Best adventure movie plot holes of all time

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban picture

Plot hole: Harry never notices that the name "Peter Pettigrew" appears on the Marauder's Map, right next to "Ronald Weasley." Way beyond a character mistake, as there's no way that wouldn't be cause for interest. If nothing else, Ron's brothers who had the map for years before giving it to Harry, would most certainly have wondered why their brother was sleeping with a person named Peter Pettigrew.

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Suggested correction: JK Rowling explained why Ron's brothers didn't wonder why Ron was sleeping with a man named Peter Pettigrew. Here is the link: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11447/why-couldnt-harry-or-anybody-else-see-peter-pettigrew-aka-scabbers-on-the-marau.

jon snow

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Poseidon picture

Plot hole: When the ship has turned on its side for the brief moment, it cuts to inside the ship where a hallway explodes, causing the ship to submerge. The only problem is the people are standing on the ceiling, but if the ship's on its side, they'd be on the wall, not ceiling.

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The Eagle Has Landed picture

Plot hole: Radl and Steiner discuss the entire scheme to kidnap Churchill on the Alderney docks - in full view and hearing of a number of civilians (who shouldn't be there, pace another posting), including local fishermen. Though the Germans banned all fishing activities in the Channel islands including Alderney in 1941, they were well aware that there was a flow of information from the island to military authorities in the mainland. Why would they be so stupid as to discuss a top secret military mission in public? In reality, they wouldn't even discuss it in front of their own men.

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Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over picture

Plot hole: The Toymaker throws that toy bird at the hippie version of himself. The toy goes through him because he is a hologram. Later, he pushes the soldier version of himself at the screen making it crack. How could he if the three others are holograms?

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Moana picture

Plot hole: When Moana first meets Muai, she opens her necklace to tell him he will restore the heart. Muai sees the heart but doesn't get scared until he sees it again on the boat. He should have been scared the first time.

Jeremy Buerkle

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Mission: Impossible picture

Plot hole: In the air vent, we see a rat. Wouldn't rats in the vents set off the alarms on a regular basis, because the lasers were on the upper side of the vent?

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Captain Marvel picture

Plot hole: When Vers arrives at the bar, Nick Fury is already there. She went straight to the bar after stealing the bike, while Fury needed still to learn about the theft, link it to the case, with investigations taking place to maybe (only possibility that would not depend on the vehicle being reported) figure out that Pancho's was the destination from examining the search history of the browser. Fury went there by car. His boss also explicitly says to work on the case alone. Amazing he could be there with such timing.

Sammo

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Suggested correction: Vers probably got lost and had to wander around to find the place.

I can't realistically say it's impossible (it is not shown, after all), but nothing in the movie implies it, and it's the exact opposite. She is shown, driving, fast, on the Sierra Highway, which is where the bar is. Not stopping to ask for directions or at crossroads (something it takes 1 second of movie to show). In perfect Star Trek tradition she can speak the language, she reads the maps just fine, in fact she already looked the place up on the map, that was next to her and she already knew how to use without help, before taking off on her fast bike not hindered by traffic. And again, the head start she has is huge since Fury can begin investigating only once he hears about the stolen bike. Fury is at his HQ and a long time seems to have passed, since he is patched up and a whole autopsy has been done. Vers started searching right away.

Sammo

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets picture

Plot hole: At the beginning of the movie, Hedwig rattles her cage, and Harry says apologetically, "I can't let you out, Hedwig; I'm not allowed to use magic outside of school." But he wouldn't have to use magic to let her out - the key is visible sticking out of the lock on the cage, so all he would have to do is turn the key. (00:01:10)

Aerinah

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi picture

Plot hole: Luke deliberately says he does not want to be found and came to Ach-To to die in The Last Jedi, but The Force Awakens is all about finding a map to Luke Skywalker. Why would Luke leave a map when he never wanted to be found?

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Suggested correction: This is a question, not a plot hole. Luke went to find the first Jedi temple. The location of the temple is what they were ultimately needing to try and locate Luke. The map that has the temple was already created before Luke went to the temple, he did not create a map where to find him and then secretly hide it away.

Bishop73

It is a plot hole statement in the form of a question. It ultimately is a continuity error between Episodes 7 and 8. TFA never mentioned it as a map to a Jedi temple Luke might be at. The audience is told in that movie that it is a map to Luke Skywalker. It is believed by the end of TFA that Luke wants to be found if they needed him. It is only after Rian Johnson goes against what JJ Abrams planned for Luke that this error becomes prominent. If this is simply a map to the first Jedi Temple, then the Resistance is betting a lot on the chance Luke went there and still there after all these years.

In The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren refers to the map as a navigational chart recovered from the archives of the Empire. According to the spin-off books, the Empire were using it to find the first Jedi Temple and destroy it. So the map was not in fact left by Luke. Since Luke is believed to have gone looking for the first Jedi Temple, my guess is that whoever discovered the map realised where it led to, and knew that was where Luke was believed to have gone, and thus referred to it as a map to Luke.

What other choice do they have? The know where he wanted to go. If the do not find him there then the have someplace to look abound for clues as to where he went to afterwards. Also it is not like if he is not there they are stuck and cannot return to the resistance fleet.

A map to the first Jedi Temple is a perfectly fine explanation for what the map actually is and if the Resistance thought Luke was there, it was worth the risk to go there and look for him. However, the very identity of the map seems to change between movies and it is introduce in TFA as a map to Luke, not to a Jedi Temple. So in TFA it is a map to Luke and in TLJ it is now a map to a Jedi Temple Luke might be at. That is the problem, a discontinuity of the map's identity between the two films in the trilogy. This stems from the two directors' view of Luke in this trilogy also being completely different.

They think it's a map to Luke, or believe it, or someone else thought it was. It's not a discontinuity, just a semantic difference or miscommunication.

Jon Sandys

This movie or TFA should have explained this miscommunication as it comes across as a miscommunication to the audience and not to the Resistance. There is nothing in either film to show it is a map to a Jedi Temple Luke might be at. A miscommunication to the audience is poor writing, but since this occurs between two movies, it is a continuity mistake. This mistake is obviously due to the character of Luke changing when it moved on from JJ to Rian. This change makes the plot of TFA more confusing, but ultimately a continuity mistake is a much more just denotation for this than plot hole.

Since the Jedi Temple and Luke are in the same place the map is both a map to Luke and to the Jedi Temple. Someone looking for Luke will see it as a map to Luke, someone that is force sensitive may see it a a map to the temple.

This statement does not answer anything. The map was either designed to be a map to where Luke said he was or as map to a Jedi Temple where Luke may be. Not both. Both places can be the same, but the identity of what the map is remains as one or the other. Otherwise we are again back to a bad miscommunication in the Resistance and bad miscommunication to the audience that is just bad writing. Since it is stated in TFA that is is a map to Luke, the audience should believe it as such. It is never described as a map to a Jedi Temple Luke might be at. The continuity error and plot confusion comes from the fact that in TFA it is a map to Luke for when he was needed and in TLJ it is a map to a Jedi Temple that the Resistance hoped Luke would be at. Since TFA came first, it takes precedent and all of Luke's lines of not wanting to be found do not make sense.

While initially the audience is told it's a map to Luke, we find out later that the map leads to the first Jedi temple. This is nothing more than building suspense, which doesn't constitute a plot hole. While one could argue it was only after changes to the script or a director's choice that changed what the map was designed to be, the original mistake is still not valid because Luke never created a map to where he was going and then hide it as suggested.

Bishop73

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X-Men 2 picture

Plot hole: When the Drakes (Bobby's family) arrive home they are acting quite naturally, until they find Wolverine there and get a start. Later on we see that they had parked their van in the driveway right behind Cyclops' car, which Logan and company had borrowed and parked there. Wouldn't they, seeing a strange car in their driveway, be suspicious or at least enter their house asking "Bobby, are you home?" (00:52:45 - 00:59:15)

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Cutthroat Island picture

Plot hole: When Morgan and her Slave/New Boyfriend are escaping from the burning ship, which is going to explode any second, they emerge onto the deck, run up a flight of stairs, cross the deck to the stern rail, look about themselves, then dive overboard. They know the ship is about to explode and are desperate to get overboard. The railings are about a metre away from the hatch they emerge from in the first place - why not just jump overboard there?

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Mulan picture

Plot hole: There is no reason at all why, being targeted by a few arrows by unseen enemies - a fire suppressed already by the salvo of their own archers - the Rourans would turn around their heavy siege equipment, away from the bulk of the enemy forces, and fire it, hurling a single heavy stone to the middle of nowhere when they have the whole rest of the army who could storm the rock the supposed enemy commandos hide behind, or the archers who could keep shooting - again, they proved to be completely successful. It also makes no sense that the all-powerful witch who made the warriors flee managed to do any of this, 'sneaking' by horse in the middle of the steppe.

Sammo

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Suggested correction: Mulan used the helmets of the fallen warriors to make it appear that a large force has flanked Rourans. Rourans didn't expect this new "force" and knew nothing about it. They didn't know its size. And while their original target seemed harmless, this new "force" was killing Rourans. Fear and death were the reasons. What you see in this scene is an enactment of one of Sun Tzu's famous quotes: "All warfare is based on deception. [...] Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."

FleetCommand

What we see in the scene is laughable, and not because of the idea, which surely is based on the profound strategic motto you mentioned and we find in many folkloric tales in other cultures as well; what we actually see in the movie, is that she grabbed a couple helmets lining them up on a rock, and she shot a few arrows. Then she stops shooting, and we see helmets knocked down in their full view. The movie truly surpassed itself in showing it in the most phony way; had they shown her shooting from behind the rock responding to their fire, or the helmets not falling, or them just shooting at mist, terrified, it would have maybe worked. It's an enormous overreaction. That and, under no circumstance trebuchets are used that way anyway. And she did all this setup unseen, again.

Sammo

In response to death, nothing is an enormous overreaction. Something or someone was killing them. They wanted to kill it, and they didn't have time for Facebook's famous brand of pseudo-myth-busting. What if they knew it was one girl shooting at them? They'd still have done the same. Being killed is a very personal matter.

FleetCommand

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Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb picture

Plot hole: In Night at the Museum 2, the parts of the tablet that are missing were attached to the gate to the underworld, which implies it was originally attached to that, and those parts were left behind when it was removed. But in this film we see the tablet getting found on the wall in Ahkmenrah's tomb, and the missing parts are left behind on the wall of the tomb.

Aled Wesker

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National Treasure: Book of Secrets picture

Plot hole: The idea that Ben Gates had to run away despite the President's being okay with the kidnapping does not make sense. The President could simply pardon him if necessary. However, when he ran away, he would likely be committing other crimes (fleeing and eluding police, reckless driving, etc.) that would not be federal crimes and so would not be pardonable.

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Suggested correction: That's basically what he did at the end. Even though the President was OK with Ben "kidnapping" him, if Ben didn't find the lost city of gold he would have been arrested and charged for kidnapping the President (amongst other charges). However, because Ben was able to find the city the President gave him and his crew a full pardon and explained that it was a misunderstanding.

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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom picture

Plot hole: Mola Ram has his men knock over a vat of water in a last ditch effort to kill our heroes. First of all the vat can't be that big if it can be knocked down with a few sledgehammers. Secondly, for the amount of water that chases Indy and co. down the vat would have to be big enough to fill the room it's in, which obviously it's not. Third, Indy and co. travel through several large caverns during the mine cart chase, caverns that could easily swallow up any of the water flowing through the tunnels so there shouldn't be any water left to catch up to Indy by the time they stop.

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Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle picture

Plot hole: Sea-Plane tells the group that he has tried twice to cross the canyon and complete the transportation level. It would have made no sense for him to be completing that level moving toward the jaguar if he didn't have the jewel needed to finish the game. Either he had been given a jewel and it was reset back and given to the new players or there could be more than one jewel in the game but he doesn't mention having his own jewel.

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Mission to Mars picture

Plot hole: When Tim Robbins is floating away in space his wife could have easily saved him. She could go out a little further, use the grappler to catch her husband, then use the fuel she has remaining to halt their acceleration towards the planet and return them partway to the necessary orbital altitude/velocity to rendezvous with the resupply module. Then, Gary Sinise could come out partway to them using his thrusters, Connie could shoot the grappler out to him, and he could reel both Connie and Tim Robbins back in to the resupply module.

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Raiders of the Lost Ark picture

Plot hole: When Indy and Sallah visit the gentleman who translates the staff headpiece for them we hear the staff should be "six cadams high." Indy replies, "About 72 inches." Then, turning the headpiece over, "Wait - take back one cadam to honor the Hebrew God whose ark this is." It's definitely referring to the staff length - Indy says afterwards "Their staff is too long." So, about five feet now, right? But, when Indy goes to the map room the staff is much taller than him. If the staff is about five feet high, Indy would be around three feet tall. (00:48:25 - 00:53:05)

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Superman IV: The Quest for Peace picture

Plot hole: Superman traps the supervillain (whose power depends on sunlight) inside of an elevator to incapacitate him. Superman then ripped the elevator out of the building. He then plants it on the far side of the moon. Later on, sunlight starts to shine into the elevator through a slit at where the doors meet. The villain of course recharges and comes after Superman again. Now, if light could get through that crack there, then why couldn't it get through when the elevator was ripped out of the building in BROAD DAYLIGHT?

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The Care Bears Movie picture

Plot hole: What was the point of Jason holding onto the key to the evil spirit's book when Secret Heart Bear can simply create a key herself?

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