Film After 11 Podcast | Moonraker (1979)

I occasionally have a perverse compulsion to torture my poor son Thomas during our Film After 11 podcast. Knowing how little patience he has for science fiction and big special effects movies from the late 1970s or early 1980s (outside of Star Wars, of course), I subjected him this week to Moonraker, special agent James Bond’s ill-fated journey to space. The kid’s reaction was… mixed, as can be imagined.

Amusingly, when I was around Thomas’ age, I thought the big space battle at the end of Moonraker was awesome the first time I caught it on TV. Those feelings were later tempered as I got older and fell in line with the popular consensus that Moonraker was the worst James Bond movie. These days, I’ve come around and greatly enjoy it as an entertaining 1970s sci-fi cheesefest. And, as I say in the podcast, the great shame of it is that the first half is a genuinely good James Bond film, until it goes off the rails at the end.

Lois Chiles is also my pick for the most fetching of Bond’s love interests during the Roger Moore era.

Moonraker (1979) - Pew Pew Pew!! Space Battle!
Title:Moonraker
Year of Release: 1979
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Watched On: Blu-ray
Also Available On: Various VOD rental and purchase platforms

The Blu-ray

Moonraker was first released on Blu-ray in 2009, packaged in either a standard keepcase or a SteelBook. The same disc later appeared in various James Bond collections, including the huge Bond 50 box set in 2012. I own both the initial SteelBook (despite its underwhelming cover art) and the Bond 50 box.

For that Blu-ray, Moonraker was one of the few Bond movies to receive a new 4K scan and full remastering by a firm called Lowry Digital, whose work was generally well-regarded, though also a little controversial. Lowry had pioneered a proprietary grain management process that reduced or otherwise tamed (but not totally eliminated) film grain without affecting the underlying detail or causing a smeary DNR look. Most viewers were impressed by this, but some purists and other sticklers didn’t care for it. While noting some of its issues, I gave the disc a positive review back in 2009.

Most of the Bond movies appeared on streaming a couple years ago in 4K resolution but only Standard Dynamic Range. As I write this, those copies are only available on purchase and rental platforms. The titles that previously had mediocre or outright bad Blu-rays (like GoldenEye) were remastered to results hailed as big improvements. Others, including all the Sean Connery films, were sourced from the 2009 Lowry masters, just in the higher 4K resolution. Moonraker falls into the latter category.

When all the Sean Connery entries were released on 4K Ultra HD physical media in 2025, they’d been remastered yet again, into full 4K HDR, without recycling any of Lowry’s work. Like many fans, I’ve chosen to wait and hold out hope that the rest of the series eventually follows that route. In the meantime, I gave the Moonraker Blu-ray another watch for this viewing with my son. I approached the disc warily, knowing how much standards have risen almost two decades later, and feared how poorly my previous review may have aged.

Moonraker (1979) Blu-ray SteelBook

In some respects, I stand by my earlier assessment. The Moonraker Blu-ray looks quite detailed, with very nice colors and contrast. However, Lowry’s digital processing stands out to my eye a lot more now. Edge enhancement sharpening is light but frequently noticeable, and gives facial features a gritty texture, especially in early scenes. The grain management and/or the disc encoding result in weird textures and patterns where grain will freeze in place on screen. These issues can be distracting.

I’ve also never been a fan of Lowry’s choice to squeeze the opening titles into a pillarboxed 2.20:1 aspect ratio when the rest of the film is accurately presented at 2.35:1. For Moonraker in particular, all the circular moon imagery looks ridiculous squeezed into ovals. Overall, the Blu-ray will continue to serve its purpose for now, but I look forward to eventually seeing a remastered 4K version.

The movie’s soundtrack is primarily offered in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 format, with an optional lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 track that may or may not represent the original Dolby Stereo mix. At the opening, the MGM lion delivers an impressive roar, but bass is milder during the bulk of the film. The space shuttle launches could definitely use more rumble. Music sounds good, though the highs may be a little rolled off. The surround channels are used to good effect during the centrifuge set-piece, bullet ricochets, and of course all the pew-pew laser blasts in the climax.

Bonus features are plentiful, but nothing I feel compelled to watch or listen to again even all these years later. Among them are two audio commentaries, a bunch of featurettes and vintage interviews, storyboards, trailers, and photo galleries. The full contents are listed out in my Blu-ray review from 2009 (linked below).

Related

Leave a comment