MI6 looks back at the many goofs and continuity errors sprinkled throughout "Moonraker".

Moonraker Mistakes
26th June 2004

The teaser sequence shows two stowaways stealing a space shuttle by launching it off the back of the Boeing 747 transporter. The 747, although used in reality for transporting the space shuttles, can not lift the shuttle with a full fuel load - it only just lifts it empty. Secondly, the space shuttle uses an external tank for lift off, which is also not transported.

Free-Fall Fluffs

In the airplane, Bond punches the pilot in the face and his sunglasses moves. They are back on his eyes in the following shot.

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

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.

Again in the teaser sequence, 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.

When 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 close up on his face. Also, Bond's jacket is attached to his trousers but it was not when he was in the airplane.

Corrine Confusion

Corine Dufour is showing Bond the Drax empire from above in a helicopter. She is wearing a head-set. Next shot, her hair has been made up,and the head-set is gone.

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

007 replaces the plans in the safe with his miniature camera.

In the scene where Drax's assistant, Corine Dufour, is being pursued to her death by his doberman dogs, she can be seen wearing protective boots. These are different to the footwear visible moments before.

When Manuela in the alleyway sees Jaws, she takes a closed flick knife out of her bag. When the angle changes to behind her, the blade is now extended.

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).

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 could not survive that impact, and they stay bent after that.

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

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

High Wire Howlers

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?

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.

007 and Goodhead escape from Jaws in the cable car by throwing a chain over the cable and sliding down. A goon in the control booth starts up the gears and the cable car is in pursuit, almost catching up to Bond and forcing him and Goodhead to drop from the cable. There is no way the cable car could have overtaken him.

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

When Jaws is chasing after Bond and Dr. Goodhead in the cable car, while they are 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.

After Bond and the guard have tumbled out of the ambulance in Rio, Dr. Goodhead is left alone in the van. She should be able to free herself in the same way that Bond did, especially as there is now no one to stop her.

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

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.

Again 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.

Bond and Goodhead 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. 007 and 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 is if they have not been killed by the fumes from the shuttle's solid fuel boosters or even killed by the sheer noise of the shuttle blasting off.

When Bond is in the control room of the secret base after a space shuttle launch, there is a time at the bottom of the TV screen moving forward, but it is written T- instead of T+.

Space Shuttle Slip Ups

The space shuttles in this film are supposed to be identical to the NASA design, but they attach on the space station beside their airlock, making it impossible for the astronauts to enter the station.

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.

The space station turns on its axis when the shuttles arrive but it has stopped moving by itself when they attach to it.

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.

In the scene where the space station explodes, the wire holding up the model is visible when the explosion backlights it.

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

Have you spotted any more mistakes in "Moonraker"? If so you can post them up in this thread of the "Keeping The British End Up" discussion forums.