Surveying the Gen X landscape and the origins of geek
A rare piece of US-made Moonraker merchandise that I want to get a better look at. The “color, cut out and fly” design was lifted from Malcolm Whyte’s Troubador Press, whose Paper Airplanes to Color, Fold & Fly by Marc Arceneaux was published in 1974. Space-themed titles followed in the wake of Star Wars.
I think these bad photos came from a long finished auction, but can’t quite remember.
Moonraker, though considerably less hyped than The Black Hole and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, actually did better at the box office. I saw all three in ’79, and also remember seeing The Black Stallion (a gorgeous, unforgettable movie I didn’t fully appreciate as a kid: watch it again). I was dying to see Alien, especially after repeated exposure to one of the greatest trailers ever made, but that wouldn’t happen for a few more years.
Lone Star, a strange name for a UK company, specialized in die cast toys, like Corgi, another UK company that released some memorable Moonraker toys. Lone Star also made the neat “Golden Gun” seen below in 1975. The man who played the man with the golden gun was, of course, Christopher Lee, whose movies meant so much to me then and now that I haven’t been able to put anything into words yet.
(Second two images via 007 Collector)
The kick-ass, amphibious Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me could be yours! From RM Auctions:
No Bond car has ever done anything as outrageous as transform itself into a submarine. Used to incredible effect in the film The Spy Who Loved Me, starring Roger Moore, the white Lotus commonly tops the polls when generations of movie fans are asked to vote on their favourite film cars of all time […]
The vehicle to be offered by RM Auctions at its forthcoming London sale, 8-9 September, in Battersea Park, is the one and only fully functioning car especially designed and built for the famous underwater sequence seen on screen in the 1977 film […]
The Aston Martin from Goldfinger sold for £2.9 million in 2010. I can’t imagine the Lotus will go for less, since, you know, it’s a bloody submarine. The closest I ever got to the damn thing is pictured below.
(Images via Lotus Esprit Turbo and Vectis Auctions)
We all feel the same way about Moonraker: the outer space laser action was pretty righteous, but it took way too long to get there.
2 Warps to Neptune 