The Bond Villains: Hugo Drax

Hugo Drax

When a space shuttle suddenly launches and disappears while being transported on the back of a Boeing 747, MI6 sends James Bond on a mission to uncover what has happened. His investigations lead him to space shuttle manufacturer Drax Industries in California, owned by eccentric billionaire Hugo Drax. Residing in a château imported from France (brick by brick no less), the first encounter between Bond and Drax is brittle. At first, Drax doesn´t pay much attention to Bond and calmly finishes his piano recital of Chopin´s “Raindrop” Prelude.

Concealed behind a stern façade, Drax is a merciless psychotic who very much enjoys to dispose of enemies in a cruel way. After discovering that his personal pilot Corinne Dufour had shared more than just a tête-à-tête with James Bond, he lets his trained Beauceron guard dogs loose to kill her. Drax makes several ingenious attempts on Bond´s life: first with a sniper, then by spinning him to death in a centrifuge, choking him with a reticulated python and ultimately threatening him with a space laser gun aboard his space station.

Drax´s evil scheme is similar to that of villain Karl Stromberg: wipe out humanity and create a new master race with a few selected, perfect physical human specimens. To achieve his goal, he weaponizes the toxin of the South American Black Orchid plant and launches it from his space station in orbit. Reinhabiting planet Earth would have been the next phase once the deadly toxins had become harmless. Naturally, his plan fails thanks to the intervention of James Bond, CIA agent Holly Goodhead and the US Marines who engage Drax´s troops in a raving space laser battle.

“Mr. Bond, you persist in defying my efforts to provide an amusing death for you.” – Hugo Drax

Sophisticated art lover and wannabe god Drax is a wonderfully multi-layered villain striving for perfection and control. Like the evil masterminds before him, he demonstrates power through unimaginable wealth. His distinct way of speaking and particularly his choice of words make him the ultimate silver-tongued villain and a nice counterpart to Bond. At times, Drax even sounds poetic. The only difference between the two is Bond´s matchless tongue-in-cheek wordplay. The final confrontation between 007 and Drax literally takes his breath away when Bond ejects him to the lonely vastness of outer space.

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