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Quotes

[The staff of MI6 are watching a large screen that shows Bond and Dr. Goodhead making love in space.]

Minister: My god, what's Bond doing!?

Q: I think he's attempting re-entry, sir.

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Mistakes

Two pilot/astronauts steal a space shuttle by firing it up and launching it off the back of the Boeing 747 transporter. This cannot happen : the 747 can't lift the shuttle with a full fuel load - it only just lifts it empty. (Why would they carry a fully fuelled shuttle anyway?) See more...

Trivia

Lois Chiles (Dr. Holly Goodhead) was originally asked to play Anya in "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977) but turned it down when she decided to take temporary retirement. Chiles was given the role of Dr. Goodhead by chance when she was given the seat next to Lewis Gilbert on a flight. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

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Moonraker (1979) - 21 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. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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Carole Bouquet, who later played Melina Havelock in "For Your Eyes Only" (1981), was interviewed for the female lead. [This is hardly trivia worthy. Many actresses read for and do not get parts.]
Edit Corrected by jhoffman100@yahoo.com
In the Venice scene, Bond uses a hovercraft gondola. Such a vehicle should have air intakes for the lift fans in its bottom. So, it'd have sunk without some sort of inflatable pontoons, which it didn't possess. Also, when the vehicle rides on the streets, there's no sign of propeller or so - lift fans can only hover a vehicle, they can't push it forward. [Retractable plates would cover the lift fans during normal operation to keep it from sinking. We see the hovercraft gondola drive forward in the plaza so we know it has some form of locomotion; possibly a wheel mounted beneath it.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
Bond and Dr. Holly Goodhead escape from a fiery death under a space shuttle by running through a convenient ventilation shaft. However, the flames from the shuttle exhaust would use up all the air in the shaft and suffocate them. That's if they haven't been killed by the fumes from the shuttle's solid fuel boosters or even killed by the sheer noise of the shuttle blasting off. [All assumptions. The ventilation shaft is open at the far end allowing air to flow in and replace any oxygen burned off by the shuttle exhaust. The air flowing in would also vent fumes away from Bond and Goodhead. Apparently they were able to survive the noise of the shuttle's lift-off.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
The third probe enters the atmosphere long after Bond and Goodhead in the shuttle, though it's pretended earlier that they have to enter at a steep angle to keep track of the probe. [Wrong. It is the FIRST probe that enters the atmosphere; which becomes the third one they destroy. Since it was launched first, it enters the atmosphere first and they must use a steeper angle of descent to reach it. Not a mistake.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
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.]
Edit 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.]
Edit 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.]
Edit 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.]
Edit 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.]
Edit 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.]
Edit
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.]
Edit
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.]
Edit
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.]
Edit
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?]
Edit Corrected by Soylent Purple
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.]
Edit
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.]
Edit
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.]
Edit
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.]
Edit
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.]
Edit Corrected by tw_stuart
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?]
Edit Corrected by Twotall

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