Moonraker

Moonraker (1979)

11 corrections since 16 Sep '18, 00:00

(7 votes)

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.

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

Correction: How is this trivia? The musical themes are repeated constantly throughout all Bond films.

Plot hole: After the six shuttles take off, there are obviously dozens, if not hundreds of Drax' minions left behind in the base. Not regular employees, but the kind that knows what's coming, if only because Drax is obviously talking about it, e.g. to Bond, quite openly. Would they just stoically stay behind to be gassed? One would think they would mutiny and rush the shuttles wouldn't one?

Doc

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Suggested correction: No reason they couldn't have been brainwashed into obeying Drax like here was a god. Further, for all we know, the base could have secure facilities for the employees, who have been sterilized, doubtlessly, to wait until the gas in the atmosphere has dispersed sufficiently. Drax needs ground personnel to enable people to land on Earth later on.

Jukka Nurmi

If you have gas-tight bunkers on earth, the whole exercise of taking everybody to orbit would be a bit pointless, wouldn't it?

Doc

But Drax has a god complex: he wants to stay in his "untainted cradle of the heavens", instead of the planetary surface. Not to mention, just in case something goes wrong with the Amazon bunker, his master race will be safe and secure in the orbit.

Jukka Nurmi

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.

Doc

Stupidity: After Corinne Dufour realises that Drax intends to have his dogs kill her, she inexplicably attempts to flee on foot, running right past the golf cart she arrived in. The golf cart would have given her more speed, range and protection, and would have been a much better choice for fleeing.

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Suggested correction: Golf carts are very slow, and are open on all sides: the dobermans would've easily dragged her off it. The biggest stupidity here is that she should've fled to a crowded area with other people instead of the woods. Then again, she was panicking, and not thinking straight.

Jukka Nurmi

Continuity mistake: 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. (00:05:18)

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Suggested correction: Sorry, the parachute is red and yellow at all times. Just watched the scene 5 times in a row. On the other hand: well spotted for the beige turning brown wall of the plane.

Plot hole: The British government sends its best agent to the headquarters responsible for a missing shuttle, and Drax immediately wants to kill the man sent to talk to him. Surely Drax would have been smart enough to know if he had Bond killed both the American and British governments would have investigated him, even if he could chalk up Bond's death as an accident.

jbrbbt

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Suggested correction: So the villain not killing Bond is a mistake, the villain killing Bond is a mistake too? Like in all spy movies, killing the best agent would win Drax a lot of time to further his plan and eliminate evidence, even if the American and British government will investigate. With Bond dead and the government unable to prove anything for now, Drax is surely not worse off than with a very curious and suspicious agent searching through his hideout now and finding out possibly even more.

Plot hole: For the shuttle to land at Drax's Amazon hideout he would need a very long runway, something that could easily be detected by satellite.

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Suggested correction: Why would they need to have their own runway? With everybody else dead, they could just pick from any existing landing sites. Also, it is not clear if they planned to use the shuttles for the initial return at all. Apparently, the pods at the end of the spokes are constructed with independent reentry capability, or else how would Bond's comment about the chances of Jaws and his girlfriend make any sense.

Doc

Suggested correction: No reason the Amazon crew couldn't construct one once the gas has dispersed, and everyone else on Earth is dead.

Jukka Nurmi

Except for all we know, they themselves would be dead too. The preservation of a ground crew is entirely speculative.

Doc

Continuity mistake: During the speed boat sequence, Jaws has two colleagues wearing yellow on the boat he is on, but when the speed boat goes over the waterfall, the two men have disappeared.

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Suggested correction: Both the Drax guys can just about still be seen in front of and to Jaws' left (reclined in his seat) as they go over the waterfall, but you need Blu-ray and a keen eye to spot it.

DEvans

Corrected entry: Why is Bond telling Dr. Goodhead about the laser on Drax's shuttle? Surely it would make more sense for her to reveal its existence to him. After all, she has been working with Drax's firm for months, if not years - certainly long enough to learn the activation code for the targeting system, which she reveals to Bond when the first globe is spotted.

Rog the Bodge

Correction: All Bond says is 'Moonraker 5, that's the answer. Drax's shuttle is fitted with a laser'. He is just telling her what they should do, not revealing something to her.

Correction: It was never explained how Bond knew about the laser on Drax's shuttle, so the original comment is still valid.

Seniram

Plenty of time for her to have told him off screen.

Continuity mistake: When Drax throws two pieces of meat at his Doberman Pinschers, one piece lands by the leg of one of the dogs. But when Drax clicks his fingers to signal the dogs to eat the meat, the piece has moved in front of the dog's face.

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Suggested correction: No reason why the dog couldn't have moved the piece of meat closer to its face off-screen.

Jukka Nurmi

The whole idea of that scene is to show how obedient the dogs were and how well trained they are. Drax says that to Bond in the scene so the dogs wouldn't touch the meat at all until Drax gave the signal by clicking his fingers.

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. It is not a fictional, futuristic spacecraft. It's a bog standard shuttle, stolen from NASA, on the back of the modified 747 used by them to transport the orbiter from its landing site to Cape Canaveral. (Why would they carry a fully fuelled shuttle anyway?)

More mistakes in Moonraker

[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.

More quotes from Moonraker

Trivia: One of Drax's "master race" was Melinda Maxwell, daughter of Lois Maxwell - "Miss Moneypenny".

More trivia for Moonraker

Question: If the nerve gas doesn't infect animals, what about people's pets? How would they survive without being fed if all the owners are dead?

Trainman

Answer: They would die or escape and go feral, as would zoo animals, farm animals etc.

More questions & answers from Moonraker

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