too. Connery got a lot of humor out of grimacing at his own jokes. Moore delivers them perfectly deadpan, but sometimes with a look at the end to see if anyone got it. Both ways work great.

On to Bond's allies, M is a lot more relaxed about Bond this time. Instead of being constantly annoyed by him, M refers to Bond as his "best man" and (like I said yesterday) even enjoys Bond's know-it-all behavior when it looks like Bond's showing up the Soviets.

M is on a first name basis with General Gogol who's introduced in this movie. I don't think this is the first time M's been called Miles in the series, but I'm not remembering the circumstances where it happened before. Maybe it is the first time? Fleming revealed M's full name - Vice Admiral Sir Miles Messervy KCMG - in the novel The Man with the Golden Gun. (Similarly, Amasova calls Q, "Major Boothroyd," cementing him as the same character who gave Bond his Walther PPK in Dr. No.)

Gogol is a great character and it's easy to see why they kept bringing him back. He's the head of the Soviet secret service, so he's not strictly an ally, but he's also not a villain. It would have been so easy to make him a cliché; a repeat of Rosa Klebb, for instance. But he's humanized right away. After the credits, the movie opens on him in a dramatic, somber pose in his office. He's preparing himself to brief Amasova, but he also has bad news about her boyfriend and he's sympathetic towards her. This is cool, bold stuff for an action movie made in the middle of the Cold War.

I don't know what this is about, but there's no flirting with Moneypenny this time. She and Bond are all business. I don't think I like that. I don't want her to be hopelessly smitten with him, but I do enjoy their friendly relationship and I miss it in Spy.

Best Quip



"Bring tears to your eyes?" To Amasova as they're touring Q-Branch's Cairo facility, looking at Q's weird stuff. Makes me laugh out loud every single time. I'm laughing now just remembering it.

Worst Quip



"Egyptian builders..." After some ruins come crashing down on top of Jaws. I'm not even sure what this means. Is he implying that Egyptians don't know how to build? Because they're kind of known for exactly the opposite of that.

Gadgets



Broccoli got over whatever gadgetphobia he had in The Man with the Golden Gun and lets Bond get fully outfitted in Spy. In the teaser, he receives instructions to leave Switzerland via label-maker watch, then uses a ski pole rocket to kill Amasova's boyfriend.

After he and Amasova recover the microfilm from Jaws, Bond reads it with a contraption made by assembling a cigarette case and lighter in a particular way. And of course there's the WetBike prototype that he uses to rescue Amasova at the end, but I don't tend to count real-life tech as gadgets.

The jewel of the movie is the Lotus Esprit outfitted with oil spray, rockets, mines, and - most importantly - turns into a submarine. Because of the underwater factor and the car's sleek lines, I like it even more than the Aston Martin DB5. I know that's heresy in some Bond circles, but there you go.

Top Ten Gadgets

1. Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me)
2. Aston Martin DB V (Goldfinger and Thunderball)
3. Jet pack (Thunderball)
4. Little Nellie (You Only Live Twice)
5. Rocket cigarettes (You Only Live Twice)
6. Ski pole rocket (The Spy Who Loved Me)
7. Magnetic buzzsaw watch (Live and Let Die)
8. Attaché case (From Russia with Love)
9. Propeller SCUBA tank with built-in spearguns (Thunderball)
10. Rebreather (Thunderball)

Bond's Best Outfit



Love a man in uniform.

Bond's Worst Outfit



Nothing too horrid, but I'm not a fan of brown in general (unless you're Indiana Jones) and that's too many stripes for my taste.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) | Story

Plot Summary

British and Soviet submarines with nuclear missiles go missing, so Bond teams up with Soviet agent XXX (sigh) to discover who has the technology to track and capture the subs. Will the rival agents find love? Or will a tragic link in their past bring out a need for vengeance?

Influences

I always hear that The Man with the Golden Gun was a flop, but it made money. In fact, it made more money than On Her Majesty's Secret Service (which wasn't a flop either) or either of the first two Connery films. What it didn't do was meet expectations.

That was bad timing for Harry Saltzman who was in financial trouble thanks to some bad investments outside of Bond. He was also irritating everyone on the Bond team, but it was mostly the money that made him sell his stake in the series to United Artists. This left Cubby Broccoli as the sole producer, but with UA having a bigger say in the creative side. Pressure was on for the next movie to be a huge hit.

In Saltzman's absence, Broccoli's stepson Michael Wilson came in to help with some of the production duties. They settled on The Spy Who Loved Me as the next book to adapt and Broccoli himself came up with the idea of flipping the title so that Bond is the "Me" and the "Spy" is a Soviet agent. Beyond that though, the story took forever to bring together and involved a dozen or so writers pitching ideas and reworking each other's drafts.

Securing a director was also a problem. They originally went with Guy Hamilton, who'd directed the previous three films, but he pulled out to work on something else. While Hamilton was attached, traditional Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum was working on what everyone hoped was the final draft of the script. But when Hamilton was replaced by Lewis Gilbert (who'd directed You Only Live Twice), Gilbert brought in his own guy, Christopher Wood, to do one last pass.

With so many cooks in the kitchen, it wouldn't have been surprising had The Spy Who Loved Me been a hot mess. Shockingly, it not only holds together extremely well, it hit 1977 screens with guns blazing and completely revitalized the Bond series as popular entertainment. It's easily my favorite of the Moore films that embrace his style (as opposed to For Your Eyes Only, which is my most favorite of his movies, but precisely because it's the least Moore-like).

The villain's scheme is right out of You Only Live Twice and I used to call Spy a remake of that movie, but that's not really fair. There's a significant change in motive and the rest of the plot is totally different.

The biggest external influence on the movie was Jaws. In fact, Broccoli apparently approached Steven Spielberg about directing Spy, but wouldn't agree to all the creative control that Spielberg wanted. Instead of having the actual guy, Spy settles for the ocean theme and a henchman named after the shark movie. There's even a Jaws vs Jaws scene when the assassin falls into a shark tank.

In accordance with tradition, Spy also includes some new technology from the time period. Jet skis had been around for a few years, but the smaller WetBike brand makes its debut in Spy. It wouldn't go on the market until the following year; Bond is riding the actual prototype in the film.

How Is the Book Different?

The Spy Who Loved Me is famous for discarding almost the entire novel that it's based on, but it does pay homage to Fleming's story with Stromberg's assassins, Jaws and Sandor. The novel features two thugs named Horror and Sluggsy. Horror is a tall guy with steel-capped teeth (though not weaponized like Jaws) and Sluggsy is a short, bald guy.

Other than that though, we're in entirely new territory.

Moment That's Most Like Fleming



Roger Moore's Bond isn't known for being ruthless, but that quality does show up from time to time. Like when he gets the information he needs from Sandor, then lets the guy fall to his death. It's not entirely cold-blooded, but it's close.

Moment That's Least Like Fleming



Jaws' teeth may have been inspired by a Fleming character, but the rest of him is a cartoon. His method of killing is unnecessarily weird and he's invulnerable to the point of ridiculousness. Fleming had some strange villains, but Jaws is over the top.

Cold Open



Like the previous Moore teasers, Spy's is not only connected to the story, it sets it up. We see a British sub go missing in a nicely tense, mysterious way, then hear that a Soviet sub has also disappeared. The Soviets assign XXX to the case and there's a nice fake out when it looks like XXX is a man, but then turns out to be the woman he's in bed with. (The man, by the way, is played by Michael Billington, who was Broccoli's top choice to play Bond had Roger Moore not been available for Live and Let Die. In fact, Billington tested for Bond three more times after Spy when Moore's contract went movie-by-movie and his returning wasn't always a sure thing. Looking at Billington in Spy, it's easy to imagine him as Bond, though we don't get any sense of his personality.)

Meanwhile, M assigns the submarine case to Bond who is already on assignment in the Swiss Alps. Bond extricates himself, but not before a team of Soviet agents show up, led by XXX's boyfriend. An awesome ski chase ensues, beating out the one in On Her Majesty's Secret Service for thrills. There are gadgets, there are stunts, and of course there's the Disco Bond Theme (a source of controversy among Bond music fans, but it gets zero complaints from me). All of this culminates in arguably the best stunt from any Bond movie: skiing off a cliff and escaping via Union Jack parachute. In the process, Bond kills XXX's boyfriend, setting up a conflict for later in the movie.

Easily the best cold open so far and it raised the bar for future teasers to an almost impossible level.

Top 10 Cold Opens

1. The Spy Who Loved Me
2. Thunderball
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4. Goldfinger
5. The Man with the Golden Gun
6. From Russia With Love
7. Diamonds Are Forever
8. You Only Live Twice
9. Live and Let Die
10. TBD

Movie Series Continuity



The Spy Who Loved Me really ushers in the Moore era in a proper way. Not only does it give us the first huge teaser sequence, it also introduces both General Gogol and the British Minister of Defense who will become recurring characters in the next several films. Though M makes the initial call to activate Bond, it's the MoD who actually briefs him. Not the last time that'll happen either.

M doesn't disappear though. He continues to pop up, even in the field, which is still a habit of his. He, Q, and Moneypenny all hang out in the Cairo office for major chunks of the movie. Q is also present at the field briefing, offering technical consult on how the missing subs were possibly tracked.

[UPDATE: After watching The Spy Who Loved Me again, I realized that Robert Brown plays Admiral Hargreaves, so in my head canon it's Hargreaves who replaces Miles Messervy after he dies.]

Bond's time at Cambridge is mentioned again. In You Only Live Twice he mentioned that he studied Oriental langagues there and in Spy we meet one of his former classmates, a sheik named Hosein.

Bond is a know-it-all about a couple of things in this one, but has some holes poked in his omniscience. His knowledge of Carl Stromberg's activities (which gets an appreciative comment from the usually annoyed M) is proven incomplete by XXX. And Bond knows enough about fish to pose as a marine biologist in front of Stromberg, but isn't totally confident pulling up that information.

The jokey tone of the movie gives us a couple of gags that will recur in future films. When Bond drives the Lotus out of the water and onto the beach, he scares the crap out of a dog and gets a drunk to think twice about the bottle he's been consuming. The drunk shows up in the next couple of films and the dog sets a precedent for an even more ridiculous animal reaction in Moonraker.

Finally, when XXX is reciting Bond's dossier back to him, she gets to his marriage and his wife's death before he interrupts her, clearly hurt by the memory. It's one of a couple of great, dramatic moments in the movie. It also makes it obvious that Moore is playing the same character that George Lazenby did, who was playing the same character that Connery did. The James Bond Is a Code Name Theory doesn't hold up.