Best movie plot holes of all time

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles picture

Plot hole: When April O'Neil calls Vernon Fenwick (drives the channel 6 van), he answers his phone and immediately says "O'Neil". When the scene cuts back to O'Neil, we see she called from a payphone. Fenwick would have no way to know it was her calling.

ScRiZ

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Suggested correction: That isn't a plot hole. Vernon assumed April was the person calling him and was correct. People do this all the time in real life.

BaconIsMyBFF

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Wonder Woman 1984 picture

Plot hole: Diana never formally expresses her wish to the stone (as opposed to the coffee guy), but for the rest of the movie it is stated that wishes have to be spelled out explicitly, even if just in agreement with a very leading question. (00:24:00)

Sammo

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No Time to Die picture

Plot hole: At the end of Spectre, Blofeld loses his eye in the crash. In No Time To Die, he is being held in Belmarsh Prison, which is a high-security facility and houses many terrorists like him. However, despite the stringent security measures, he somehow has access to a bionic eye, which was provided to him during his imprisonment. This would have been thoroughly checked multiple times to ensure its safety before being granted to him.

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Suggested correction: Blofeld loses the eye in an explosion earlier in Spectre, before he went to London. He likely already had the eye with him when he was captured after the crash.

In the UK there are several TV shows about police and prison corruption. It isn't much of a stretch to imagine that one of the guards was bribed and smuggled the eye in for him. Blofeld is a criminal mastermind - he would have many resources at his disposal despite capture.

He just happened to have a bionic eye on his person as a backup in case he lost one of his real ones in an accident?

Phaneron

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The Lost World: Jurassic Park picture

Plot hole: How did the men on the ship get killed? The bridge was intact and the T-Rex was still inside the cargo hold. [A raptor was meant to escape from the boat when it pulled in to the harbour, but they cut the scene from the film and now that bit doesn't appear to make any sense.] (01:40:55)

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Suggested correction: The idea of raptors being on the boat is a myth (likely spawned from a similar thing happening in the first book's ending). Though it's very poorly communicated and leaves many unanswered questions (the captain's hand the least of which), the dead hand holding the cargo hold controls implies that the T-Rex somehow got free, killed the crew, then was either lured or willingly returned to the hold where a dying worker closed the doors again.

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The People Under the Stairs picture

Plot hole: The man goes completely trigger happy shooting all the walls all around his house, trying to kill Fool, Leroy, and Roach at different points. The police come in and don't notice anything wrong. What about the bullet holes all over the place? (00:41:35)

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The Outsiders picture

Plot hole: The pictures used in the newspaper article regarding the fire are obviously taken after Ponyboy and Johnny ran away since Pony's hair is blond and Johnny's is short (their hair was cut and dyed after they ran, ruling out the photos being old school photos), yet Johnny's face is free of burns. This would mean the pictures were taken while they were hiding in the church, which would be impossible.

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Suggested correction: They could just be an old photo. Taken a year or two back, plenty of time for them to look roughly the same but have their hair change wildly. Could have dyed his hair and then stopped or cut the hair and then let it grow.

Ponyboy's reaction to his blonde hair after Johnny dyes it is one of disgust; he did not dye it blonde ever before. Plus, it wouldn't make sense for him to dye it blonde again if he was trying to disguise himself.

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Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves picture

Plot hole: The Bishop in the film is performing the duties you would expect of someone in his position (giving mass, hearing confessions, performing weddings etc.) He has his own private chambers in the cathedral, refers to Robin as 'the boy I knew' and talks about hearing his Father's confession four months earlier; so he's been around for a while. The problem is the credits refer to him as the 'Bishop of Hereford'. No explanation is ever given for why the Bishop of a city 100 miles away is living and working in Nottingham rather than looking after his own diocese; or why the Bishop of Nottingham isn't around to look after his. (The Bishop of Hereford was an enemy of Robin Hood in the original ballads, and it's likely the filmmakers just gave that name to the Bishop in the film due to its familiarity, without thinking about the plot hole this creates).

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London Has Fallen picture

Plot hole: After an assault on the scale that's been witnessed, covering a wide area of London by extremely well prepared attackers, there's no way Marine 1 would fly to the airport at low altitude within easy range of missiles, and then when attacked, double back over the areas that have already been attacked where hostiles would still be present. (00:35:00)

Jon Sandys

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Flight of Fury picture

Plot hole: The admiral receives the news of the stolen aircraft from the general over an open radio, with umpteen enlisted personnel within earshot. However, when the air group commander asks what the OP is about, the admiral tells him that it is on a need-to-know basis.

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3,000 Miles to Graceland picture

Plot hole: How could the police miss finding Cybil in the trunk of Michael Zane's car when it was in an impound lot? They would have definitely searched the car if he was found in violation of a federal offence (for carrying the weapons). Even if they didn't do a search, they would certainly have heard the sounds that Cybil would have made from being locked in the trunk.

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Toy Story picture

Plot hole: The spaces in the lattice used as hand holds in the blue plastic crate in which Woody is trapped are easily large enough for him to squeeze through. He could have escaped without too much trouble.

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The Game picture

Plot hole: When Nick confronts the P.I. and yells "Why are you following me?", he looks inside the car and see the file with his picture on the front seat. The P.I. notices this and turns the file over. After Nick grabs his gun, the P.I. jumps out on the other side, raises his hands in the air and tells him someone hired him and runs off. As the P.I. runs off, Nick yells "Who hired you?" as he stands alone next to the car. He then waits a minute and walks off. If he really wanted to know more information, he could have taken the file that was right in front of him on the carseat. It makes no sense that he is desperate for information about the strange events that are going on, sees this file on him, and yet doesn't even pick it up or look at it. (00:59:55)

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The Shawshank Redemption picture

Plot hole: When the warden comes into the cell the morning after the escape, the poster covering the hole is fastened down on all four corners - impossible to do after squeezing into that small hole. [On the DVD commentary, the director confirms that this was a movie "cheat".] (01:49:05)

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Suggested correction: It's a shame the director surrendered, but for someone as smart as Andy, this is the smallest of problems. He could've put weights on the bottom of the poster, or used magnets he embedded in the walls together with iron glued to the poster, or enough washers in the bottom to essentially do both.

dizzyd

That's a load of rubbish. Embedding magnets in the wall? Really.

Ssiscool

If he can make a six foot escape tunnel, he can scrape out several small holes around the poster's edge, and insert the aforementioned magnets, glued in however he can manage (ie tape, chewing gum).

dizzyd

He could have simply used glue mixed with dirt to weigh it down. Once the glue dried it wouldn't matter how heavy the poster was, so long as there was contact.

How could Andy do that after he escaped through the hole in the wall?

satishsasikumar

I don't think it's what happened, but easily enough. Put magnets in the wall during his tunnel digging process - he had years - then something magnetic affixed to the corners of the poster. As soon as he was in the hole the poster would hang down and affix itself to the bottom corners.

Further, if the poster weren't "glued" on the bottom, it would not have been taught enough for the warden's pebble to go through it. If the poster were attached loosely, the pebble would have simply bounced off.

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Dark Shadows picture

Plot hole: When Elizabeth is interviewing Victoria for the first time, she mentions that Victoria had sent her an application, therefore her name had to have been on it. However, Maggie Evans didn't change her name to Victoria Winters until she was on the train en route to Collinwood for the interview, therefore Elizabeth would have been expecting Maggie Evans, not Victoria Winters.

Jonabon

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Fast & Furious 8 picture

Plot hole: The nuclear codes are stolen and the Russian guy holding them was let go by Dom. He would contact his government to let them know and the codes changed. Cypher would also know this so her plan is flawed.

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Venom: Let There Be Carnage picture

Plot hole: A core plot point (lifted by the comics) is that Venom needs phenethylamine, and the only way to get it is from brains and from chocolate. Let's just go with it and forget the fact that phenethylamine can be legally purchased as dietary supplement, which would solve every problem. So, Venom gets incredibly angry because Mrs. Chen's shop ran out of chocolates, and *therefore* they need to go raid a chicken plant to eat some chicken brain. Uh, Venom lives in San Francisco. Chocolate is sold everywhere. If Mrs. Chen ran out of it, there are hundreds of stores and vending machines that have it in abundance. The escalation does not make sense.

Sammo

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Suggested correction: The point is he needs to steal it. At Mrs. Chen's shop he gets it for free because he protects her from robbers. Eddie doesn't have the money to buy all the chocolate Venom needs all the time. Stealing some chickens as an alternative is better than trying to shoplift at a different store.

lionhead

In the rest of the movie Eddie lives in his old apartment constantly in need of repairs, but shows zero serious money problems. He has lavish breakfasts, and he replaces the $2,000 TV the same day. Raiding the chicken place appears riskier than slipping his symbiote in a vending machine or shoplift, especially if it's just temporary - again assuming he's so poor that he literally has no money to eat, which is something the movie should have let us know, instead of pointing to the contrary and making him talk angrily about the need for them to not draw attention.

Sammo

Not only are the original mistake and Sammo 100% correct, but chocolate isn't exactly expensive. You can get 5 pound bulk orders of melting chocolate on Amazon for like... $25. And that's just a quick 2-second Amazon search. You could probably get it even cheaper elsewhere online. Even if Eddie hypothetically has little money (which doesn't seem to be the case - he has a nicely sized apartment in a major city, new TV, etc.), it's still ridiculous that he couldn't get his hands on chocolate. This is definitely a case of the movie ignoring practicality and reason to manufacture a funny situation.

TedStixon

I agree. There are many other stores that sell candy so all Eddie had to do was to go to one of those instead. Plus, at the end of the first movie, Eddie told Ann that he was going to become an investigative journalist, so he has a new job.

Suggested correction: Which would you rather have phenethylamine, chicken, or chocolate for dinner? That's like saying just because we need food to survive...we should just eat anything or buy our base vitamins and minerals over the counter and from the store.

DetectiveGadget85

Sure. How does that have anything to do with the entry? Venom wanted chocolate for dinner and not chicken, supplements to a diet don't mean that you can't eat actual food and the main point was and is that if a store in a metropolis is sold out of chocolate of any kind, there are a dozen other stores in a few blocks' radius who sell it without you having to resort to crime to eat it.

Sammo

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Back to the Future Part II picture

Plot hole: If Old Biff changed his past and went back to 2015, he goes back to HIS future, not the bad future, but Doc later tells Marty that if he were to go to the future to stop Biff from taking the almanac, he'd go to the bad future, so Old Biff technically shouldn't have been able to return to "his" future at all.

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Suggested correction: The effects of the past being altered may not have happened immediately. It is possible that it took time for the timelines to adjust to the changes of events, meaning enough time would have passed to change 1985 when they return, but not enough time could have passed to change 2015. By the time Doc says if they went back to 2015 they would be going to an alternate future, some time has passed, so the effects of the past being altered and taking ahold in 2015 and altering it are more likely to have occurred by then.

Casual Person

Here is what you say: "perhaps it took time for the time lines to adjust." What kind of time would timelines take? Time is time, it doesn't take time to change the timeline. That doesn't make any sense. Some people claim it was the DeLorean itself that came back to its own original timeline and only then reset itself in the new one, but then the new timelines being erased later on wouldn't have happened either. So its a genuine plot hole.

lionhead

It's established in the first film that it takes time for the changes to take effect. Marty and his siblings slowly disappear from the photo, rather than instantly. Although the scene in BTTF2 was deleted, it was filmed showing Biff dying and slowly fading away after his return to his present.

Yet they were restored instantly without any outside influence at the end of the movie. There are a lot of things wrong with this movie and the first one. Old Biff disappearing should mean that Marty and Doc should slowely disappear as well, even the DeLorean. But they didn't, that doesn't make any sense. The point is there is a plot hole, somewhere. To know where all you can do is look at it logically and then you automatically come up with Old Biff going back to the future but not the alternate future. If he did there wouldn't have been a movie, but that's the plot hole.

lionhead

The timeline didn't change until he made his first bet which was some years I think after receiving it. He immediately travelled forward after giving the act, meaning he will still jump forward to the original future.

The timelines would instantly change, and Old Biff couldn't possibly have returned to "normal" 2015. It's just a poorly-thought-out time travel plot hole (or a deliberate error to expedite the storyline).

Charles Austin Miller

Suggested correction: In context, Doc was saying that they couldn't return to 2015 to stop Biff from stealing the time machine, because Biff didn't steal the time machine in the alternate 2015, he only stole it in the original 2015. Marty and Doc didn't stay long enough in 2015 after Biff returned, and that's why they didn't see any differences. Also, though they were unaware of it, Biff was dead in the alternate 2015, so the disasters he caused might have reverted back after his death.

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Halloween 5 picture

Plot hole: In the beginning, Rachel and Loomis are referring to Rachel's mother as being Jamie's step mother and Rachel refers Jamie as being her step sister. Rachel's mother is Jamie's foster mother and Jamie is Rachel's foster sister as said in Halloween 4.

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The Thomas Crown Affair picture

Plot hole: When Renee Russo was reviewing the tape showing the room with the painting to see who stole the painting, and the tape was blank because the heat generated from the suitcase hidden under the bench, why didn't she just back up the tape completely to see who put the suitcase there in the first place? (00:28:30)

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Free Guy picture

Plot hole: When Guy kisses her, she questions how he did it - stating no "kiss" function existed in the game. However, later on after the reboot she proceeds to kiss him (rather than him kiss her).

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Suggested correction: As one of the principal developers of the simulation engine, Millie recognizes that Guy is a non-player character (NPC) who merely obeys a loop of coded actions, and he's supposedly incapable of acting outside of his code. So, she means that NPCs can't just arbitrarily kiss players. Players can do whatever they want, but NPCs are mindless robots. At that point, however, she doesn't realise that Guy's Artificial Intelligence has evolved to independent self-awareness, allowing him to act outside of his code.

Charles Austin Miller

Key's actually says "There isn't a button for that" when Millie brings it up. There would be no way for her to initiate, as her in game actions would be limited to the controls offered.

By the time Millie kisses Guy, we know that the Free City simulation engine was already undergoing Artificial Intelligence evolution, essentially rewriting its own code, allowing Guy (and other NPCs) to achieve independent self-awareness. It follows that Free City was probably rewriting its player code, as well, making all sorts of new and startling functions possible for players and NPCs alike.

Charles Austin Miller

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