Hugo Drax
| Sir Hugo Drax | |
|---|---|
| Classification | Villain |
| Henchmen |
|
Sir Hugo Drax is a fictional character created by author Ian Fleming for the 1955 James Bond novel Moonraker.[1] For the later film and its novelization, Drax was greatly altered from the novel by screenwriter Christopher Wood. In the film, Drax is portrayed by English/French actor Michael Lonsdale.[1] In both the novel and film, Drax is the main antagonist.[2]
Novel biography
In the novel Sir Hugo Drax is an English World War II soldier, believed to have been working in Liverpool harbour before the war, who became a post-war millionaire. He has red hair, and half of his face is badly scarred from a German attack during the war. The same incident left him with amnesia. He is 6 ft (183 cm) tall. After the war, Drax made a fortune from trading metals in Tangier and was able to start up his company, Drax Metals Ltd, which specialises and has a monopoly in the production of the metal ore columbite. Drax is also the backer of the 'Moonraker' missile project being built to defend the United Kingdom against its Cold War enemies. Alloys made from columbite have superior temperature resistance over conventional metals, allowing the Moonraker to burn hotter fuels in its engines and thus greatly increase its range.
The novel reveals that Drax was born in Germany as
Drax sets up the "Moonraker" missile project under the pretence of test-firing it into the
Inspiration
The novel involved the idea of the "traitor within" throughout the course of the book.[3] Drax, real name Graf Hugo von der Drache, is a "megalomaniac German Nazi who masquerades as an English gentleman",[4] while his assistant, Krebs, bears the same name as Adolf Hitler's last Chief of Staff.[5] In using a German as the novel's main enemy, "Fleming ... exploits another British cultural antipathy of the 1950s. Germans, in the wake of World War II, made another easy and obvious target for bad press."[4] Moonraker uses two dictatorships that Fleming hated – the Nazis and the Soviets – as villains: Drax is German and works for the Soviets,[6] who provide him with not only the atomic bomb, but the support and logistics to use it.[7]
Fleming used aspects of his private life to create Drax; Fleming named the character after an acquaintance
Film biography
In the film adaptation, Hugo Drax is a billionaire who owns Drax Industries, a private company which constructs
Bond follows a trail around the world to investigate the theft of a space shuttle that Drax had loaned to the UK. He begins his investigation in California at Drax Industries, and follows it to Italy, then to Brazil, then into space.
Drax reveals that he seeks to destroy the entire human race except for a small group of carefully selected humans, both male and female, that would leave Earth on six shuttles and have sanctuary on a space station in orbit over Earth. Using chemical weapons created by Drax's scientists—derived from the toxin of a rare South American plant, the Black Orchid—at an installation in Italy, he would wipe out the remainder of humanity. The biological agents were to be dispersed around the Earth from a series of 50 strategically placed globes, each containing enough toxin to kill 100 million people. After a period of time, when the chemical agents had become harmless, Drax and his master race would return to Earth to reinhabit the planet.
Bond obtains a sample of the chemical agent at the location in Italy. It leads him to a remote part of Brazil, where he finds Drax's shuttle-launch facility in an ancient civilization's shrine.
Bond and his companion, CIA agent Dr. Holly Goodhead, commandeer one of Drax's space shuttles and blast off to his orbiting space station. Bond persuades Drax's henchman Jaws to switch allegiances by getting Drax to reveal that Jaws and his girlfriend Dolly will be exterminated as "inferiors". A team of marines sent by the U.S. government invade the space station, resulting in a laser battle in which Drax's "master race" are all killed. Bond then corners Drax in the station's airlock, shoots him with a cyanide-tipped dart, and ejects him into space.
Henchmen
- Jaws – changed sides and survived
- Chang – thrown through a clock face by Bond, landing in a piano
- Tree Sniper – shot by Bond
- Corrine Dufour – eaten by Drax's dogs
- Samuel – unknown
- Blonde Beauty – presumed killed during destruction of the space station
- Museum Guide – presumed killed during destruction of the space station
- La Signorina del Mateo – presumed killed during destruction of the space station
- Paramedic – strapped to a stretcher and sent crashing head first into a billboard
- Mademoiselle Deladier – presumed killed during destruction of the space station
- Countess Labinsky – presumed killed during destruction of the space station
- Lady Victoria Devon – presumed killed during destruction of the space station
- Cavendish – survived
- Fraser – survived
- Dolly – fell in love with Jaws and survived
- Innumerable foot-soldiers clad in sporty lemon-yellow spacesuits with black stripes
- Italian gangsters in Venice
Novelization
In his novelization of the movie, screenwriter Christopher Wood describes Drax as red-haired and with a face scarred and botched by poor plastic surgery (from a time "before he could afford the best in the world"), much as originally envisioned by Fleming. Although Drax's nationality is not specified, Bond idly wonders to himself which side he fought on during World War II.
Video games
- Hugo Drax appears as a playable character in GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo Wii and GoldenEye 007: Reloaded for the Xbox 360 and PS3.
- Hugo Drax appears in 007 Legends during the Moonraker levels with Michael Lonsdale reprising his role.
See also
References
- ^ a b Canby, Vincent (June 29, 1979). "Moonraker (1979)". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
- ISBN 0-8160-1356-X.
- ^ Black 2005, p. 16.
- ^ a b Black 2005, p. 81.
- ^ Black 2005, p. 20.
- ^ Black 2005, p. 17.
- ^ Black 2005, p. 22.
- ^ Macintyre 2008, p. 88.
- ^ Slade, Darren (25 October 2015). "Revealed: James Bond's 11 surprising connections to Dorset and the New Forest". Bournemouth Daily Echo. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
- ^ Longden 2009, p. 312.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-8032-6240-9.
- Macintyre, Ben (2008). For Your Eyes Only. London: ISBN 978-0-7475-9527-4.
- Longden, Sean (2009). T-Force: The Forgotten Heroes of 1945. London: ISBN 978-1-84529-727-5.