Moonraker movie corrections

When Jaws jumps from one cable car to the other there is no way he could have leapt the distance he does considering the way he hops off the first cable car. See more...

The film's budget had been more than the first six Bond films added together, but Broccoli's gamble paid off. Upon release in the Summer of 1979, the film enjoyed huge success globally, and the film easily recouped its budget. See more...

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Moonraker (1979) - 17 corrections

Directed by Lewis Gilbert, starring Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell, Michael Lonsdale, Richard Kiel, Roger Moore (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Sci-fi, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.

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When Bond is investigating the laboratory, he is interrupted by two scientists who come in so he hides in the room behind. Just then the vials fall to the ground emitting the deadly gas. The room Bond is hiding in is now sealed and the only way to get into that room is through the laboratory. Only one problem, how does Bond get out and not be discovered in the room. The room would be sealed until crew are able to come and clean it up, so Bond couldn't possibly get out. [Bond is in an airlock between the hallway and the lab. The door from the airlock to the lab seals off when the vial breaks; the door from the airlock to the outer hallway remains unsealed because the airlock was not contaminated.]

Corrected by BocaDavie

When Bond is in Rio watching the planes taking off through a telescope he follows its path only to be looking straight at Dr Goodhead, looking straight at him, ALSO through a telescope. Bond then takes about 5 steps towards Holly meaning that the plane must have passed close enough for them both to have jumped on. [The plane is in the far distance, Bond needs to re-focus the telescope to see Dr. Goodhead.]

Corrected by BocaDavie

After Bond and the guard have tumbled out of the ambulance in Rio, Dr. Goodhead, the CIA agent, is left alone in the van. She should be able to escape. She is still tied up, but she should be able to free herself in the same way that Bond did, especially as there is now no one to stop her. Why is she still a captive later on in the film? [Several possibilities - her stretcher didn't have the same railing that Bond had, she did escape but was recaptured, etc. Basically, she didn't escape.]

Corrected by BocaDavie

Why is the space station not visible from earth? Its got a radar jamming device so it can't be tracked by radar, but it hasent got a cloaking device. So you would still be able to see it with the naked eye from Earth. You could see MIR and the International Space Station. [You would see MIR or the ISS only if you were looking for them, and even then you would need a powerful telescope to see that they were spaceships. Unless you were specifically looking for this space station it would appear, at best, as a dim star for the casual observers from earth - and no one was looking for it.]

Corrected by BocaDavie

Laser beams should be invisible in vacuum, such as the final battle scene. [Should be, yes; and should not "strike" an object with an audible impact. These are apparently not lasers, the only real "laser" in the film is the one aimed at the American shuttle. These are some imaginary technology weapons that fire an energy bolt that leaves a tracer behind.]

Corrected by BocaDavie

The female helicopter pilot is showing Bond the Drax empire from above. She is wearing a head-set. Next shot, her hair has been made up,and the head-set is gone. [Between these two shots we also go from being over a city to being out in the desert - clearly we've skipped the bulk of the journey, giving her plenty of time to have removed the head set, which is seen hanging on a hook behind her.]

When Bond and Goodhead are in the Space Shuttle, when we see Goodhead reach for the pen her hair shows no effects of the lack of gravity. [To keep that style she must have used lots of hairspray.]

Laser beams have no kinetic energy. In the final battle scene, characters hit by lasers start spinning as if they were hit by an object. [The lasers have no kinetic energy but the heat energy transferred to the victims would cause thrust as their bodies expel gases and burning flesh; also as spacesuits are punctured the reaction of the interior pressure will propel them.]

In the cable car scene you see Jaws bite the cable in half to stop the cable car, in the next scene you see Jaws climbing on to the other car. After that another villain starts the cable car, for some unknown reason both cars start to move, how is this possible if one of the cables has been bitten in half? [There are support cables and driving cables, he bit through one of the supporting cables.]

When the Moonraker shuttles launch the crews are not in spacesuits. [Can you show us the relevant sections in the Dracco Industries Rule Book that says the crews must wear space suits?]

The space station turns on its axis when the shuttles arrive but it has stopped moving by itself when they attach to it. [The station is stationary when the moonrakers arrive. They dock and a single henchman goes across to turn on the 'artifical gravity' and get the station rotating.]

When James Bond is falling from the airplane, you can see the fingers of the cameraman in the upper left corner of the image the shot after the closeup on his face. [They are Bond's fingers, the shot is from his Point-Of-View, after all.]

A typical countdown to the launch of a space shuttle is 48 hours, given the numerous factors and preparations involved. The idea that the NASA could have one ready and launched in the ultra-brief time that it takes them (once they spot Drax's station on radar), or have one on standby in case something like this happened, is ludicrous. [At the time of the movie(1979), NASA stated they would be able to launch a shuttle every week. According to their plan, a quick launch, as shown in the movie, would have been possible.]

Bond and Goodhead escape from Jaws in the cable car by throwing a chain over the cable and sliding down. A bad guy in the control booth starts up the gears and the cable car is in pursuit, almost chatching up to Bond and forcing him and Goodhead to drop from the cable. Not possible; the cable car is attached to the moving cable and can only move as fast as it is pulled. No matter how fast that is, Bond is moving with the speed of the cable AND sliding down on the chain. There is no way the cable car could have overtaken him. [Bond cannot be both sliding down the cable AND moving with the speed of the cable as you describe. Either he is sliding: in which case the moving cable will have no effect on his speed, OR his chain is NOT sliding but is in full contact with the cable: hence he would travel at the same speed as the cable. There were also several cables to each car,so he may have been sliding down one that wasn't moving.]

When Bond and Goodhead's space shuttle enters space, it still has the main fuel tank attached. However, when Bond releases the fuel tank it falls downward even though they are no longer in Earth's atmosphere, and there would be nothing in space that would compel it to move downward. [Gravitational attraction would compel it to move towards the largest mass which is this case is the earth. The movements of the entire planetary system are guided by this attraction and yet all that's in between is space. Gravity, unlike sound, does not need a medium through which it is transmitted. The Earth's atmosphere has nothing to do with why things fall but it is responsible for them burning up due to air friction.]

At the monastery in Brazil, Q tells Bond that the liquid Bond wanted analyzed is a highly toxic nerve gas. Bond asks to "see the formula", and when he sees a molecular diagram, he says, "It's the chemical formula of a plant." A plant is an organism, not a molecule, and is no more likely to have a chemical formula than is a human being. Perhaps Bond only meant that the diagram showed the substance was organic? [What Bond means is that he identifies the molecular diagram as the poison from a specific (and extremely rare) plant. If he could just see that the substance was organic, it would not exactly enable him to know its exact location, would it?]

Corrected by Twotall

In space the space shuttles make a jet sound even though there is no sound in space. Even the ones leaving from the space station make this noise and although there might be some rumbling to be heard inside the space station, there wouldn't be anything else since there is no atmosphere for sound to travel through. [Yes, technically a mistake but the sounds are added for our benefit so we know what's going on. It would be pretty boring if all space scenes in all movies were required to be in silence just to be factually accurate.]

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Moonraker (1979) - 17 corrections

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