Except for a few brief close-ups, the entire sequence of Bond, Jaws and the pilot falling from the plane, with Bond and the pilot fighting for a single parachute, was shot in free fall. The seven-pound camera for these sequences was mounted on the helmet of another skydiver, and a few shots are of the cameraman's own arms and legs. Stuntmen Jake Lombard and B.J. Worth wore parachutes concealed within their suits. The "parachute" over which they fight is actually a dummy chute, which had to be removed before the stuntman could use the real parachute underneath. Stuntman Jake Lombard would don and remove the dummy chute up to three times in a single jump. The actual parachutes used by the stuntmen had a main and reserve chute concealed within the suitcoats. A breakaway seam ran down the back, which allowed the parachute to be opened without the need to remove the coat. There were only sixty to seventy seconds of free fall time, between when the stunt performers exited the aircraft and when they had to activate their chutes. After factoring in the time needed to get the performers and cameraman into position after leaving their plane, only a few seconds of film could be shot per jump. Therefore, the entire sequence required eighty-eight jumps, and five weeks to film, just to produce the two minutes of footage in the final movie.

The scene in which the gondola converts into a hovercraft, and elevates out of the water, succeeded with the fifth attempt. During the first four takes, the vehicle was so unstable that Sir Roger Moore fell into the water, and he needed to have his silk suit replaced for each take. It was fortunate that the stunt worked during the fifth take, because he was wearing the last available silk suit.

The cost for this movie was $30 million, nearly as much as the first 8 films combined, without taking into account inflation.

The cable that Jaws bites is actually made of licorice.

During the cable car stunt, high above Rio de Janeiro, a real cliffhanger moment occurred when stuntman Richard Graydon slipped, and was hanging on for dear life. The rest of the crew, including Sir Ken Adam, was petrified while the camera was rolling, and they were watching from a vantage point.

Continuity

When Bond is being flown by helicopter to Drax's estate, the pilot's hairstyle changes half way through the flight and her headset disappears for the second half of the flight.

When Corinne runs into the forest and is chased by the two dogs, her shoes change from tan high-heel shoes to sneakers and blue knee-socks.

After Bond is imprisoned with Dr. Goodhead, the ceiling begins to slide open and we can see that they are actually underneath the launching pad of one of the shuttles. The thrusters of the shuttle are above the level of the opening but when Drax appears beside the shuttle, the thrusters are now below the level of the opening. A minute later, as the shuttle prepares for liftoff, the thrusters are back above the opening.

When the first four Moonrakers take off, they do so in quick succession. Before the fifth takes off, there is just enough time for Drax to consign Bond to his fate and then board it, but before the sixth, Bond and Goodhead can escape, hide, jump the crew, get into their uniforms and still make it to the shuttle in time.

When Jaws' speed boat goes over the waterfall he is clearly seen but his two colleagues wearing yellow disappear even though they were seen in the previous shot.



Factual errors

It is stated that the space station is not visible from Earth because it is using radar jamming. First, radar jamming consists of broadcasting interference, which makes the presence of the jammer known. Second, an object 200 meters across in low Earth would be visible to the naked eye - as the current smaller International Space Station is.

In the opening sequence, James Bond, Jaws, and the pilot free fall for nearly two minutes. For that amount of free fall time, the jump would have to be made at or above 25,000 feet, which would require oxygen equipment.

Jaws bites through the rope wire of the cable car. But when we see the winding wheel a second time, the rope is complete. In actual fact, it would take exerted pressure well in excess of 2,000 psi to snap a steel cable. Furthermore, if Jaws had severed the cable, it would have unwound with great force (and damage), and the cars would no longer be able to operate.

The pods of the space station are shown at all angles to the axis, but rotationally produced "gravity" is always away from the axis. Also, gravity would not change instantaneously when going from one corridor to another.

At P?o de A??car, Bond and Goodhead could not possibly have survived the fall from the cable car wire without serious injury, as the wire was significantly higher than the cable car; that height, plus the height of the cable car, plus an additional space would have been needed for the cable car to clear the very ground onto which 007 and Dr. Goodhead had fallen. Otherwise, the cable car would have been impeded by that same ground.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

The announcement at the airport in London calls "BA flight 128 to Rio de Janeiro", but the Concorde, when it lands and passengers disembark, is an Air France plane. These are two different flights - the first Jaws' and the second being Bond's. Obviously they could not have been on the same plane or they would have seen each other, eliminating the surprise appearances later.

When Bond and Chang are fighting in the glass museum, there is a vase that is attached to a weight displacement pad that sets an alarm off. When Chang smashes the vase in half, that would also reduce its weight by half, yet, the alarm does not go off. Earlier, the alarm was proven to be some sort of motion sensor, as the tour guide did not lift the glass vase off the pedestal.

Drax' henchman is listed as "Chang" in the end credits. However, some of the characters in the movie appear to pronounce his name like "Char". It's is because they are pronouncing it "Chong" (as it sometimes traditionally is).

When Bond is questioning Drax about his plan within the Aztec Temple, He asks "You delivered a shuttle to the US government, then you hijacked it, why?" It is claimed this is an error in the script as Drax delivered a shuttle to the British Government not the US. In fact in M's office it's stated that the shuttle was in the process of being flown from America to the UK on loan.



Revealing mistakes

When Bond and Goodhead enter zero gravity in their Moonraker, the objects in the ship float, but Goodhead's long hair does not.

In the first scene the Moonraker is on the back of the 747, when it flies away the 747 blows up and drops straight down in one piece as if it was stationary and not flying at cruise speed.

When the Moonrakers dock with the space station, the Moonraker doors clearly do not align with the airlock.

These laser guns are supposedly hot enough to kill everybody who gets shot with one, yet, their clothing is mysteriously left unaffected: no burn marks or holes or anything.

After Drax sets the Dobermans loose on Corinne and she is running through the forest, at the end we can see the playful nature of the dogs as they both back away and they never touch her; presumably, this was an instruction by the trainer's animals not to harm the actors.



Miscellaneous

In the skydive, a close-up of Jaws shows him with his mouth open, baring not his steel teeth, but a mouthful of white teeth, indicating that this is a stuntman standing in for Richard Kiel.

When Dr. Goodhead is first showing Bond the Moonraker in the big assembly warehouse there is a big shuttle hanging from the ceiling and being transported. Right before the scene cuts away the right wing of the shuttle bangs into a steel support beam and the whole shuttle shimmies. There even seems to be a concurring banging noise. Definitely not how you would take care of such an expensive space-worthy shuttle.

When at the top of Sugarloaf, Bond and Goodhead look at each other through a pair of identical telescopes. The one that Bond uses has been accidentally mounted backwards so that it tilts up when released rather than down.

The door at the secret laboratory has the symbol for radiation on it, despite the fact that what lies within is poison gas, not radiation.

Bond's "mastery" of the function of a space shuttle and a centrifuge seemed extremely sophomoric to American audiences as every adult at the time under the age of thirty had grown up with the space program and every suburban male knew more about every detail than any kid in the forties knew about baseball statistics. This was particularly true with the early shuttle missions as the American space program hadn't achieved anything enormous since the days of Apollo and the subsequent budget cuts, and people were eager to latch onto something new. People who grew up with the space program were well aware of the nature of the shuttle and such things as centrifuges.



Audio/visual unsynchronised

When Drax asks Bond, "Why did you break off the encounter with my pet python?", his lips are saying "boa constrictor."

The Handley Page HP.137 aircraft from which Bond and Jaws jump, is making the same noise as a Stuka Junkers 87 (JU-87) from World War II did when dive-bombing; only the Stuka made the notorious "demon scream" when it dived, no other aircraft did so. The scream is not due to the physical design, but because the Stuka had a siren that was switched on during its dive. So this Handley Page couldn't possibly have made the same sound.

When Drax is "playing" the Raindrop Prelude on the piano, his hands are either playing different notes to the music, moving at the wrong time or not touching the keys at all.

When Drax's dogs spot Bond at the shotgun range, they are heard growling, but their facial expression and the positioning of their ears are obviously those of contented and relaxed Doberman Pinschers.

The band - clad in animal costumes - in front of the cable car station is playing their instruments clearly not in step with the actual music they're supposedly performing.



Crew or equipment visible

When the enemy boat is firing some sort of projectile cannon at Bond during the boat fight, you can see the water jets used to simulate the explosion.

As Jaws is swept away by the revelers in Rio, the camera's shadow can be seen thrown onto them.

Obvious markers for the simulated mortar rounds are floating in the water at the beginning of the river chase scene.

At about 1:19:30 when Bond is flying the hang glider, rotating propeller or rotor blades are visible behind him.



Errors in geography

When Bond, Q, and M are discussing the rare orchid the map of Brazil shows central Brazil. However, when Bond is shown on the river being chased by the bad guys, his boat ends up going over Igua?u Falls. These falls are in southern Brazil, which is about 1000 miles from where Bond is supposed to be.

The first shuttle was being flown from California to England and would not have flown anywhere near the Yukon, where it is supposed to have crashed.

When Bond and Dr. Goodhead are abducted in the Rio de Janeiro ambulance, the British Airways billboard advert is in English and not Portuguese.

Bond and Holly are abducted by an ambulance crew following the cable car sequence on Sugar Loaf. However in the next scene, the ambulance crew is driving toward Sugar Loaf instead of away.

The extensive woods and grounds surrounding Drax's estate could not possibly have been grown and maintained in the California desert.



Plot holes

Many military nerve gases are designed to be absorbed by the skin as well as by breathing them, specifically to make a mere gas mask useless. As Q could not have known what other toxins were in the laboratory, they would have put Bond, the Minister and M in full length protective suits not just gas masks.

There are no Mayan pyramids in the Amazon rain forest nor near the Igua?u Falls where Bond is located, however, the one that Bond enters is a fake, an entrance to Drax's Moonraker launch station, presumably constructed there by Drax's operation. Since there are no Mayan pyramids in that location, any fakes would of course draw attention.

How does Bond know that Moonraker 5 (Drax's shuttle) has a laser? It's not mentioned anywhere in the plot and he's never been on that shuttle. Additionally, the shuttle's front (where the laser fires out of) doesn't look any different from the others.

Bond is shown not wearing his wrist-gun for the last third of the film, but the gun reappears when he needs it at the very end of the film. During the Amazon speedboat chase, the hang glider ride, and the underwater python battle, his sleeves are rolled up and the dart gun is absent. When he is escorted inside Drax' underground lair, his right sleeve is suddenly rolled down. It is possible that he was carrying it around in a pocket and put it on when he put his spacesuit on, but more likely, they wanted Bond's sleeves rolled up while he was in Brazil but didn't want the bulky wrist-gun showing.

Drax plans to kill off the entire human race, except for a small selected group of a few dozen which he considers physically perfect. The plan seems to ignore the possibility that sudden mass extermination in several hours? time could do to the earth's environment. When all workers at all nuclear power plants would suddenly die, for instance, this could result in huge fall-out clouds all over the world. Drax also seems to forget the fact that "looking perfect" does not ensure a perfect health or appearance for future generations. Also, why is anyone keen on helping him?



Character error

In the Bond movies, Bond goes through the utmost determination to keep his "007" codename a secret. Therefore it makes no sense for him to carry around a camera that has "007" printed on it, because if ever compromised, this basically gives away his identity.

When Chang fights Bond in the glass museum, he comes ill-equipped. His equipment is for kendo, a Japanese martial art. The sword, a shinai, is made of bamboo slats and is intended to make contact when sparring. This is a non-lethal weapon, not something a killer would bring. It was really only useful in the scene for knocking over glass objects.

When people are hit by lasers some immediately drop dead, others keep going.

Dr. Goodhead says "Three Gs is equivalent to take-off pressure. the moment the pressure gets too much for you, release the button." G-force refers to acceleration, not pressure, and Dr. Goodhead would know the difference.

Sir Frederick Gray appears with M to see the hidden laboratory. SIS/MI6 is under the Foreign Office. The Foreign Secretary should be present.