Drax is one of the best....

Georgiboy · July 2007

Hugo Drax is probably the best supervillain of all time. He was just like Hitler, but got only a few days away from his goal of a master race. If he had succeeded, he would have practically been God. He even plans an interesting death for Bond. And all through this he is calm, cool, and collected. Even when things are out of control, he stays calm. He is definately the most sinister and ambitious supervillain of all time.

Agreed?

Lazenby · July 2007

I like Drax a lot-- he is probably my favorite non-60s Bond villain. However I think he's edged out by Blofeld as a mad supervillain.

Napoleon Plural · July 2007

Drax has some great one-liners. Certainly an OTT villain. But... if his plan had come off, who would he have used to propogate the species? And would it have led to a series of David Brent lookalikes?

He seemed a bit of a Hugo No-Mates...

Krassno Granitski · July 2007

Georgiboy wrote:

Hugo Drax is probably the best supervillain of all time.
Agreed?

No, he's ugly and stupid.

Georgiboy · July 2007

Krassno Granitski wrote:

Georgiboy wrote:

Hugo Drax is probably the best supervillain of all time.
Agreed?

No, he's ugly and stupid.

Touché.

Dan Same · July 2007

I think the greatest mad supervillain was Stromberg. He wanted to create an entire world under the sea. Drax was IMO a replicate (albeit a great replicate) of Stromberg. Now, I loved Drax; amazingly acted with superb dialogue, but I just don't think he was the greatest.

Lazenby · July 2007

Dan Same wrote:

I think the greatest mad supervillain was Stromberg. He wanted to create an entire world under the sea. Drax was IMO a replicate (albeit a great replicate) of Stromberg. Now, I loved Drax; amazingly acted with superb dialogue, but I just don't think he was the greatest.

Stromberg was boooorrrring. At least Drax had a personality.

Dan Same · July 2007

Lazenby wrote:

Stromberg was boooorrrring. At least Drax had a personality.

I don't think he was boring in the slightest. He was very understated, but so was Blofeld in OHMSS.

Kirk James Kirk · July 2007

Dan, Stromberg is probably better because his film was better. I think they both are great. Both are representative of what a great Bond villain should be like. I wish the Brosnan baddies would have watched these two movies.

Dan Same · July 2007

Kirk James Kirk wrote:

Dan, Stromberg is probably better because his film was better. I think they both are great. Both are representative of what a great Bond villain should be like.

You know, you might be right. I do prefer Stromberg but perhaps my prefering TSWLM has something to do with it. Regardless, they are both great villains as you said.

Kirk James Kirk wrote:

I wish the Brosnan baddies would have watched these two movies.

Especially Carver.

He was really the only mad supervillain of the Bond films (except maybe for Graves) and I think he was terrible; especially in comparison to Stromberg and Drax.

Lazenby880 · July 2007

Lazenby wrote:

Dan Same wrote:

I think the greatest mad supervillain was Stromberg. He wanted to create an entire world under the sea. Drax was IMO a replicate (albeit a great replicate) of Stromberg. Now, I loved Drax; amazingly acted with superb dialogue, but I just don't think he was the greatest.

Stromberg was boooorrrring. At least Drax had a personality.

I think they are both good megalomaniac villains however I would concur that Drax is the more memorable of the two. Part of this is down to the screenplay: Drax got some fantastic one-liners. However, much of this is also down to Lonsdale's interpretation of the character: cold, detatched and deeply sinister. The delivery of some of his lines is just brilliant, such as the afternoon tea and English humour jibes. In fact, reflecting on it now, I would go so far as to say that Lonsdale's Drax is the best villain of the Moore era, and one of the strongest of the series.

And Moonraker is a thoroughly enjoyable film too.

Kirk James Kirk · July 2007

Stromberg wasn't developed as well as he should have. His aversion to shaking hands and his love of the fishies could have been told more thoroughly. Stromberg's death is a lot more effective (one of the best scenes of the Moore era) than Drax's. I don't like Moore's flippant delivery of the "heartbroken, Mr. Drax." Bond's joking demeanor in this scene gives off the impression that Bond isn't worried in the least about Drax. With that being said, I love Lonsdale's delivery of "Desolated, Mr. Bond."

Dan Same · July 2007

Kirk James Kirk wrote:

Stromberg wasn't developed as well as he should have. His aversion to shaking hands and his love of the fishies could have been told more thoroughly. Stromberg's death is a lot more effective (one of the best scenes of the Moore era) than Drax's.

Allow me to defend the magnificent Karl Stromberg, one of the ten greatest villains of all time IMO.

I love Stromberg because as well as being superbly acted, he exuded a kind of understated madness. He was mad in that he wanted to create an underwater society, but he wasn't a 'raving psychotic' like Zorin was. He was a very casual villain who rarely needed to raise his voice in order to assure the audience of his pure menace. He was also a gentleman in the Goldfinger/Largo mode and was a villain whom I felt truly posed a massive challenge to Bond. I also think he had great *dialogue, and it has always been a joy for me to watch Stromberg at work.

It is true that he wasn't as developed as some other villains, but does it matter? Many of the great Connery villains (Oddjob, Klebb, Grant) weren't all that developed either, yet that does not affect the quality of these characters.

I love Drax (a wonderful villain in a less than wonderful film) but if I had to pick which mad Moore supervillain to save in the villain elimination game, it would undoubtfully be Stromberg. In fact, I would argue that he was so good that he led to Drax; whilst great, Drax is arguably an imitaion (of sorts) of Stromberg.

*One example being "By creating a world, a new and beautiful world beneath the sea. Today civilization as we know it is corrupt and decadent. Inevitably it will destroy itself. I'm merely accelerating the process."

Hardyboy · July 2007

Hmmm, Georgiboy, you seem to be having it both ways. In your title you call Drax "one of the best villains," and in your post you call him probably "the best!"

Anyway, I go with "one of" instead of "the." Michael Lonsdale's Drax is one of the genuine pleasures of Moonraker--he has the wittiest dialogue and he delivers his lines with a smooth malevolence. I'll put him down as the best of the Moore-era villains.

Georgiboy · July 2007

Hardyboy wrote:

Hmmm, Georgiboy, you seem to be having it both ways. In your title you call Drax "one of the best villains," and in your post you call him probably "the best!"

Anyway, I go with "one of" instead of "the." Michael Lonsdale's Drax is one of the genuine pleasures of Moonraker--he has the wittiest dialogue and he delivers his lines with a smooth malevolence. I'll put him down as the best of the Moore-era villains.

Sorry, I contradict myself sometimes in my ramblings, I think that he was "one" of the best villains.

Back to topic, I like to think that Drax and Stromberg are equally evil. Both are calm and not quite as insane as Zorin but still quite mad. Both are playing god and both have a huge lair with their own army. Stromberg has one more skill that Drax doesn't have though, he can press buttons like no other.

) Did any of you ever see Drax press any buttons that magnificently?

Also, I don't think that any of them are the best Moore villain though, I think Kananga beat them at that category.

Kirk James Kirk · July 2007

He may be great with buttons, but can Stromberg throw steak with such precision?

Dan, I agree with your Stromberg comments. Good points, indeed.

Drax is one of the best....

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