Movie plot holes

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Maxcady10001
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Movie plot holes

Post by Maxcady10001 »

I just realized the gaping plot hole in the movie Terminator 2. If they destroyed the microchips, and prevented the war, why did Kyle Reese need to go back in time to save Sara Connor? Does Kyle Reese even exist, if they prevent the war? And if Kyle Reese doesn't need to go back in time or doesn't exist John Connor is never born and the entire second movie is an impossibility. Even if Skynet still somehow goes online the timeline changes completely, changing the characters involved, still making the second movie an impossibility. What are the worst movie plot holes, and do they ruin the movie for you?
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Sy Borg
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Sy Borg »

As a sci fi fan, most movies I see are basically plot holes in themselves.

I love the first Robocop because it's plot holes are amazing - satire delivered dry. It's rare that you find a movie where every single decision a major character makes throughout is completely bone-headed. My favourite moment is when the Vice President of OPC demonstrates his now huge, fully armed killer law enforcement robot in the boardroom. An interesting approach to risk management. One dead board member, plus damage to reputation, office, broken window and hush money.

Still, I dislike the way Hollywood treats gravity so, um lightly [sic] - people falling from planes, from rockets, from giant towers without a chute and somehow the bumps and scrapes at 1,000 kph do minimal damage.

Then there is the cast iron mentality of the characters - they can be beaten, threatened and have brushes with death a dozen times in an hour, but they are immune from trauma even as they cling to a slippery, wet ledge over a chasm by two fingers in a roaring gale. No wuckers, mate. All in a day's work.

Then, once saved, rather than being wrapped in a blanket with a hot cup of tea in readiness for a few months of counselling, they simply get up, start running again, traverse numerous other perils that would have traumatised Mike Tyson, and soon afterwards fall joyously into the hero's arms at the end, ready for marriage and a moral consummation the next week, and no doubt will have a beautiful healthy baby born exactly nine months later after a ten-minute labour that hurt about as much post-cabbage wind.

Heroes are basically machines - humans providing the illusion of being as AI may become.
Steve3007
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Steve3007 »

Maxcady10001: You've just noticed the "grandfather paradox", as the central paradox of time travel is normal referred to. There are multiple paradoxes along those lines in the Terminator series. My favourite treatment of this kind of thing in movies is Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

I hate the way that characters in action movies never go to the toilet, sneeze, belch or get the pocket of their cardigan accidentally caught on a door handle as they walk past, unless it's instrumental to the plot. (John Travolta goes to the toilet more than once in Pulp Fiction. But that's instrumental.)

-- Updated Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:35 am to add the following --

My favourite plot hole in science fiction movies: The plot hole in all of the Star Wars movies whereby there are creatures living a long time ago in a galaxy far far away whole look suspiciously like American humans with 70's/early 80's haircuts.

On the subject of gravity: Science fiction movies, at least, are getting better at that one, mostly thanks to CGI. Before that, they had to vaguely suggest that everyone has some kind of unspecified artificial gravity technology.

But, the movie "Gravity" was, I think, misnamed. It should been called "Momentum" because, of those two physical concepts, I think momentum had the starring role and gravity was really just a non-speaking extra.

-- Updated Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:40 am to add the following --

Perhaps Gravity has a better agent.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Sy Borg »

Steve3007 wrote:I hate the way that characters in action movies never go to the toilet, sneeze, belch or get the pocket of their cardigan accidentally caught on a door handle as they walk past, unless it's instrumental to the plot. (John Travolta goes to the toilet more than once in Pulp Fiction. But that's instrumental.)
Yes! Tywin Lannister's one scene on the privy (in GoT) was also instrumental. Ditto prior to the famous hair gel scene in There's Something About Mary.

The philosophically interesting aspect of this is that movies informationally compress reality into the interesting and salient bits in the same way as dreams do. This informational compression allows for the representation of long and medium term events in a short period, hence time "passes" more quickly in dreams than in a waking state; more happens in a short space of time. There's no mucking around trying to find the keys, doing the washing up, toileting, getting changed, applying creams to delicate places at times, walking up to the shops for twenty minutes, etc. Just all the juicy bits crammed tightly together, often badly like a grainy JPEG file or a muddy MP3.
Steve3007 wrote:My favourite plot hole in science fiction movies: The plot hole in all of the Star Wars movies whereby there are creatures living a long time ago in a galaxy far far away whole look suspiciously like American humans with 70's/early 80's haircuts.
Do you mean there is another way to be?
Steve3007 wrote:But, the movie "Gravity" was, I think, misnamed. It should been called "Momentum" because, of those two physical concepts, I think momentum had the starring role and gravity was really just a non-speaking extra.

Perhaps Gravity has a better agent.
Yes, most of the movie took place above gravity. "Angular Momentum" would be a great nerdy movie title, but the makers had surely spent so much that they needed to attract a mainstream audience that included those who prefer their words short and familiar.
Steve3007
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Steve3007 »

Greta:
Then there is the cast iron mentality of the characters -...

Heroes are basically machines - humans providing the illusion of being as AI may become.
Bruce Willis in the Die Hard films springs to mind. But there is also the cliche of the aging action hero who occasionally groans and says "I'm getting too old for this."
The philosophically interesting aspect of this is that movies informationally compress reality into the interesting and salient bits in the same way as dreams do...
Yes, absolutely. Except, again, where "real time" is a specific plot device. Like the Keiffer Sutherland "24" series. Although, as I recall he didn't stop for the toilet in those either. Presumably dashed off for a wee just after the final episode of each season (depending on whether Jack Bauer had any bladder or prostate problems.)
Do you mean there is another way to be?
Absolutely not.
Yes, most of the movie took place above gravity. "Angular Momentum" would be a great nerdy movie title, but the makers had surely spent so much that they needed to attract a mainstream audience that included those who prefer their words short and familiar.
Yes! It was mainly angular momentum due to various tethers, wasn't it? I suppose they could have called it "Turny roundy Sandra Bullock tendency to keep moving". Not as snappy though.
Maxcady10001
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Maxcady10001 »

I think the movie Clerks is a good example of "realistic" movie. A movie where "reality" isn't so compressed.
Steve3007
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Steve3007 »

Maxcady10001:
I just googled "Clerks". I don't think I've seen that one before. I'll have to check it out.

It's possible to google movie plot holes and see some entertaining YouTube videos about them. I'm tempted to do so, but that would be cheating.

A vaguely philosophical thought that sprang to my mind when considering the paradoxes in time travel films like The Terminator:

Where I live there's a TV show called "Gogglebox" which simply consists of a camera in a living room watching people watching TV and talking to each other about what they're watching. Cheap to make, no doubt. But possibly even cheaper if the TV show that the people are watching is itself Gogglebox. Then you'd get an infinite regression and, perhaps similarly to the way that the terminator robot comes from nowhere (because the technology for SkyNet was inspired by the remains of the first terminator which was sent back in time by SkyNet), the TV show Gogglebox would come from nowhere. And perhaps it would then be free to make and would spontaneously pop into existence. A TV executive's dream come true.
Chili
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Chili »

Time travel is dealt with in TV & Movies basically as some kind of magic. It is seldom treated with an appreciation of the complexities of cause-and-effect, the butterfly effect, etc. Some shows are better at this, some are worse, but nearly every example of time travel will make you wince if you think about it. Looper was really the worst. People watched with surprise as their past tattoos were changing on their skin, but somehow their brains and past memories were not changing accordingly, which would lead to no surprise as the tattoos changed. Some written works are better, dealing carefully with alternate timelines, unexpected consequences, etc.
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LuckyR
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by LuckyR »

Back to the Future 1 made plot points out of conundrums other movies ignore.
"As usual... it depends."
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Sy Borg
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Sy Borg »

Chili wrote: November 27th, 2017, 1:38 pm Time travel is dealt with in TV & Movies basically as some kind of magic. It is seldom treated with an appreciation of the complexities of cause-and-effect, the butterfly effect, etc. Some shows are better at this, some are worse, but nearly every example of time travel will make you wince if you think about it.
Your comment reminded me of the movie, The Butterfly Effect, which took into account the potential issues well, but the story is so dark I'm not tempted to watch a second time.

How about David Lynch? He seems to be fairly consistent in his own stretched logic :)

An irony in many movies is that the bad guys spend time communicating with their intended victim while the so-called "good guys" are lethal - they kill quickly and efficiently, no hesitation, no mercy. I wonder about the value systems behind that - self righteous objectification of one's enemies.
Steve3007
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Steve3007 »

The other thread about 2001, A Space Odyssey reminds me of a thing that people often seem to do in science fiction movies but which seems ridiculous in that context (and therefore might count as a plot hole): smoking.

There are several movies, including 2010, the sequel to 2001, in which, after a long journey, the space travellers awake from hibernation and the first thing they do is light up and have a drag. On a spaceship!

Obviously these movies were made before the anti-smoking age. Nowadays, they'd vape.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Sy Borg »

Or patches at the very least.
Steve3007
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Steve3007 »

Extending the idea of patches: I guess nicotine could have been included in the mix of gases/chemicals that are presumably fed to the sleeping space travelers in their stasis pods (or whatever they're called). In the absence of that, I can certainly understand that when Ripley (for example) wakes up after decades in stasis preceded by a stressful experience with some aggressive wildlife, the first thing she's going to do is reach for her packet of woodbines.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Sy Borg »

The chances of an astronaut being a smoker is remote. Besides the chances of a species can conquer interstellar distances and yet fail to cure simple nicotine addiction is remote - almost as crazy as the idea that a species could fail to deal with nico addiction and yet be capable of landing a robot on a comet half a billion kms away travelling at 17,000 kph. It's simply not possible!
Chili
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Re: Movie plot holes

Post by Chili »

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