Corrected entry: In this film the aliens are said to be operating with a hive mind, and are all telepathically linked to the alien queen on the mothership. It is also stated the mothership from the first film also had a queen that was never seen. If that is the case, then there would not have been any need in the first film to use Earth's satellites to coordinate the attack.
BaconIsMyBFF
6th Jul 2020
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
19th May 2009
The Great Escape (1963)
Factual error: When the SS and Gestapo are leaving Bartlett in Von Luger's office on his arrival in the camp, they all give the Nazi salute with bent arms. The correct form was a straight outstretched arm and hand: only Hitler himself was allowed to give the Hitler salute so sloppily.
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Suggested correction: Absolute rubbish. And Von Luger was a Luftwaffe officer, not a die hard Nazi.
You need to explain why you believe this is incorrect. Do you mean they actually give proper salutes? Do you mean it isn't a mistake to show an officer give an improper salute? Do you mean the Nazi's weren't as strict on salute protocol as the mistake suggests?
Von Luger's disgust of the Gestapo is shown when Big X is returned from custody. I have rendered a sloppy salute to a particular officer to make a point.
22nd Jun 2020
Aliens (1986)
Corrected entry: The crew finds half a dozen face huggers in the med lab, and two of them are still alive. One tries to attach to Burke when he gets too close to the glass case. If a face hugger was able to break the much tougher glass of Kane's space suit's helmet in the first film and attach to him, why wouldn't it be able to break through this less durable glass in this film to get on Burke?
Correction: The creature doesn't break the glass to Kane's helmet, it melts its way in with acid. Presumably the liquid in the container neutralizes the acid somehow. Also, we have no idea what either the helmet glass or the container are actually made of. The container is made of a material strong enough to withstand the strength of the facehugger.
A laboratory jar that is made of material stronger than that of the faceplate of a space helmet that is designed to withstand a pressure differential like that between atmospheric pressure and a vacuum. Yes, that's going to happen.
This is both a futuristic movie and there is a 57 year gap between movies. And it isn't a "laboratory jar", it's some sort of made up stasis device. It is completely plausible that a stasis device would be more durable than a helmet made nearly 60 years prior. But the point is moot because the alien in the first film never breaks the helmet, it melts it.
Even the strongest acid cannot corrode a glass beaker, but it could easily corrode other transparent materials. It isn't a matter of how "strong" it is, it's a matter of chemistry. We don't know what the faceplates of the space suits are made of, but current day ones are made of polycarbonate plastics.
Correction: Probably because the facehugger doesn't have anything to hold on to and break the glass.
25th Oct 2018
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
Question: What does Fridge do now if he's still kicked off the football team by the end of the movie? It seems that only Spencer, Bethany, and Martha had some character growth, but not Fridge.
Answer: Fridge absolutely had character growth. He learned to value others as actual friends instead of using people to make his life easier. He learned to have respect for less popular students. He learned that physical strength can't solve all your problems. He learned the true value of teamwork. He never would have learned any of these lessons had he not played Jumanji.
What about Spencer? What kind of character growth did he have?
Primarily he gains confidence and self-esteem. He learns to be more decisive but also seems to have much more courage than before.
The claim that he wouldn't have learned these lessons if he'd not played Jumanji is unfounded speculation. There's no way of knowing what his life journey would have been otherwise.
Answer: Spencer learned to be more confident in himself.
6th May 2020
Arachnophobia (1990)
Factual error: With Irv and Blaire, one of them picks up the handful of popcorn and presumably eats the spider. While inside the eater, the spider would bite and poison whoever it was inside. When they find both of them dead, the spider crawls out of one person. Why would it leave one body and actually take the trouble to go inside the other rather than just bite them on the skin like the others? It's not like it would crawl out and back into the bowl to be eaten by the other person.
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Suggested correction: We actually don't see either Irv or Blaire "eat" the spider at all. We just see Blaire take a handful of popcorn with the spider inside. Next we see both dead bodies, and then a spider crawls out of Irv's nostril. So the spider could have bitten both people on their skin in short order and then crawled into Irv's body, for whatever reason, after he was already dead. Or, there could be two completely different spiders that killed the pair at around the same time. As the action happens off-screen, it can't be a factual error, we simply don't know exactly what happened.
The whole scene doesn't make sense. The fact that Irv pours the butter on the popcorn with the spider in the bowl, Blaire doesn't feel the spider in her hand when she picks it up with the popcorn, and they are still sitting in the same position watching Wheel of Fortune after being bitten. Only Irv's Coca-Cola can is lying on the floor with some popcorn pieces. The popcorn bowl is still on Blaire's lap, showing they did not have seizures to the spider's venom like the other victims. It also doesn't make sense that the spider doesn't bite Irv when he carries the bowl from the kitchen to the living room.
The mistake entry as written states that the spider is eaten by one person and then eaten by another, with both people dying afterwards. Since we do not actually see that happening, this doesn't count as a Factual Error. The fact that the victims do not seem to have violently seized prior to death should be submitted as a separate entry.
8th Jan 2020
King of the Hill (1997)
Question: Hank bears no resemblance to his father, but strongly resembles his mother. Bobby bears no resemblance to Hank (or seemingly Peggy), but bears a strong resemblance to Hank's father. Is it actually possible for a person to bear such a strong resemblance to one of their Grandparents if they are only getting half their genes from that Grandparent's child and that child bears no resemblance to that particular parent?
Answer: It's also said genetics plays a part here. You can look like an ancestor more than a parent. I myself look nothing like either of mine nor do any of my 3 siblings: older brother, older sister, younger sister.
Chosen answer: The short answer is "yes", it is possible to resemble your Grandparent even if your parent doesn't resemble your Grandparent. The old adage is "it's not like mixing paint", meaning combining genes doesn't always get the same result. It's why full siblings don't always look exactly alike even though they have the same genetic makeup. I look next to nothing like my paternal grandmother but I have a child that greatly resembles her.
Is it a mistake then that Hank's Japanese half-brother strongly resembles him, and by extension Hank's mother, or is that still a small possibility?
Sort of. These are animated characters, and the style of animation isn't particularly detailed. The resemblance between the two is played up for laughs. But there are plenty of real life examples of people that aren't related at all but greatly resemble one another. Famous examples are Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Javier Bardem, or Will Ferrell and Chad Smith.
18th Feb 2020
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Factual error: It is long-established in Star Trek canon that onboard diagnostics can detect any animate intruders on Federation vessels. Any living thing that exists upon a Federation vessel can be identified, and its location specifically noted on Federation property. How is it, then, that there are rats aboard the Regula I space station (as observed by Doctor McCoy) that haven't been eradicated?
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Suggested correction: It is not established that Regula 1 has the same internal sensors that a starship has.
It is definitely established, however, that the Regula 1 space station is conducting the most highly-classified technological research and development in the entire Federation: The Genesis Project, which entailed re-engineering whole worlds to create new ecosystems where no life existed before. If anything, Regula 1 should be equipped with even more sensitive and discriminating biological sensors than any starship in the Federation, for the express purpose of preventing biological contamination of their experiments. So, Regula 1 must have necessarily possessed the most sophisticated biological sensors available. As Dr. Carol Marcus emphasized, the Genesis Project couldn't risk contamination by so much as a microbe, nevermind foot-long rats creeping around the space station.
None of the scanning shown in the film was done by the Regula 1 station. The Reliant is what scanned the planet where Khan was found. Even if Regula 1 did have highly advanced sensors there is nothing to suggest anyone has the time or need to regularly scan for pests on the station itself. The presence of a pest in the Genesis cave itself would have been an error, but not on the station. A pest on the station has no bearing on the Genesis project itself. There are too many assumptions for this to be considered a movie mistake.
The rat was not shown in the Genesis Cave, it was shown aboard the Regula space station, where the Genesis Device itself was constructed before it was beamed inside the planetoid for a test run. The point you're missing is that the space station had rats crawling around inside, but a rat infestation wouldn't be tolerated at an ultra-top-secret research and development facility for a project that was highly sensitive to biological contamination.
Regulus One was a scientific research laboratory, the rats seen roaming the passageways were lab rats that had escaped in the earlier confusion. Genesis was their current project, but I'm certain there were many other experiments going on. Bear in mind, Carol Marcus retorted that "they waited until everyone was on leave to do this." They only had a skeleton crew aboard at the time Khan boarded the station and killed those still present who were not transporting equipment to the cavern.
Suggested correction: It was most likely a lab rat that was inadvertently freed when Khan and his followers ransacked the station. The sensors probably pick it up just fine, everyone on the station is just too busy being dead to do anything about the stray rat scurrying about.
It's the 24th Century. After all the "animal cruelty" activism of the 20th and 21st Centuries, I very seriously doubt they are still experimenting on lab rats in the 24th Century. That practice would be deemed medieval, at best, and barbaric, at worst.
Suggested correction: When was this established? There are a number of episodes of the original series where the plot depends on them not being able to detect intruders. "Court Martial" for example.
"Court Martial" is probably the worst example you could use for your argument. In that episode, the vengeful Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Finney repeatedly sabotaged the Enterprise main computer (changing ship's chronological data records in order to fake his own "death" and frame Captain Kirk for a murder that never happened). Finney also sabotaged the computer and caused the Enterprise to fall out of orbit. Indeed, Spock discovered that the ship's computer was malfunctioning due to sabotage. So, Finney was more than capable of sabotaging the ship's bio-scanners, as well, to conceal himself from a whole-ship scan. In fact, they had to resort to a very sensitive audio-scan of the Enterprise, selectively eliminating the audible heartbeats of every known person aboard the ship. When all known heartbeats were eliminated, just one unknown heartbeat remained, and its owner couldn't be identified. Therefore, Finney had certainly tampered with the bio-scanner to conceal his whereabouts. It's very doubtful, however, that foot-long rats hacked the bio-scanners aboard the Regula research station to conceal their whereabouts.
Every time the Enterprise computer system reported an "intruder alert," and every time they asked the computer for the location of specific individuals and lifeforms anywhere aboard the ship. This was all well-established in the Original Series.
It's a big leap to go from that to they can detect any living being. It is explicitly established that under many circumstances they can't even detect a full grown man if they are in hiding. This is the whole basis of the plot of "Court Martial." Even as late as The Next Generation it is established that it is difficult to find someone if they're not wearing their communicator badge.
Yet they can detect single-celled organisms on a planet's surface from thousands of miles away. The technology certainly exists in the Star Trek universe, and especially for the highly-classified Genesis Experiment. In "The Wrath of Khan," Dr. Carol Marcus stipulates that the Genesis Experiment cannot be contaminated by so much as a microbe, and complete sterility is a condition for selecting a test planet. Yet they have foot-long rats scurrying around the Genesis research facility? That is a plot hole, a continuity problem and a factual error all rolled into one.
Reliant scanned the planet to search for any life forms. That scan was inaccurate and it read Khan's entire group (and presumably the Ceti eels) as non-specific, potential life matter. Reliant's crew speculates that it could just be some speck of matter and they are completely shocked to find multiple living humans there. If they were using these highly advanced sensors you claim they were using they would not have been surprised by the presence of humans at all. And even if they could, there is nothing to suggest they should also use those sensors for pest control on their space station.
Suggested correction: Obviously the first thing the rats did was chew through the cables to the lifeform scanners.
Which would set off alarms like crazy aboard the station because preventing biological contamination of the Genesis Experiment was a No.1 priority for Dr. Carol Marcus. Undoubtedly, the station was bristling with redundant bio-scanners.
All of which had been also chewed through! No, you make a good point.
Suggested correction: Someone on the Reliant had a pet rat and one of Khan's henchmen brought it aboard Regula I to torment the lab techs. (Yes, this sounds silly, but the point is that strange and unlikely things actually happen quite often and it's exactly what makes stories interesting. As long as an event can be rationalized, unlikelihood alone isn't enough to qualify as a mistake. If it really bothers you, you might get more mileage putting it under "stupidity" since it's obviously just a lazy horror cliche).
10th Feb 2020
The Terminator (1984)
Question: In the hotel room scene when the landlord/manager knocks on the door and asks if he has a dead cat in the room, why is the Terminator sitting down on the bed, especially turned away from the door? If the Terminator is an indefatigable machine only resembling a human on the outside, why would it ever be seen in a relaxed pose at all, and ignoring the sole point of entry to the room it's in?
Answer: I wouldn't call him sitting a "relaxed pose." The scene is brief, but at the time he's looking through Sarah's address book but we don't know what else he was doing. We see him sitting while repairing his arm and we see him sitting when making a telephone call. So he may have been doing other things that he couldn't do standing. As far as ignoring the door (which wasn't the sole point of entry since we see him go through the window), as a terminator machine, he doesn't really have to be on alert for an attack like a person would.
Answer: The T-800 is designed to blend in with the human race. As such it will act as a human does with the aim of maintaining its cover. Another example is why do they find clothes? Sure a naked man walking round is going to attract attention of police but they are capable of dealing with such situations.
That is true when the Terminator is among humans but in this scene it is alone in the room. The question remains why it sits, looking away from the door, if there is no-one else there.
The answer provided still works, based on how the Terminators are portrayed in the sequels. They will gradually learn more and more human behaviors and adapt them to their programming. In this case, sitting down when idle. Another example is the T-1000 giving a very human-like puzzled expression when he notices the silver mannequin. Also, the T-X in Terminator 3 smirks at numerous points throughout that movie when things go her way. None of these behaviors are done for the benefit of "blending in" and appear to simply be learned behaviors.
Answer: You're right, it doesn't make sense for the Terminator to sit facing away from the threat. In the second movie we see the Terminator standing the whole night in the same position, looking outside. It seems more verisimilar, except for the gun on his shoulder pointing back.
10th Feb 2020
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Question: Gaston sings that he ate eggs to help him get large. Why didn't he say meat? Was he vegetarian? Was Disney deliberately supporting vegetarianism/respecting vegetarians? Are there any historical circumstances that I'm not aware of? Or am I just overanalyzing this matter?
Answer: Eggs are full of protein. Eating a lot of eggs is an excellent way to bulk up and build muscle mass.
Eggs are not good for you if you eat too many of them.
To quote Stephen Fry: "Well of course too much is bad for you, that's what "too much" means. If you had too much water it would be bad for you, wouldn't it? "Too much" precisely means that quantity which is excessive, that's what it means. Could you ever say "too much water is good for you"? I mean if it's too much it's too much. Too much of anything is too much. Obviously." That aside, while it used to be believed that the cholesterol content of eggs was a health risk, more recent studies have shown that dietary cholesterol doesn't affect blood cholesterol levels for most people. As such there's no real maximum limit on egg consumption beyond the aforementioned "too much of anything is too much".
I don't think Gaston cares much about his cholesterol.
They didn't even know the word.
Answer: While I was waiting for this question to be accepted, I found the answer to one of my questions myself. Gaston is indeed not vegetarian, considering he mentions his hunting trophies during the aforementioned song and earlier in the movie, he tells Belle to imagine him roasting his kill on the fire place.
8th Jan 2020
Common mistakes
Corrected entry: Characters that are supposed to be blood relatives, but have no familial resemblance.
Correction: Blood relatives do not always resemble each other.
That's not really a "common mistake", though since it's never a mistake to have blood relatives that do not resemble each other.
I mostly agree. Family members often look too different to be biologically related. Even if an effort is made, for example, to have a son look like his father, some things don't sync - like a different face shape/bone structure or skin tone (not due to tanning). One example of father/son dissimilarities are in The War of the Worlds - the boy playing Tom Cruise's son has a completely different facial shape/structure. Regarding skin tone, in Boyhood the sister of Mason has a different skin tone than the rest of the family - and it stands out.
I'm probably a bit sensitive to this since my family members don't all have a strong resemblance to each other, but it's absolutely possible, especially if your family tree is diverse in genetics/ appearance. It happens more often than not in movies, but it's not a mistake. (And who's to say that in many of these cases people weren't adopted?).
27th Jan 2020
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Question: If the clones believe Dooku is their leader, why are they against the droids, who are his allies?
Answer: The pilots didn't refuse to shoot down Dooku - they explain they have run out of rockets and they can't. The clone troopers have no idea that Dooku originally ordered for them to be made, only the Jedi council at that time know, which is explained earlier in the film.
Answer: The clones do not believe Dooku to be their leader. Dooku is the leader of the Separatists.
But they believe he was one of the people who was helping with ordering them (which he was) and refused to shoot him down when Anakin asked.
No, they believe Sifo Dyas was the Jedi who ordered their creation. They do not refuse to shoot down Dooku, they tried and failed.
They believe it was both. They used "we're out of rockets" as an excuse to not kill him as they knew he was one of their leaders. Some of the corrections even state it, and one of the answers does as well.
The Jedi and the Chancellor are their leaders, not Dooku. Dooku is the enemy. Dooku's plan was to gather the largest droid army in the galaxy to counter the republic so that the clone army would be deployed. For Palpatine the seperatists were only a distraction for the Jedi and an excuse to deploy the clones. The clones obeyed the Jedi and Republic until order 66. Dooku was led to believe he would become one of the leaders eventually, if he knew about order 66, but Palpatine had other plans.
So are you saying the people who were saying that in the corrections and questions are wrong?
There's one correction I saw that says that, and yes, I believe that correction to be incorrect. There is nothing in the film to suggest that the clones were aware (either consciously or otherwise) that Dooku played any part in their creation and chose not to kill him. If that was the case and George Lucas wanted the audience to be aware, it would have been less subtle and more obvious. It's not even supposed to be obvious that Dooku and Darth Tyranus are the same person until the end of the movie but that reveal was ruined by pre-release marketing and merchandise.
But you can see the rockets in the gunship when the clone pilot refuses to fire them at Dooku.
Plus, they could've also used lasers or etc. instead.
Plus, why wouldn't Dooku and Sidious have had this feature installed anyway if they knew they would've been against him otherwise?
Sidious already was the leader of the clone troops, as Chancellor of the republic. All he had to do was wait for the war to spread the Jedi out over the galaxy so they will be more vulnerable and then execute order 66 to take them out. Dooku or Grievous were never a part of that plan. This is proven by Sidious ordering Vader to go to the Mustafar system and kill the rest of the separatist leaders. If Grievous was still alive he would have been eliminated too. Sidious' new apprentice Vader had already killed Dooku by then anyway.
That's not exactly the point though.
The point the clones did not refuse to fire on Dooku. Dooku is not protected against them. Not by Palpatine, not by himself as Tyrannus.
The programming of the clone troopers has been explored extensively in additional canon materials outside of the films. There has never been any mention of specific programming put in place to keep the clones from killing Dooku and Sidious. The ship still having rockets after the clone says they are out is more likely to be a simple continuity error rather than a subtle hint (and if this theory is to be believed, the ONLY hint at all in any Star Wars media) that the clones were programmed to not kill Dooku.
There's also the hint that he finished up the job with ordering them.
We can go on and on for pages but the fact of the matter is the clones were not what you expected them to be. Dooku never had any idea he would be in danger of being captured or killed by the clones as he was supposed to be coordinating the war on the background like Sidious.
8th Mar 2018
Death Wish (2018)
Corrected entry: No way Kersey leaves the gun shop same day with a full auto AR-15. It would take boatloads of paperwork, waiting, and registration with the federal government. He could have bought a conventional semi-auto AR-15 much more easily.
Correction: There is no such thing as a full auto AR-15 unless someone has changed the firing mechanism in the lower receiver. You can not buy a full auto AR-15.
Kersey didn't even know how to shoot a pistol and had to practice with the throw down gun. The gun shop sold him the AR-15 capable of full auto. He would not know how to convert it.
You don't need to know how to shoot to do a full-auto conversion. There are kits available with instructions online. A bump stock could also be easily added to the firearm to make it functionally full-auto even if it technically is not.
Bumpstocks are a terrible gimmick that make firing and aiming properly very difficult. They are nothing more than a toy.
The gun store couldn't sell him a full auto AR because they don't exist, as the OP stated. There are military versions, like the M4 carbine which can be had as NFA items, but not in Chicago.
8th Jan 2020
Aquaman (2018)
Question: Why didn't they move? Surely they could've hidden in one of the other states mainly a landlocked one like Iowa, Nebraska, or Kentucky, as in not near an ocean.
Answer: Yes I mean as in his father and mother should've moved, not the Atlanteans.
They both obviously love the ocean very much, and it might have been to hard for them to live away from it. Call it a false sense of security if you will.
Answer: If you are talking about the Atlanteans, their entire civilization sunk into the ocean. Instead of leaving it, all that history, culture and technology, they adapted instead. They didn't want to leave their home and be exiled forever. A lot did go and live in other areas of the ocean but by that time humans had taken over on land, and they didn't want to interfere, nor did they need to by that time.
I think the question is asking why Arthur's parents didn't move. Why, knowing that people from Atlantis are hunting you, would you continue to live near the ocean?
8th Jan 2020
Star Wars (1977)
Question: Why is Han so skeptical of the Force? I get that he himself has never witnessed anyone use it, but he would have been alive during the Jedi purge, and surely he knows that Chewbacca fought alongside the Jedi on Kashyyyk. Additionally, is there any reason Obi-Wan wouldn't have demonstrated Force powers to Han on the way to Alderaan other than he didn't feel the need to prove it?
Answer: Han describes force powers as "simple tricks and nonsense." He has never seen any Jedi doing anything particularly super-powered. Even if Chewy did and told Han it is still reasonable for him to be skeptical and to think his friend is exaggerating. Han simply thinks the stories about Jedi are overblown. A good way to think about it would be to examine how ninja are presented in popular culture versus how they were in reality. The stories surrounding ninja are greatly exaggerated to the point of absurdity, applying immense fighting ability and oftentimes magical powers to normal men. The difference is jedi actually had magical abilities while ninja did not.
Answer: To answer the second part of your question, Obi-Wan has Luke demonstrate the Force in front of Han by putting a blinder on and fighting the remote. Believing he has made his point, Obi-Wan comments "You see!", to which Han replies that Luke's success was against a remote, and that fighting a living person was completely different. So even after being shown something that is completely impossible without the use of the force, Han still chooses not to believe.
Well Han also dismissed Luke's success with the remote as luck. If Obi-Wan used the Force to steal Han's blaster right from its holster, would Han just dismiss it as magic? Is there such thing as magical powers in the Star Wars universe independent from the Force?
Oh, I absolutely agree with your point. But I always took this scene to mean that Obi-Wan isn't trying to win an argument with Han or prove anything to him. He's trying to teach Luke about the force. He doesn't really care what Han believes and is dismissive of his comments. Luke believes he felt the force using the remote and that's what is important.
There actually is, or so I believe. The nightsisters, also called the witches of Dathomir, that appear in The Clone Wars-series. They used dark magic.
4th Jan 2020
Die Hard (1988)
Stupidity: Hans keeps a major part of his plan secret from his own team: that the electromagnetic lock will be disabled if the FBI shuts down power to the building. The mercenaries hired as muscle don't need to know the minutiae of the plan, but it seems ludicrous that Theo wasn't told. Theo states on more than one occasion that he can't proceed past a certain point and that he hopes Hans has a plan for the final lock. Evidently, Hans was keeping this information secret simply to amuse himself, which makes little sense considering how much planning went into the heist.
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Suggested correction: Or because he simply doesn't trust anyone with that kind of knowledge. He neither trusts them or cares about them, it's all him.
So he trusts that Theo would be on board with all the murder and mayhem, open all the other locks, be in a tactical lookout position when the police try to breach, and drive the getaway vehicle. But he doesn't trust Theo enough to tell him the last lock will open when the power goes out?
It's not about trust; Hans needs Theo to do what he is there for and that is all you mention up to the final lock. He has a plan for the final lock and so there's no need to discuss it with the team, since it won't be any of them responsible.
The more people that know the plan the more chances of someone talking. Especially when they are hired mercenaries.
Theo was already on board with taking hostages and committing murder. Him knowing that the power needed to be shut off to open the last lock doesn't appear to be particularly important information you would need to keep from someone to keep them from talking.
If he's the only one that knows the final step to get the money, then at least up until that moment he is absolutely indispensable to the plan and ensures no-one would double-cross him. In any case I'm not sure being more cautious than necessary really qualifies as "stupidity."
24th Nov 2019
Alien 3 (1992)
Question: At the start of the film when the facehugger tries to get into Newt's cryotube, why does it use brute force instead of acid to gain entry?
Answer: It does use acid, but it has acid for blood so it needs to harm itself first to produce the acid.
In the first Alien, didn't the facehugger use acid to get into Kane's helmet? It wasn't bleeding acid.
It actually isn't shown exactly how the acid was used to get into Kane's helmet. The creature jumps on his helmet and Kane falls over with the creature on the outside and next we see, the creature has melted its way into the helmet. So it could be it cut itself, just as the creature does in Alien 3.
27th Dec 2019
Knives Out (2019)
Stupidity: Spoiler. The protagonist is a trained and competent nurse, paired with one of the greatest murder mystery writers. Neither finds strange in the slightest that after jabbing his vein with a dose of drugs 30 times the norm he is absolutely fine, not just conscious but even able to concoct on the spot a convoluted plot, speaking normally and quite at length, no trouble at all. He should be dead "in 10 minutes" sure, but it's not a time bomb. You'd think one would not be so blasé about slitting their own throat and the other would have to notice how amazingly unaffected and lucid the other appears to be minutes later. Not to mention that his plan would have never worked with the toxicology report, which should be routine in a suicide case also to assess the mental state of the person who left no note or anything behind.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: It is explained that the drug overdose will kill Harlan in 10 minutes based on the dosage. The implication is that Harlan's heart will stop, not that he will become gradually and obviously sick over those 10 minutes. Regardless, based on what they believe will happen, even if they did notice that Harlan wasn't getting sick they wouldn't have the time to test that theory. The fact that neither Marta nor Harlan thought about a potential toxicology report is a pretty major part of the plot, and it is perfectly reasonable given the circumstances. The plot was hatched on the spot within a few minutes and there are several holes in the plan that drive the story throughout the film. Although a brilliant man and a great writer, Harlan simply didn't think of everything.
She explicitly says "You'll feel symptoms in 5" and when he shuts her up putting a hand on her mouth she says "We have 6 minutes."Then his daughter interrupts them and more time is wasted. By the time when he begins his convoluted explanation of the big plan he should have already been disoriented, sweaty and the whole gamut leading to his respiratory failure. And he goes on for minutes after that. It's very true, it moves the plot along, but by what they say themselves (which is from I understand not medically accurate and contradicted also by what happens later in the movie with the second death) they should have realised that time has passed with nothing happening. You could even say it's Rian Johnson's intentional deconstruction of the artificial nature of the whoddunit contrivances! But also, just saying, one of those "Stupid actions and decisions people take in movies, which no-one would ever do in real life."
Even taking that into account, what you are saying is Harlan should have said "Hmm, a few minutes have passed and I haven't felt any symptoms, so I'm not actually poisoned. Carry on then, false alarm." It moves the plot along because Harlan isn't willing to risk Marta getting in trouble for poisoning him and they have less than 10 minutes to act. This would count as a stupidity entry if Harlan didn't care about who took the blame for killing him, but obviously he does. Remember, stupidity entries are not for poor decisions by characters, they are for minor plot holes. This being "an act no-one would ever do in real life" is kind of the entire point of the movie. Nobody believes Harlan would do this because, well nobody cares about their nurse that much. But he does.
The part I was quoting is the description of the category in the metadata on google, or if you prefer the hover text description just above this very page go by "Something just plain stupid. Not as deal-breaking as a plot hole, but something daft, like running upstairs with a killer behind them, instead of out of the front door." I call "slitting your own throat feeling totally fine after you yourself have been calling the minutes with precision earlier", pretty silly, to say the least. Again, this is all stuff the script itself unnecessarily calls attention on. If he didn't mention twice the time before, if she hadn't said that the symptoms happen after 5 but just "your heart is gonna exploded at the 10 minute mark", then, maybe, I would have simply reported the factual error that this is not how it works. It's the script itself that points out (Harlan himself says it twice) the exact minutes, and the symptoms and how they are gradual.
This still ignores the fact that they don't have time to test the theory. They would have to notice the lack of symptoms, and assume somehow that the lack of symptoms after 5 minutes must mean that Harlan isn't actually poisoned, and stop their plan right then and there. The audience knows that Harlan isn't really poisoned, but we don't find that out until later. I doubt very seriously that anyone watching this film for the first time believed, as you suggest, that Harlan obviously wasn't poisoned because he didn't show any symptoms and it was therefore stupid for him to kill himself. It seems to you to be stupid in hindsight, but I honestly don't believe, based on what the characters knew, that Harlan's action was so egregious that it constitutes a mistake in the script.
We definitely had a very different impression watching it the first time. The thought that this old man could be shot a big dose of morphine in vein and calmly think of perfect murder plans for the next minutes was 200% absurd on first view here. I could say that others thought the same but it's just anecdotical and I respect you having a different take. For the rest, it's again just the script itself drawing attention to it. From the mouth of the same character who nonchalantly slits his own throat feeling still fine. It seems egregiously stupid and contradictory.
But he wasn't shot a big dose of morphine. He got his normal meds, they only think he overdosed.
We don't know that yet. We know that, in their words, he was shot 100 mg instead of 3 (does not matter if true or not, we are fed this information and the characters believe it). Again, the whole scene would have worked if they didn't, themselves, add details. Makes the overdose sound huge, and inserting the 6 minutes mark (which means, barely 1 min till the symptoms show up) before the daughter arrives when more than half of the scene has still to be played, weakens it terribly. Some things are maybe just stupid in hindsight, like the fact that all he needed to do was to write in his own penmanship a suicide note saying he killed himself with an injection once Marta left, but the overdose bit felt absurd on first viewing.
30th Dec 2019
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Question: How does Rey get Luke's original (Anakin's) lightsaber? Twice, no less. The first time when Maz Kanada says "a story for another time", a time which never came, apparently. Then it's destroyed in TLJ in the fight with Kylo Ren, then she gets it back again...somehow, in this movie.
Answer: In TLJ you see her pick up both halves. It was then repaired between movies, with the prop showing modifications where it was fixed.
Chosen answer: According to StarWars.com: Rey took the broken pieces with her to Crait. The lightsaber's shattered pieces reunited themselves as she continued down the Jedi path.
If you look closely, the lightsaber has been repaired after being broken in Last Jedi. There is a new middle piece joining the two broken pieces together.
At the end of "The Last Jedi", when the remaining Resistance fighters leave Crait, there is a close-up of Rey's hands holding the broken pieces of the saber, meaning that she took them with her.
18th Dec 2019
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Stupidity: The commando mission to save Chewbacca starts gunning down a few Stormtroopers in the hangar. The heroes then go on leaving the troopers lying down on the floor in front of the ship, in plain view. They don't hide them nor ask the droids (who have enough strength and tools to pull them in) to, in fact they tell them to stay put. No wonder they are found out later (after a ridiculously long amount of time).
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Hiding the bodies would have been a waste of time, anyone who came to the hangar would immediately notice that the guards stationed there were missing and there was now a strange ship parked there.
The droids have all the time in the world, and people just passing by are "more immediately" bound to notice corpses in the middle of a hangar rather than possibly maybe question the fact that you don't see guards in that part of the hangar or investigate the ship - which could approach without anyone taking exception by appearance alone. At least remove the bodies directly in front of the damn ship!
Why would they be more likely to notice dead guards than no guards?
Anyone passing by might well thing the patrols were just out of sync, or a shift change. Sure they might investigate further, but they might not bother. Whereas a couple of dead bodies? Immediate red alert. Worth taking 30 seconds to hide them, surely.
Perhaps, but then it's made irrelevant 1 minute later as Finn and Poe run down a hallway blasting about a dozen stormtroopers.
For that matter, 1 SECOND later they kill stormtroopers in the far part of the hangar. They are killing people all over the ship during their mission and it's not like they hide every single one of them, but they leave two bodies *exactly* in front of their ship (and telling the droids to stay put). You can even see later that there is a stormtrooper with his weapon pointed exactly where those two corpses are, with the 'smart' commanding officer asking "whose ship is this?" at the sight of that. Maybe I am spoiled by a trope here, but it's the first time that I see someone in an action movie leaving corpses right in front of their only escape route/vehicle, that's so counterintuitive. (Did they even have an escape plan, actually? I don't like hypotheticals, but gee, if only she did the Jedi mind trick thing to those 2 guards who came over to inspect the ship instead of doing it later. But I digress).
29th Dec 2019
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Question: During the arena battle, while Mace is retrieving his lightsaber, why doesn't Jango just shoot him there while he's disarmed and steady, instead of trying to steal it?
Answer: Because Mace Windu is a Jedi and if he gets his lightsaber he'll be able to deflect Jango's blaster shots with ease. If Jango is able to grab the lightsaber before Mace can get it, then he stands a much better chance of winning.
But if he shoots him before he got his lightsaber he can't deflect the shot.
Not saying it was either smart or prudent, but that was obviously his thinking. In his mind if he grabs that lightsaber before Windu can get it he's won.
Villains in movies don't have a lot of logic.
Correction: There could be a distance factor involved. The mothership in the first film stayed outside of Earth's atmosphere. The Harvester ship in this film landed on Earth with the queen on board. In the first film the city destroyers entered Earth's atmosphere at areas around the world. So it could be that they needed to use the satellites in the first film to coordinate with the Destroyers inside Earth's atmosphere which were spread all around the world. Also, in this film The Queen goes to Area 51 on board her personal ship and she controls the fighters which are very close to her as she exits her ship therefore not needing any satellites.
The aliens didn't need the satellites to control their ships, they only needed them to send a countdown timer to one another (which is ludicrous all on its own). They are linked telepathically to one another in addition to the queen, former President Whitmore, Dr. Okun, and Umbutu. These people are all spread all over the planet and still have a link to the aliens. Also, the captured aliens rejoice in unison when they realise the queen is coming yet they are nowhere near her and have no means of knowing this other than their psychic link.
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