Factual error: When riding in the truck with the Cuban soldiers Bond pulls their parachutes. In the next clip they are 5-6 meters up in the air. That is impossible. First, parachutes are not shot out, but merely pulled by the passing air. And the truck does not go fast enough to pull the parachutes. Second, even if the truck went fast enough, the soldiers would be pulled horizontally - and just fall off the truck, not get pulled vertically up in the air.
Continuity mistake: In the opening story, Bond flies in the small plane with a single jet engine. When the plane approaches the hangar to fly through it (the shot taken FROM the hangar towards the plane) you can see that the plane has TWO engines at the back.
Continuity mistake: The knife-thrower attempts to use a welder to temporarily blind Bond - we can see in that shot that it's an acetylene torch. However, in earlier shots when the welder is being used (off-camera), the sound is that of an arc welder.
Plot hole: When Bond wakes up in the monsoon palace, his watch is still beeping with the activated tracking mode. Wouldn't somebody have noticed the constant beeping while he was brought there? The tracker is shown to have a range of several hundred meters, so it would certainly have been in range of the transmitter at least part of the time while Gobinda dragged him back to Kamal's palace.
Continuity mistake: When Bond is fighting the twin on the top of the train, there is a carriage behind them, but when both of them fall off the train, the carriage has suddenly disappeared.
Continuity mistake: When the Mercedes is hit by the train head on, the car flies through the air boot first, and not turning. When it hits the water the car has turned around and is now engine first.
Other mistake: In the end credits, Jeremy Bulloch's surname is spelt as "Bullock."
Factual error: Bond pulls his mini jet out of the path of the missile racing in from behind, making it narrowly miss his aircraft. Like most such piloting stunts from Hollywood, it wouldn't have worked. Modern anti-aircraft missiles have proximity fuses and fragmentation warheads or continuous-rod warheads. They actually deliberately pass by the aircraft they are trying to destroy and explode next to them, because the cross-section is greater that way. There have even been cases when a missile actually hitting an airplane just disintegrated without exploding, thus saving the target.
Continuity mistake: Gobinda kills the two helpers at the Monsoon Palace and throws them on the floor in the freezer and we hear the thumps. Minutes later Bond hides in the freezer. The bodies now hang on meat hooks, and have already turned gray.
Continuity mistake: When we see the Monsoon Palace from the lake, it is set very high on a barren brown mountain. When Bond escapes on foot, he very quickly is in a dense and moist jungle - and walking out in a low-lying marsh land with a wide river. That can't be the same lake, since we don't see him running down a steep barren cliff-side.
Continuity mistake: When 009 is knifed in the back, the knife goes in all the way to the handle. When he crawls out of the water, the blade is visible. And if the knife had moved out by itself, it would be loose and would have fallen out.
Continuity mistake: In the Circus scene towards the end of the movie James Bond holds up a program to cover his face, and you can clearly see a clown's face on the back of the program. A few seconds later (and in subsequent shots) the back of the program is blank.
Revealing mistake: After Bond breaks through the air base gate, chased by multiple vehicles, skid marks from earlier takes are visible all over the road.
Revealing mistake: As Bond crashes through the air base gate, breaking the chain and the attached concrete block, the pre-cut section of the concrete can be seen.
Revealing mistake: When Bond arrives at the air base, multiple skid marks from earlier takes can be seen on the road.
Continuity mistake: As Bond reaches the air base entrance, he passes a soldier in a yellow hat walking towards the entrance. A shot later, the soldier reappears metres behind him in the following shot walking away, with Bond driving past him again. And yet, a couple of shots later, he is walking towards the entrance again.
Continuity mistake: When Bond arrives at the air base, the guard's position changes between shots, alternating from crouched near the window to standing upright.
Revealing mistake: As Bond speeds to deactivate the bomb, nearly hitting Kamal's Mercedes, skid marks from an earlier take can be seen on the road.
Continuity mistake: When Q is fishing, the bag beside him rests slanted against the rock, but in the reverse shot it's suddenly upright.
Continuity mistake: When Grischka pins Bond to the cabin door with his knives, the first knife appears slightly slanted to the left, but in the next shot its position and angle are completely different. Seconds later, another knife pins Bond's shirt at bicep level, lifting the fabric - yet a shot later, its position has shifted again (slightly upwards now) and the shirt is no longer raised.
Answer: It wasn't meant to be related at all. It was just an action sequence to start off the film as Bond completes a previous assignment before a segue into the familiar 007 opening theme and a new song. I recall there were some other earlier Bond films that also used this formula. After the opening bit, the story starts as Bond meets with "M" for a new mission, then a briefing with "Q" about the latest spy gadgets. There was also the obligatory flirtatious banter between Bond and Miss Moneypenny.
raywest ★
I see what you mean. I'm thinking of those films where the opening scene has some link to the main plot (e.g. The Spy Who Loved Me), but Moonraker is like this one, it starts off (spectacularly) with Bond at the end of a previous assignment.