Timothy Dalton in Moonraker - A concept

I remember reading the 007 books as a High School freshman and the one that stood out to me the most was Moonraker, mostly because it was actually one of my least favorite movies, yet the new adventure to me was actually one of my favorites. So I always wondered - what would a movie adaptation of Fleming's Moonraker look like? - And then it hit me just recently.

The Actor? For a long time I considered it to either be Roger Moore's last outing in the late 70's or a replacement for Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day. For a long time, I thought, if anything in Dalton's case, For Your Eyes Only should have been his debut, and there was little room for Moonraker. You see, some movie plots just wouldn't fit for it's time, like how I don't think The Man With The Golden Gun would work after 1984 (And even that's a stretch). In Brosnan's era we could change the Moonraker to either a satellite or a black market bomb, but that's just too - well, Brosnan. But what if, in the same timeframe, instead of getting Bond in space, the Albert Broccoli decided to compete against Star Wars with the cold war sci-fi Ian Fleming had written? After all, Bond's attitude in this would be the perfect way to start us off with Timothy Dalton to transition to the later 80's with darker films - and so I chose Dalton


PART I:
THE PTS

After the gunbarrel, we open up to an airport, captioned KINGSTON, JAMAICA. A Man in his 20's with long, light brown hair comes off of his plane, into the terminal, and waits at customs to pick up something, revealed to be a biplane. He Boards it - and takes out a military grade speargun. We cut to a commercial airplane flight with transmitter audio, revealing it's destination is also Kingston. From a distance, the Biplane comes into view as autopilot is turned on, and the man inside pulls out his speargun, aims, and finally fires into the jet of the commercial airplane, hits it, then descends his biplane.

In the commercial airplane, there's commotion between the passengers, and then Timothy Dalton wakes up just as the pilot comes out, grabbing a parachute, saying, "Goodbye, Mr. Bond, I have finally done what others could only dream of." or along those lines before jumping out. Timothy on instinct, takes off the suit jacket, sprints, and jumps out the plane to follow. The man with the parachute is revealed to be attempting to land in the biplane.

Bond catches up and begins fighting with the man with the parachute until Bond finally grabs hold, kicks the man off and then the man falls into the biplanes motor. Bond pulls the cord to his parachute and observes as the pilot helplessly nosedives into a cliff. We slowly transition into the credits, with the same Moonraker theme by Shirley Bassey.

Does this sound interesting enough to continue?
Movie: From Russia With Love | Novel: On Her Majesty's Secret Service | Actor: Sean Connery | Girl: Melina Havelock | Car: Aston Martin V8

Comments

  • RemingtonRemington CAPosts: 239MI6 Agent
    Italus_NT wrote:
    I remember reading the 007 books as a High School freshman and the one that stood out to me the most was Moonraker, mostly because it was actually one of my least favorite movies, yet the new adventure to me was actually one of my favorites. So I always wondered - what would a movie adaptation of Fleming's Moonraker look like? - And then it hit me just recently.

    The Actor? For a long time I considered it to either be Roger Moore's last outing in the late 70's or a replacement for Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day. For a long time, I thought, if anything in Dalton's case, For Your Eyes Only should have been his debut, and there was little room for Moonraker. You see, some movie plots just wouldn't fit for it's time, like how I don't think The Man With The Golden Gun would work after 1984 (And even that's a stretch). In Brosnan's era we could change the Moonraker to either a satellite or a black market bomb, but that's just too - well, Brosnan. But what if, in the same timeframe, instead of getting Bond in space, the Albert Broccoli decided to compete against Star Wars with the cold war sci-fi Ian Fleming had written? After all, Bond's attitude in this would be the perfect way to start us off with Timothy Dalton to transition to the later 80's with darker films - and so I chose Dalton


    PART I:
    THE PTS

    After the gunbarrel, we open up to an airport, captioned KINGSTON, JAMAICA. A Man in his 20's with long, light brown hair comes off of his plane, into the terminal, and waits at customs to pick up something, revealed to be a biplane. He Boards it - and takes out a military grade speargun. We cut to a commercial airplane flight with transmitter audio, revealing it's destination is also Kingston. From a distance, the Biplane comes into view as autopilot is turned on, and the man inside pulls out his speargun, aims, and finally fires into the jet of the commercial airplane, hits it, then descends his biplane.

    In the commercial airplane, there's commotion between the passengers, and then Timothy Dalton wakes up just as the pilot comes out, grabbing a parachute, saying, "Goodbye, Mr. Bond, I have finally done what others could only dream of." or along those lines before jumping out. Timothy on instinct, takes off the suit jacket, sprints, and jumps out the plane to follow. The man with the parachute is revealed to be attempting to land in the biplane.

    Bond catches up and begins fighting with the man with the parachute until Bond finally grabs hold, kicks the man off and then the man falls into the biplanes motor. Bond pulls the cord to his parachute and observes as the pilot helplessly nosedives into a cliff. We slowly transition into the credits, with the same Moonraker theme by Shirley Bassey.

    Does this sound interesting enough to continue?
    More Dalton? Yes please continue.
    -{
    1. Connery 2. Moore 3. Dalton 4. Brosnan 5. Craig 6. Lazenby
  • Italus_NTItalus_NT Posts: 67MI6 Agent
    Part II: Columbite King

    After our credits, Bond is seen practicing his marksmanship before being called into the office. Once inside, he strikes a "casual conversation" with Moneypenny (Replaced with Caroline Bliss), and enters M's office.

    Here's some sample dialogue:




    M: What have you heard of Sir Hugo Drax II?

    James: The man that's building the Moonraker?

    M: Yes.

    James: Well, he's the offspring of one of our WWII heroes; Hugo Drax, killed in action in 1943, made a fortune cornering a valuable Columbite ore, and has used his personal grievances as motivation to keep Britain armed via the creation of superarms all funded out of his pocket.

    M: Seems like there's more to this story; the man is under investigation.

    James: For what?

    M: Apparently the man - cheats at cards. You're coming with me to Blade's tonight - A favorite spot of Drax. Be there at 2000 hours.





    I'm going to try to update the story weekly from now on. It's going to be a bit difficult but things should get better in May.
    Movie: From Russia With Love | Novel: On Her Majesty's Secret Service | Actor: Sean Connery | Girl: Melina Havelock | Car: Aston Martin V8
  • Italus_NTItalus_NT Posts: 67MI6 Agent
    Hey guys, I noticed I haven’t updated this in a long time, and since I haven’t seen a rule about posting in old threads, I suppose it would at least be responsible to finish this thread with some simple notes instead of one large bloated script. I don’t even know what I was thinking at the time, I don’t even know if I’d like this concept too much anymore.

    Key Notes I found from 2 years ago:
    -Movie As stated before is based on the ‘55 book instead of “Bond in Space” concept
    -I wanted Hugo Drax to be the son of a Luftwaffe veteran (instead of a Panzer vet) and be a slimmer version of (our timeline’s) movie portrayal due to being set in the 70’s
    -Drax’s crew would consist of Wermacht veterans and Neo-you-know-whats
    -I wanted Bond to drive a 1977 Triumph Stag (I loved Triumph motors at the time)
    -I wanted Bob Geldof (yes, the guy from The Wall) to play Krebs (I thought he could play at the time a convincing neo-you-know-what)
    -I obviously wanted Lois Chiles to play Gala Brand/Dr Goodhead/Whatever the film wanted to call her
    -At the end of the movie, Bond purchases and drives away in a 1978/80 (depending on the release year of movie) Aston Martin V8, signifying a return to Bond’s AM days

    This is all I could really conjure up, I can’t believe it’s been two years and I’d like to apologize if I’ve broken any rules by commenting on an old thread. I just wanted to give it some closure.
    Movie: From Russia With Love | Novel: On Her Majesty's Secret Service | Actor: Sean Connery | Girl: Melina Havelock | Car: Aston Martin V8
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,704MI6 Agent
    Those are some interesting thoughts, Italus_NT. You also reminded me I wrote a plot outline for a more down to earth Version of MR. Here it is:
    https://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/43265/the-plot-of-the-moonraker-movie-i-would-have-liked-to-see/
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