Best sci-fi movie plot holes of all time

Please vote as you browse around to help the best rise to the top.

Venom picture

Plot hole: At the angle of descent and the speed it was traveling (still burning from reentry even), when the space shuttle crashed in the opening of the film, it would not have left much of anything behind. The kinetic explosion that would have resulted would have downed the forest around it for a good distance leaving a crater, and the clean up crews would have been lucky to find any piece of the ship itself still intact bigger than a football. Much less been able to find any discernible remains of the crew. Yet bodies were being taken out in still relatively good condition. And probably most unbelievable is that the glass containers holding the Symbiotes were not even broken.

Quantom X

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Since this is in the Marvel universe the capsule could have at least partially been made of Vibranium or Adamantium.

lionhead

Adamantium is exclusive to the X-Men films which for the time being are under Fox, and Vibranium is exclusive to films within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This film is part of neither. There were rumors and speculation prior to this film's release that it would be adjunct to the MCU, but there are things within the film that contradict it. Particularly Eddie Brock being dismissive of the symbiote being an alien life form. An alien invasion was one of the major plot points of the first Avengers film, so an alien being wouldn't be something people would be skeptical of going forward.

Phaneron

Like Phan said. But also, i'm referring to the glass of the container staying in tact. Those two super metals don't make glass.

Quantom X

I just thought that although there can't be a mention of Vibranium, it doesn't mean it's not there. What I mean is if Vibranium softens the bow of the impact the glass containers would stay intact. But I suppose if it's not allowed to exist for the films, then I guess it doesn't exist. The glass can be nanotechnology though.

lionhead

I see what you're saying, but that wouldn't mater with an impact like that. Space Shuttles are even made of Titanium, and would still be smashed to millions of little pieces from a reentry impact like that. The momentum and resulting kinetic explosion would devastate everything around it and level the forest for a good distance, leaving a massive creator, possibly as big or bigger than a football field. We are talking a few megatons of force.

Quantom X

This movie is not set in the Marvel Universe. It has been confirmed by the film crew that Venom is a standalone movie so it doesn't take place in the MCU at all.

I didn't say MCU, I said Marvel Universe. Some Marvel Universe anyway.

lionhead

There's only the MCU and since this movie doesn't take place in it, the ship is probably only made from the materials that most rocket ships are constructed from.

More Venom plot holes
You Only Live Twice picture

Plot hole: Blofeld tells the bad guys that they had Bond and let him get away. The woman says, "But Bond is dead. It was in all the papers." As we saw in a paper near the start, there was a well-publicised photo of Bond, and when she met him he wasn't using any kind of disguise, so how did she not recognise him if she'd seen the papers?

Jon Sandys

More You Only Live Twice plot holes
Super Mario Bros. picture

Plot hole: After Mario and Luigi have defeated Bowser, Daisy's father and the man in New York re-evolve back to their human forms. This makes no sense as it is never explained, and none of the goombas or Koopa troopas ever revert.

More Super Mario Bros. plot holes
Fantastic Voyage picture

Plot hole: Even if the white blood cells will attack and destroy the sub and the body of Doctor Michaels the atoms would still remain and take normal size after the critical 1 hour is up. This would also apply to the laser gun which they forgot or left behind on purpose, as well as several dozen litres of saline solution which were miniaturised and pumped into Benes' body. He's in a lot of trouble.

More Fantastic Voyage plot holes
Superman picture

Plot hole: After Superman has reversed time the Hoover Dam reverts to its previous undamaged state as it should, but Jimmy Olsen should then have been replaced back on the dam. Instead he interrupts the potential kiss between Lois and Superman and complains of being abandoned by Superman in the desert.

skeffderry

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Superman is moving at speeds fast enough to turn back time. He can spend 5 seconds to yank Jimmy away from the top of a dam he knows is going to be destroyed just to be safe in case he can't actually stop it all from happening again.

More Superman plot holes
About Time picture

Plot hole: They aren't able to travel before the birth of their children or their children become different. Despite that, he visits his father one last time before their third child is born. His Dad and he then travel back to when he was a kid, which would have changed his first 2 kids.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: This is not necessarily inconsistent with the movie's time travel logic. Since Tim goes back in time to visit his father and inside that particular time travel, they use time travel to go back to a day where Tim was a child. Then, they return back to the original time travel where they're playing ping pong. At that moment, both of Tim's kids were already born. So, when he returns from the ping pong scene, there's no change regarding his kids.

Also, paraphrasing the Dad, he said they aren't going to change anything. It is more like reliving a memory than changing the future to get what you want. The Dad couldn't go back to not smoke before his kids were born because that was major and would have changed the course of his life; walking a bit differently on a secluded beach that you walked on in your younger days (as long as you spent the same amount of time - presumably) would not alter the trajectory of one's life.

The slightest change in 1 second of being on the beach would absolutely affect his kids. A man produces 1500 new sperm every minute. Altering the timeline and delaying every event that is going to happen by literally 1 second would most definitely alter which exact sperm was used when conceiving both of his first two children.

More About Time plot holes
The Running Man picture

Plot hole: In the unedited video footage of the helicopter incident shown to the crowd, the last shot of Arnie getting knocked out is seen from his perspective and as such could never have been filmed by any camera.

Gavin Jackson

More The Running Man plot holes
Ready Player One picture

Plot hole: In all scenes where special or heavy items are used against the sixers, they are 'zeroed' in waves or circles. This can be seen by their stations turning red in clusters. This makes no sense as the stations have fixed positions, meaning that the sixers would have identical positions in the Oasis and have no freedom or own will to move relative to each other.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: From a military point of view it makes perfect sense. AOE weapons would be most likely to hit members of the same squads, companies or battalions. It would make sense for squad mates in the oasis to stick together in stations as well. I just watched that scene. As long as the Sixers are trained soldiers or players it makes perfect sense.

More Ready Player One plot holes
Escape from the Planet of the Apes picture

Plot hole: While it is essential to the story, there is a problem with apes in the space ship. While it is the one that took Taylor to the future, there is no way the chimps could have salvaged the ship from the water (plus there wasn't enough time for such a salvage operation. Kira and Cornelius were living in the ape city we see in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" never mentioning to Brent that they found a spaceship he could travel back with). They didn't have the technology for such an operation, no diving suits, and chimps are scared of water. Also, the water would have destroyed the power systems of the ship when it sank. (00:00:25)

Movie Nut

More Escape from the Planet of the Apes plot holes
Robocop 3 picture

Plot hole: The opaque red lined map that Otomo retrieves from his first fight is ridiculous. Why would people who know where the hidden base is be carrying around a map on them (which shows a route so basic that they'd have to be brain-dead not to be able to remember it anyway) just so that conveniently one of their enemies can get it?

GalahadFairlight

More Robocop 3 plot holes
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)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

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.

More The Lost World: Jurassic Park plot holes
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).

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

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

More Free Guy plot holes
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

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

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

More Venom: Let There Be Carnage plot holes
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen picture

Plot hole: Simmons stands outside the 'The Monastery' at Petra (not to be confused with 'The Al Kazneh' at Petra where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed) and looks at the horizon, and he is able to see the Air Force landing with Optimus by the pyramids. It then appears to take them mere minutes to drive over there. This is outright laughable, even accepting that they make the trip in an alien robot car. Petra and Cairo are separated by hundreds of miles of desert, not to mention Israel being between Egypt and Jordan.

More Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen plot holes
The Purge: Election Year picture

Plot hole: When the security guy goes inside the secret hole, there is no way he'd have been able to cover the rug. When the other guys come in the rug is covering the hole.

More The Purge: Election Year plot holes
Terminator: Dark Fate picture

Plot hole: Sarah turns up on the bridge to fight the Rev-9, we later learn that she is texted the location of where to be as when the terminators travel though time it causes a gravitational anomaly, and this is where she needs to be. The Rev-9 had been there ages killing Dani's dad etc, Sarah would have no idea to be on the bridge after the terminator has chased them though the town - she can't possibly know that location.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Sarah is very skilled at fighting Terminators. She receives the coordinates but knows that many other real-world factors may impede her progress to those coordinates, so she makes efforts to prepare for that. Also, the coordinates that she received for the Rev-9 may very well have told her to fight it on the bridge because the T800 who sent those coordinates knew that Sarah would also then be able to rescue Dani and Grace, and eventually meet up with him as a result.

I'd say the real reason Sarah is on the highway to fight Rev-9 is that she followed it. She misses the moment it arrived (from the future), she follows it to the car factory, but she misses it again, then she finally catches it up on the highway.

It is explicitly stated by the T800 Carl that he was sending Sarah the coordinates of where the terminators would appear, because the arrival would create a space-time wrinkle he is able to measure ahead of time. There is no indication he can predict the future events and send Sarah coordinates of places to be other than that.

Epigenis

Suggested correction: Sarah's truck can be seen in the background when Grace arrives. Grace doesn't look like any Skynet Terminator, and the time bubble she arrives in is different to the ones in T1 and T2. We can infer that Sarah followed Grace from her arrival to the bridge in an attempt to understand what was going on with the new time travellers before intervening.

More Terminator: Dark Fate plot holes
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan picture

Plot hole: Why doesn't Reliant know that Khan is exiled here? The Federation is so terrified and opposed to genetic engineering that it's still illegal 300 years after Khan. So why is there no warning along with the data on the Ceti Alpha system? Kirk logged what happened with Khan and his solution of marooning him. Starships use nav data to navigate star systems. Ceti Alpha 6 exploded, yet the helmsman or computer never noticed that there is one less planet than there was when Kirk was there? There is no debris from the explosion? Ceti Alpha 5 is the exact same size and was conveniently blown into the exact same orbit as Ceti Alpha 6 used to have? So there is nothing whatsoever to make the crew even suspect that it's not 6? Enterprise would have to have scanned the planets in the system to know that one was habitable for Khan. Did Ceti Alpha 6's destruction somehow magically turn Ceti Alpha 5 into its exact duplicate? If Starfleet ships have been there to map after Ceti Alpha 6 exploded, none of them bothered to check on the exiles? Pretty callous for Starfleet, don't you think? With the technology and amounts of information available to Starfleet vessels, there is NO logical reason for the Reliant to think that this planet is Ceti Alpha 6. Finally, would the Federation be willing to test a device whose exact effects will be unknown on a planet so close to another inhabited one? (00:21:00)

Grumpy Scot

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: The answer is yes: against all known laws of science, the inexplicable explosion of Ceti Alpha VI led to Ceti Alpha V conveniently taking its orbit and making it easy to mistake for its former sister planet. A mistake would've been to give an explanation that can be debunked. By leaving it to "somehow" the movie leaves it open to a million possible rationalizations. You can even make a whole other story about the crazy circumstances that led to this incredible result.

TonyPH

More Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan plot holes
The Thing picture

Plot hole: Through this film (and its predecessor) it is established that the creature imitates its victims perfectly, having all of their knowledge and memory. At the end, when the female lead tells the male lead she knew he was human because of his earring, he reaches for the wrong ear, confirming he is The Thing. Even if The Thing couldn't reproduce the earring, it would have known which ear it was supposed to be in.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: It is also established in this film that the creature cannot perfectly imitate inorganic materials; the tooth fillings, metal plate, etc. Kate knows that Carter is The Thing and asks him a trick question about his earring to confirm it. The fact that The Thing reaches for the wrong ear means that it didn't know where the earring really was because it cannot perfectly imitate inorganic materials. There is no mistake here.

THGhost

The mistake has nothing to do with The Thing not being able to imitate inorganic material. The mistake is The Thing has all the memories and thus should know which ear was pierced based on these memories.

Bishop73

This goes with my theory that he was actually human because he didn't try to assimilate her when they we're alone and far away from people, and he didn't change when he was threatened and accused which was backed by (potentially false if the theory is correct) evidence which would make it defend itself.

You're obviously wrong here. The Thing imitates the human perfectly including the memory and I'm pretty sure that if you only have one ear pierced you'd know which one is it, therefore the imitation would know.

More The Thing plot holes
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.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

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.

More Back to the Future Part II plot holes
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?

More Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over plot holes

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.