Corrected entry: 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.
Corrected entry: The astronauts aren't visible from the air when Corinne Dufour and James Bond arrive at Drax's palace.
Correction: As a matter of fact, if you look closely, there is something visible where the astronauts should be. The resolution of the DVD isn't good enough to show details, but you can see that the zone where the astronauts should be looks different. Since the paths are generally well raked, the ground should look exactly the same as everything else. It would have to be an incredible coincidence if whatever it is that's where they should be wasn't the astronauts.
Corrected entry: 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.
Corrected entry: 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.
Corrected entry: During the boat chase with Jaws the music used is the same when Little Nellie fights the helicopters in You Only Live Twice.
Correction: How is this trivia? The musical themes are repeated constantly throughout all Bond films.
Corrected entry: How could Drax's henchmen as medics arrive so quickly, even though the plan was for Bond to be killed by Jaws?
Correction: They probably served as immediate backup in case Jaws failed to kill Bond, which is something to be expected since Jaws failed to kill Bond several times earlier in the film and in the previous "The Spy Who Loved Me."
Corrected entry: Moments before the shuttle is stolen, the pilot of the 747 says they will cross the English coast in 15 minutes, but when M briefs Bond, he says the wreckage is in Alaska.
Correction: The pilot says they will cross 15 minutes ahead of time, not in 15 minutes. He is suggesting they are 15 minutes head of schedule.
Corrected entry: 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.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: 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.
Corrected entry: 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?
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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 entry: Laser beams should be invisible in vacuum, such as the final battle scene.
Correction: 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 entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: When the Moonraker shuttles launch the crews are not in spacesuits.
Correction: Can you show us the relevant sections in the Dracco Industries Rule Book that says the crews must wear space suits?
Corrected entry: The space station turns on its axis when the shuttles arrive but it has stopped moving by itself when they attach to it.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: They are Bond's fingers, the shot is from his Point-Of-View, after all.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
I think what was meant was Bond is sliding down a moving cable, which means the motion of the cable adds to Bond's motion, which together is greater than the motion of the cable car, which only moves at the speed of the cable. It is like hurricanes often have the strongest winds on the right side of the eye, because the storm's motion adds to the circulating wind. You are correct that Bond could have been sliding along a non-moving cable.
Correction: Cable cars of that type have two different kinds of cables: puller cables, which move relative to the pylons and stay fixed relative to the gondolas which they pull, as the name suggests; and the much stronger, thicker rail cables, which stay fixed relative to the pylons and the gondolas move along using rollers. Bond and Goodhead slide down a rail cable.
Correction: That section of the space station hasn't been blown away yet when they're having a glass of champagne. It only detaches from the station after Jaws has enabled Bond and Goodhead to escape, and we don't see the inside of it after it drifts away.
Jukka Nurmi