Moonraker (1979) - 47 mistakes

Continuity: When Bond is fighting Jaws while falling from the plane, Bond's chute changes color from a red and yellow pack to a beige and red pack and then back again.

Factual error: The space station rotates for pseudo-gravity, but everyone falls along the rotational axis towards the bottom of the screen instead of falling outward from the axis as they actually would. Admittedly this would be difficult to film (Stanley Kubrick's astronaut jogging in a giant hamster-wheel in Space Odyssey - nuff respect) so I guess they just hoped the audience wouldn't know the difference.

Continuity: In the final scene, in the live transmission from the shuttle, there is a full shot of Bond and Holly who are covered by a sheet, and they are at least 4 meters from the camera. In the next shot Bond's face is right in the camera, and he can reach over and turn it off.

Continuity: In the cablecar, Dr Goodhead's shoes change from high heel to flat sole and they also change color.

Continuity: Bond and Holly are in a room when the ceiling opens up to show them beneath the rockets of Moonraker 5. The next shot shows one of the rockets to be below the level of the ceiling.

Continuity: In the scene where Bond is in the helicopter being flown from the airport to Drax's estate, both landscape and weather change drastically from one moment to another as he approaches the castle. When the castle is first seen from the air in a long shot, it is surrounded by mountains and the sky is entirely clear. In the shots closer to the castle and from ground level, the mountains have disappeared and there are clouds in the sky. The cloud cover changes as well just after landing.

Plot hole: After the final battle scene we can see Jaws and his blonde girlfriend enjoying a champagne. But they are sitting in a blown-away section of the station which has no gravity.

Continuity: When the girl in the alleyway sees Jaws, she takes a closed flick knife out of her bag. When the angle changes to behind her, the blade's now extended.

Continuity: In the beginnning when Jaws pushes Bond out of the airplane he has a white shirt on. In all the close ups of Jaws he has a tan shirt on. When you see him from far away he has a white shirt on again.

Continuity: When Bond and Holly escape from the control room below the rocket, Bond has his sleeves rolled up, and his lower arms are bare. However, later in the film he is wearing his wrist-arrow-gun. Where did that come from?

Factual error: The space shuttles in this film are supposed to be the same that we use but they attach on the space station beside their airlock. It's impossible for the astronauts to enter the station.

Continuity: The astronauts aren't visible from the air when Corinne Dufour and James Bond arrive at Drax's palace.

Continuity: When James Bond is beating with the pilot on the airplane, the wall beside the door is beige viewed from inside and brown viewed from outside.

Visible crew/equipment: In Venice, when the two scientists are dying, there's a shot in front of Bond with one of them standing on the window. There's a reflection of the two scientists and something else moving behind, a crew member or some kind of equipment.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where the space station explodes, the wire holding up the model is visible when the explosion backlights it.

Factual error: Although it's already been mentioned that the scene of the shuttle being stolen from the back of the 747 is impossible because the shuttle wouldn't be fueled while being transported, it should also be noted that even if the shuttle was fueled, it would still be just as impossible: During the getaway, the thieves ignited the shuttle's 3 main engines to get free of the 747 and escape: the thing is, the shuttle's main engines are fueled entirely by the large external tank the shuttle and the solid fuel boosters are attached to during liftoff, and once the tank is jettisoned, these engines cannot be used. The only engines the shuttle's internal fuel feeds are the reaction control thrusters, and the Orbital Maneuvering System (which are the two smaller engines located in the bulges just above the main engines). Both the RCS thrusters and OMS engines are almost totally useless within the atmosphere, so even if the thieves managed to get the shuttle free of the 747, they could only get it as far as it would glide unpowered: In fact, they could probably get it farther if it wasn't fueled.

Continuity: In the scene where Drax's assistant, Corine Dufor, is being pursued to her death by his doberman dogs, she starts off with bare legs and high heels, but a couple of seconds later she's now wearing trainers and blue socks.

Continuity: Shortly before Drax farewells James Bond in the Brazilian base, the countdown on the screen says "T -00:14:06". Six seconds later, it's "T - 00:11:08". Another five seconds later and the "T-" is gone. Looks like they cut a bit or two there.

Other: In the boat chase on the Tapirape, Bond's torpedo hits the enemy boat either on its back or left side, but neither are damaged by the explosion in a subsequent shot.

Continuity: Bond is in his boat being pursued by Jaws in another boat, and as they approach the raging waterfall, Bond activates the emergency hang-glider concealed within the roof of his boat. He flies away and there is no shot of his boat going over the falls, nor is his boat shown still in the water leading up to the falls when Jaws' boat approaches the falls. Jaws and his boat are shown going over the falls, but Bond's boat seems to have simply disappeared.

Revealing: During the laser battle inside the space station, one of the villains on one of the upper circular tiers makes a move as though to signify he was hit with a laser a second or two before the laser actually hits him.

Continuity: On the airplane, James Bond punches the pilot in the face and his sunglasses moves. They're back on his eyes in the following shot.

Revealing: In Venice, the knife that the man in the coffin throws at 007 wobbles like rubber.

Continuity: In Venice, the man in the coffin throws a knife at the captain of the gondola and one at Bond. There were 4 knives besides him and 3 after that. When he dies, the knives have disappeared.

Revealing: When the pods are launched from the space station, it's obvious that they are models mounted on threads.

Visible crew/equipment: When Bond is fighting in the sky with the pilot, there's some shots where the shadow of the cameraman passes over them.

Continuity: The helicopter on which Corinne Dufour and James Bond fly has a huge number written on the bottom, but it has disappeared when they arrive at Drax's palace.

Factual error: When James Bond is in the control room of the secret base, I think it's when the second shuttle takes off, there's the time at the bottom of the TV screen moving forward, but it's written T- instead of T+.

Audio problem: When Bond is being shot at while motor-boating away from his pursuers in Venice, at one point during the chase, they shoot right next to a rope on his boat and a sound from a silenced handgun is heard when the bullet hits the wood. No one is using a silenced handgun.

Continuity: When the bad guy is struggling with Bond at the beginning trying to get the parachute, just before Bond kicks the bad guy away for good, there are shots of Bond's face and he's wearing the kind of eye protection goggles Jaws has on, only in a clear color. Bond didn't have these with him and never put any on, and in shots after the bad guy gets the boot, he doesn't have the goggles on anymore.

Revealing: At the very start, when the people are out of the plane, and Bond hasn't got a parachute. Obviously, the stuntman would have a mini-parachute under his jacket. The wind blows Bond's jacket up for just a second, and you can see some of the mini-parachute.

Factual error: 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?)

Revealing: 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.

Continuity: Drax's henchman Chang's name changes to Chi during the film. (The DVD subtitles also call him Chang while the actors call him Chi).

Plot hole: 007 replaces the plans in the safe with his miniature camera.

Revealing: When Bond is in the space station, the American shuttle is being attacked by a laser array. Bond thwarts the attack by activating a switch which causes the space station to decelerate, whereby it loses its spin and artficial gravity. People and objects start to move violently with respect to the station itself as a result of this. We see Bond and the operator being jerked back from the operations console. However, there are 5 actors close behind them who remain standing in the same position and do not move at all.

Continuity: When Bond shoots the man in the tree, he is wearing a hat. He is still wearing it as he falls, but when he is shown on the ground, it is nowhere to be seen.

Continuity: When Drax is jetisened from the Space Station by Bond, he flips end over end but at some point in the last moments we see him his body moves upward as though he hit some turbulence and then it moves downward. This isn't possible in space because unlike skydiving where one can manipulate his body in flight, in space one can't change his momentum without something to counteract the direction one's headed in like jet propulsion or running into an object that would allow them to stop the way they were previously headed. Drax has neither the jet propulsion since he is ejected in just his suit and doesn't run into anything which would change his direction.

Revealing: During the pursuit in the Amazonian forest, one of Drax's boats jump. The persons in it are shown to be dummies because they smash so violently that a person couldn't survive that impact, and they stay bent after that.

Revealing: When James and Holly finally escape from the space station, there's a shot of it with debris falling towards Earth. They disappear when they pass in front of the Earth.

Revealing: When Drax is about to destroy the American shuttle, Bond, at the last minute leaks out all the gravity and everyone starts floating. In the next shot or two when you see Bond starting to float, a wire is visible that is used to make him hover.

Continuity: When Jaws is chasing after Bond and Dr. Goodhead in the cable car, while they're sliding down the same cable on a chain, a long shot of both of them very clearly shows that Bond is sliding down one cable, and the cable car is on the other cable.

Continuity: When 007 enters the control room of the secret base, his clothes are already dry but his hair is still wet.

Continuity: When James Bond is falling from the airplane, his Jacket is attached to his pants but it wasn't when he was in the airplane.

Continuity: On the widescreen version, keep watching Lois Chiles during the laser firefight on the space station. She starts off at Bond's side, then joins Col. Scott. But after a shot of Drax fleeing, we cut back to Bond, and she's just leaving his side to join Col. Scott.

Continuity: The snake that attacks James Bond changes color during this scene.

Continuity: In the scene where Bond is in Drax's study with Miss Dufour, there is a shot where he appears to be photographing the documents just before gathering them and returning them to the safe. We see Bond's hands, but these hands do not hold the minicamera. The fingers are artfully folded to hide this.