Questions about "Moonraker"

j7wildj7wild Suspended
edited August 2011 in Bond Movies Posts: 823
I just finished watching this.

5 questions:

Where was Drax running to when Bond was chasing him? There was nothing there but an airlock into space?

http://www.imagebam.com/image/d7416e144186782

How did Bond knew Drax's Moonraker 5 had a laser on it?

When Jaws and his girlfriend were in that piece of the space station that broke apart and headed back to earth, shouldn't it had disintegrated when it reached Earth's atmosphere?

Even before that, shouldn't they both be dead from lack of oxygen and life support in there?

Also, Drax's ground crews that didn't get to go on the 6 shuttles, they were just left behind to die? Talk about job security!

It's funny one doesn't ask questions like this when one first watches it in 1979 at the age of 14!!
«1

Comments

  • Posts: 1,856
    I just finished watching this.

    5 questions:

    Where was Drax running to when Bond was chasing him? There was nothing there but an airlock into space?
    Looking for a Gun?!?!


    How did Bond knew Drax's Moonraker 5 had a laser on it?
    He could of figured it out on the way up.
    .

    When Jaws and his girlfriend were in that piece of the space station that broke apart and headed back to earth, shouldn't it had disintegrated when it reached Earth's atmosphere?

    Even before that, shouldn't they both be dead from lack of oxygen and life support in there?
    HIS JAWS!! HE CAN'T DIE!!! AND DOLLY HAD THE KISS OF JAWS SO SHE CAN'T DIE!!! seriously any one got a better one...

    Also, Drax's ground crews that didn't get to go on the 6 shuttles, they were just left behind to die? Talk about job security!
    Drax Didn't tell them


    Now for @DaltonCraig with his original explanations

  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,120
    Where was Drax running to when Bond was chasing him? There was nothing there but an airlock into space?

    Good question. I just think he was running away from the deadly fuss. Must be one of those 'I don't care where I end up as long as it's far away from here' moments. Maybe he was planning to hide there and return to safer grounds when everything had calmed down.

    How did Bond knew Drax's Moonraker 5 had a laser on it?

    How did he know? Maybe Holly, who is in the position to know, told him off-screen. Maybe he observed it somehow. No doubt such a little bit of information can get to him during moments when we're occupied with other stuff.

    When Jaws and his girlfriend were in that piece of the space station that broke apart and headed back to earth, shouldn't it had disintegrated when it reached Earth's atmosphere?

    No. When the angle is right, you can safely return. There might have been a security program installed, which automatically directs this part back to Earth for a 'safe' landing in the ocean, in case something goes wrong. Remember, even smaller rocks from space sometimes land on our planet without being burnt up completely. But you're right, the chances are very small.

    Even before that, shouldn't they both be dead from lack of oxygen and life support in there?

    No. You see, there are several options here. 1) They can find themselves a suit and wear it during the short trip. 2) This central portion of the station seemed quite protected by very thick doors. The O² support might have easily still been 'switched' on so they would not have been without oxygen during the trip.

    Also, Drax's ground crews that didn't get to go on the 6 shuttles, they were just left behind to die? Talk about job security!

    Easy. Why would Drax care? He's about to kill nearly all of mankind. Those people down on Earth, there's no telling what they had been told. It's not like everyone involved knew exactly what Drax was up to.



    But we're trying to find logic and a sense of reality in a film that hardly values that. And that's no complaint by the way.

  • j7wildj7wild Suspended
    edited August 2011 Posts: 823
    no, I always thought Drax was running for an escape pod or his shuttle or something!!

  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,120
    no, I always thought Drax was running for an escape pod or his shuttle or something!!
    Okay, well, like you said it yourself: dead end. No escape pod and wrong corridor for a shuttle.
  • j7wildj7wild Suspended
    Posts: 823
    I don't think Dr. Goodhead told Bond because when they were roaming around the station looking for a way off and the station was disintegrating around them, Bond saw Moonraker 5 and he said:

    "Moonraker 5. That's the Answer. Drax's shuttle is armed with a Laser."

    one final question: why was this an Anglo-French production. Did EON run out of money at the time to make a Bond film?

    Thanks!
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,120
    Watch the inside MR documentary. It's all explained there. It involves taxes iirc.
  • j7wildj7wild Suspended
    Posts: 823
    Watch the inside MR documentary. It's all explained there. It involves taxes iirc.
    okay, I will.

    I have the entire Bond collection on DVD but I hardly watch the special features.

    P.S.:

    I've never seen an episode of Dallas.

    I didn't even know til now that Lois Chiles was on Dallas in 1982.

    She was quite a dish!!

  • Posts: 19,339
    Moonraker is not the best Bond film to try to disect to make sense of things.
  • j7wildj7wild Suspended
    Posts: 823
    Moonraker is not the best Bond film to try to disect to make sense of things.
    I got a whole long list now... would you like to hear them?!?


    ;;) :-j
  • Posts: 19,339
    Moonraker is not the best Bond film to try to disect to make sense of things.
    I got a whole long list now... would you like to hear them?!?

    ;;) :-j
    With MR that doesn't surprise me at all.

  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,189
    @Darth nice try, but those rocks landing on the planet are solid and a lot larger when they start their decent to the surface. A rock with a diameter of 1000m will end up as a pebble when reaching the ground. The space station never stood a chance. But that's the REAL world, in Bond, it all works differently, and in Moore's Bond, Jaws survives everything.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,120
    Yeah, I'm just trying, you know. ;;)

    But like I said, MR is not the type of film that seeks 100% credibility, despite Cubby referring to it as science fact, instead of science fiction.
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    Posts: 15,710
    Moonraker is not the best Bond film to try to disect to make sense of things.
    No, but it's the 2nd best Bond film, just behind TMWTGG !!

  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,189
    @Darth, well, it was a good try, I'll give you that. ;-)
    If you can explain why we can hear those explosions in space In a credible way I might send you a bottle of Bollinger (and a nobel-prize!)
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    Posts: 15,710
    It's a JAMES BOND FILM... a MOORE BOND FILM... not a space documentary...
  • BennyBenny Shaken not stirredAdministrator, Moderator
    Posts: 15,106
    Gotta agree with those who are asking not to take these things to seriously. It's a Bond film. Set in space!
    The fact that you didn't get bogged down with these questions whilst you watched the film the first time, shows that the film worked as entertainment to me. You didn't care untill subsequent viewings. Something I quite enjoy doing when watching a Bond film now.
    You know, like how did Blofeld construct that hollowed out volcano without anyone knowing?
    And who was Drax on the phone to when he was seeking a replacement for Chang?
    And why was he called Chang when everyone called him Char?
    And where the hell was I ?
  • Posts: 19,339

    And why was he called Chang when everyone called him Char?
    That is the 64,000 dollar question about MR to me .
    I used to think i was going mad as i KNEW they were saying Char in the film :
    "Convalessing,your friend Char just tried to kill me ".

  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,189
    Wel,, that's why I'm not much of a Moore-Bond-fan. Space is one frontier too far. Still, nobody interested in Bollinger then? *glog*
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,120
    @Darth, well, it was a good try, I'll give you that. ;-)
    If you can explain why we can hear those explosions in space In a credible way I might send you a bottle of Bollinger (and a nobel-prize!)
    I always show my students the MR space battle.
    Then I proceed by explaining sound waves can't exist in the absence of matter. ;;)

    Physics can be fun. :)
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,189
    *hips* you'le absolulety light! *hips*
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    edited August 2011 Posts: 15,710
    I always show my students the MR space battle.
    Then I proceed by explaining sound waves can't exist in the absence of matter. ;;)

    Physics can be fun. :)
    I will be attending your physics class soon... But I expect you to show us the ENTIRE film !!

  • How does Drax construct his space station? Did he send up conventional rockets or Moonrakers? If he sent up Moonrakers, where did they land on return to Brazil? Maybe Drax had a runway long enough to take a space shuttle near the Aztec temple?
  • DwayneDwayne New York City
    edited August 12 Posts: 2,817
    How does Drax construct his space station? Did he send up conventional rockets or Moonrakers? If he sent up Moonrakers, where did they land on return to Brazil? Maybe Drax had a runway long enough to take a space shuttle near the Aztec temple?

    A couple of years ago, I posted about the engineering inconsistencies in Moonraker. I'll try to find the post and provide a link to it. Needless to say, if I view the film through the prism of real-world engineering, there are many eye-rolling moments.

    To answer your immediate question, it would not have mattered how Drax's space station was orbited. From the film, it is clear (IIRC) that neither the US or the Soviet Union were aware of it (".... well we didn't put it up there."). In the real world, space launches - even those with classified payloads - are impossible to keep a secret. For example, if Dax used his own Moonraker shuttles to launch parts of the station for assembly in orbit, those Solid Rocket Boosters and External Tanks have to come down somewhere. And assuming that Drax couldn't kill everyone that saw these objects falling back to Earth, it would have a relatively simple mathematical issue to calculate the intended orbit for Drax's launches.

    As for the station itself, even in the 1970s an amateur astronomer with a good size telescope would have spotted it. To site another real-world case, depending on the time of launch, during the Apollo lunar landing missions, amateur astronomers were able to record video of the SIV-B stage engine as it fired to put the spacecraft on a lunar course (you can actually see this in the 2019 Apollo 11 documentary, although for that film they used footage from a test firing done by the Apollo 9 crew earlier in the year since similar footage didn't exist for Apollo 11 itself).

    As for Drax having a runway long enough to land a space shuttle, I've always assumed that the US government knew that Drax had independent space ambitions. If not, it would have been spotted by the spy satellites of both the US and the Soviet Union long before it was ever completed, and alarms would have been raised.

    Now, having said all of this, Moonraker is still a fun film - if you don't think about it too heavily. Like most sci-fi films, there are things that aren't really accurate - even "2OO1" has several errors in this regard. BTW: The Moonraker Special edition is full of nice BTS photos and facts.
    https://www.mi6confidential.com/issue-s7.php

    Found it!
    https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/3016/attempting-re-entry-moonraker-appreciation-thread/p18

    PS: Today these situations are even harder to conceal. In the past, the exact launch times for classified missions were withheld until the last minute, to give a nation's opponents less time to track the payload and calculate its' final order. Today, amateur astronomers keep a nearly constant watch on objects in Earth-Lunar space, and usually within a day or so, they report on any new objects in orbit. For example, just last week the upper stage of a Chinese launch vehicle broke apart in orbit which resulted in the creation of up to 700-900 pieces of new space junk - which was reported by various governmental and amateur groups.
  • thedovethedove hiding in the Greek underworld
    Posts: 5,341
    There are plot holes large enough to drive a truck through with Moonraker. At least Spy made a bit more sense as Stromberg was trying to get the subs for their nuclear weapons.

    Why would Drax need to hijack a shuttle from England when it was on loan. Why not just ask for the shuttle to be returned? Instead he hijacks his own shuttle because the one he made had defects? If it was so time sensitive why does Bond have 3-4 days to investigate Drax and travel around the world?

    So many questions and no real logical answer to them. But like other Bond films, go with the flow and enjoy the ride. This is not hard hitting Bond, this is light and fluffy Bond. But as Cubby said "it was based in science fact." I keep waiting for the Space Force of the US to show us their laser guns. :)
  • Posts: 1,904
    When the response is, "it's a Bond film," that irks me. I don't to want to expect less or make excuses because it's Bond film.
  • thedovethedove hiding in the Greek underworld
    Posts: 5,341
    I could add, why attack Bond when he comes to investigate?

    A great line by Drax "Take care of Mister Bond, see that some harm comes to him." But why? Bond is merely there to see if there is anything nefarious going on at Drax industries. Why provoke him and give him harm. Be a charming host, show him nothing weird is going on and Bond will leave none the wiser. But no, I think I will give him a spin in the centrifuge machine. Then as he is leaving I will have a sniper in a tree try to kill him. Makes no sense.

    I suppose you have a point @CrabKey I feel that some Bond films are not to be held up to logic or scrutiny and some are. MR is one that has many plot contrivances and jumps of logic that can remove enjoyment of the film.

  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,120
    thedove wrote: »
    I could add, why attack Bond when he comes to investigate?

    A great line by Drax "Take care of Mister Bond, see that some harm comes to him." But why? Bond is merely there to see if there is anything nefarious going on at Drax industries. Why provoke him and give him harm. Be a charming host, show him nothing weird is going on and Bond will leave none the wiser. But no, I think I will give him a spin in the centrifuge machine. Then as he is leaving I will have a sniper in a tree try to kill him. Makes no sense.

    I suppose you have a point @CrabKey I feel that some Bond films are not to be held up to logic or scrutiny and some are. MR is one that has many plot contrivances and jumps of logic that can remove enjoyment of the film.

    The plausibility issues of MR run even deeper than a non-astronaut shuttling off into space for a laser show. Indeed, Drax requesting the immediate death of someone sent to investigate what could've happened to his missing Moonraker, is stupid and not unlike Osato demanding Bond killed while the latter has barely turned his back.
  • edited August 12 Posts: 26
    The spirit of Sir Hugo Drax returns from outer space to answer some of your questions....
    Why provoke him and give him harm. Be a charming host, show him nothing weird is going on and Bond will leave none the wiser. But no, I think I will give him a spin in the centrifuge machine. Then as he is leaving I will have a sniper in a tree try to kill him. Makes no sense.
    Drax says: "I knew Bond was the one person who had the intelliegence to figure out my operation. Unlike others in powerful positions, I knew that he would not play ball and take a bribe. He was too loyal to little old England. So I had to come up with ways to make it look like he had accidentaly been killed."
    To answer your immediate question, it would not have mattered how Drax's space station was orbited...
    As for Drax having a runway long enough to land a space shuttle, I've always assumed that the US government knew that Drax had...
    Drax says: "My first launch of Moonrakers was from the converted temple in the northern Brazil rainforest in the presence of that pesky Bond fellow. It is down to my utter genius that these launches proceeded with complete precision and perfection. Needless to say, the launches had been simulated and engines tested on many occasions prior to launch. Eventually, I was going to land them at long enough air strips such as the Edwards Air Force Base or the New Mexico backup when all of the pitiful Earthlings had been poisoned."
    If not, it would have been spotted by the spy satellites of both the US and the Soviet Union long before it was ever completed, and alarms would have been raised.
    Drax says: "But of course, my dear boy, during 1977 and 1978, I had a fleet of conventional unmanned cargo rockets with special radio deflection noise modulation masking launch from Brazil and fly over a radio black spot in the southern Atlantic Ocean and rendezvous in orbit to construct the space station in modules, which incidentally was painted in a special camouflage paint which hid it from any ground observers. Would you like a cucumber sandwich?"
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,236
    j7wild wrote: »
    no, I always thought Drax was running for an escape pod or his shuttle or something!!

    I've long thought that Drax was going to commit suicide because his plans had come crashing down around him. The evidence to support this is in Drax's dialogue to Bond when he lifts the laser gun: "At least I shall have the pleasure of putting you out of my misery."
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,211
    thedove wrote: »

    So many questions and no real logical answer to them. But like other Bond films, go with the flow and enjoy the ride. This is not hard hitting Bond, this is light and fluffy Bond. But as Cubby said "it was based in science fact." I keep waiting for the Space Force of the US to show us their laser guns. :)

    Hey but there is a Space Force at least! :)

    The OP mentions Bond knowing that Moonraker 5 has a laser gun- I always rather liked that as the ultimate example of know-it-all Bond: he doesn't just know about every subject M asks him about, he also sort of just absorbs knowledge he didn't have an hour before by osmosis or something! :D
Sign In or Register to comment.