1979: Moonraker vs Alien

Firemass

As Thunderpussy mentioned in the "You know you're a Bond fan when…" thread. I also automatically compare other films released the same year as Bond films. I rank the special effects, the style of clothes, the treatment of women, the amount of violence and grittiness etc.

One matchup I find interesting is Moonraker and Alien in 1979. MR unfairly gets a lot of flack for being a Star Wars clone, despite having virtually no similarities other than blue end credits. I was reading up on Alien and it was greenlit for basically the same reason as Moonraker:

Despite the multiple rewrites, 20th Century Fox did not express confidence in financing a science-fiction film. However, after the success of Star Wars in 1977 the studio's interest in the genre rose substantially. According to Carroll: "When Star Wars came out and was the extraordinary hit that it was, suddenly science fiction became the hot genre." O'Bannon recalled that "They wanted to follow through on Star Wars, and they wanted to follow through fast, and the only spaceship script they had sitting on their desk was Alien". - Wikipedia

Both films have great special effects and visual style, although Alien shows its age whenever a computer screen is shown. I haven't heard too much griping about Alien being a Star Wars knock-off.

At any rate, they are my two favorite films from 1979.

The next Alien vs. Bond head-to-head matchup would be Tomorrow Never Dies and Alien Resurrection in 1997. Both of those are awesome as well. -{

heartbroken_mr_drax

At the time Alien wasn't an established, earth-based series - so I guess it is easy for people to have a go at MR for being an opportunistic Star Wars style film because "Bond doesn't belong in space".

Gassy Man

Alien, though, clearly was a horror film with a sci fi setting. It substituted a spaceship for a haunted house, and a murderous insect for a hockey-masked slasher.

That said, it was essentially a remake of any number of B movies from the 50s and 60s, from It! The Terror Beyond Space to Planet of Blood to Terror in Space/Planet of the Vampires.

Moonraker, though, took Bond into Star Wars territory with laser gun fights and the like. By comparison, Alien stayed pretty low tech -- in fact, it's verisimilitude was one of the reasons it was so frightening. It sometimes felt more like a documentary than a movie because the production worked so hard to make it seem real.

M 'n' M

Totally agree with Gassy Man about Alien - horror film with sci fi setting. I'd also then argue that Star Wars is pretty much something like a cowboy film with a sci fi setting or just a folk / fairy tale with a sci fi setting. Where the Moonraker producers got it wrong was in thinking that it was ALL about the setting. Yes, the special effects were fantastic but a lot of what made Star Wars great was stuff that had actually been lifted from James Bond!! - eg big baddie, terrifying henchman, wisecracking hero (Han Solo, not Luke), thrill a minute action, save the world / universe story. In other words, firing a few lasers didn't make it the phenomenon it became

heartbroken_mr_drax

M n M wrote:

Where the Moonraker producers got it wrong was in thinking that it was ALL about the setting.

They didn't get anything wrong.

Matt S

heartbroken_mr_drax wrote:

M n M wrote:

Where the Moonraker producers got it wrong was in thinking that it was ALL about the setting.

They didn't get anything wrong.

I agree. Moonraker still had all of the elements that made it a great Bond film. The setting is what sets it apart from other Bond films, but it's not all about the setting. You could say the same about the setting of any other Bond film. Moonraker doesn't treat outer space any differently than TB treats underwater, YOLT treats Japan or OHMSS treats the Alps.

Firemass

Gassy Man wrote:

That said, it was essentially a remake of any number of B movies from the 50s and 60s, from It! The Terror Beyond Space to Planet of Blood to Terror in Space/Planet of the Vampires.

Haha, I was going to mention that just for you, because you're often saying how Moonraker borrowed elements from B-movie Kiss the Girls and Make them Die.

All I can say is, everything is a remix. There's no way to be 100% original. I'd be surprised if the producers were even familiar with these B-movies.

Gassy Man

All three are minor classics in the genre -- for instance, Terror in Space is directed by the noted Italian horror director Mario Bava. The likelihood of the people involved with Alien never having seen at least one of these is very low, especially since I saw two of them as a kid on the Saturday afternoon movies as a kid.

It's like Gene Roddenberry refuting for years that he was influenced by Forbidden Planet when creating Star Trek, a ludicrous idea he finally admitted to later in his life.

There's a difference between reusing some genre ingredients (the shootout in a western; the gadget in a spy movie) and wholesale lifting, however.

By the way, if you want to see similarities, you can watch the films or clips for free on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhzb-TEaQYE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGmbzpYx56c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vcQxMHrJlk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXyJtMcIbo

superado

I did not see Alien in the theater when it was released although I remember the marketing for it. The Alien tagline was, "in space, no one can hear you scream," but if it were a Bond film, you can! )

I eventually watched Aliens a year or so later on cable TV. When it was released in 1979, I don't remember making a connection or thinking of any comparison with MR. Yes, both movies had space settings, but after Star Wars space became very commonplace, so much so that I didn't make a conscious connection between Star Wars and MR, because in my mind MR was yet another space-set movie (and me not looking at the breadcrumbs from Star Wars!)

Agent Purple

MR is indeed one of my fave Bond films, and it is indeed a highly fun watch, as far as I'm concerned.

On the other hand, Ridley Scott happens to be one of my fave directors, and Alien is, so far, one of my fave films directed by him.

Love MR, but I have to give it to Alien.

Both great films though.

always shaken

I had the pleasure years ago of talking to the great John Hurt ,I asked him about the the alien exploding from the guys chest ,basically it was a bloke under the table with a glove puppet alien ,pushed through a hole . he wasn't that impressed ,but then I suppose he has seen it all ,but I was fascinated