TonyPH

Plot hole: Dr. Tuskin warns that if Regan were to remember the events of her possession it could be so traumatic for her it could lead to suicide, even though Regan's therapy seems to be based almost entirely on what she can remember about the events of her possession.

TonyPH

Plot hole: The aliens provide coordinates for a place to make a rendezvous with humans but do not specify a time. It's possible they're monitoring and will arrive when they see enough humans gathering at Devil's Tower, but the humans seem to expect the aliens to come more or less exactly when they actually do, somehow.

TonyPH

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

Suggested correction: Scientists were prepared for the aliens and knew when and where they would arrive, as seen by the extensive complex built at Devil's Tower. However, as Claude Lacombe, the French scientist, speculates towards the end, hundreds of humans may have had the Devil's Tower image recently implanted in their minds, saying they were "invited" but never made the connection. Neery figured it out and was compelled to go there at that time. Neery was then allowed to join a group of trained volunteers that were already prepared to go on the ship, while the previous "abductees" were being returned to Earth.

raywest

The aliens had not given a time to meet. The scientists may be taking it on faith that the aliens will know that they've arrived at Devil's Tower and are ready, but the way the subject of timing is left unaddressed on screen feels like an oversight.

TonyPH

We don't know for certain if the scientists were given a specific time, but it appears they were, or at least a general window. The long-lost objects, like the ship and the military aircraft, suddenly showing up in the desert, is an indication the process has started. If humans were given the precise location where the alien ship would arrive (Devil's Tower), then, logically, the aliens would also communicate when. The scientists were communicating with the aliens using tonal sounds. Early on, the scientists received map coordinates through dish satellites as repeating pulses. They would likely receive time information the same way. As often happens in movies, this info may be something that got edited out of the film, causing an inconsistency.

raywest

This might be one of those edge cases. Under most circumstances I'd agree we could assume arrangements were made off-screen by virtue of the fact that the rendezvous occurs successfully in the first place; but in the context of this movie, in which any and all forms of contact with the aliens is treated as profound and significant, leaving it unaddressed (not even with a line of dialogue) comes off like a plot hole. I suppose we'll just have to let our fellow website readers decide.

TonyPH

16th Mar 2021

Alien (1979)

Plot hole: The shuttle "won't take four" crew members. Considering it only has two cryotubes (and hypersleep appears to be necessary for any hope of survival), it doesn't seem to accommodate three people, either. (Admittedly I would still go for it, too, if I were up against a 7-foot-tall acid-blooded alien monster with two sets of jaws, but there doesn't seem to be much difference whether there's three or four people onboard).

TonyPH

15th Dec 2020

The Thing (1982)

Plot hole: It's never explicitly stated or shown that the Thing reproduces with each victim until the movie is nearly over (when Palmer infects Windows). Most viewers figure it out from the context, but it's unclear just when and how the characters themselves have come to this conclusion. This was an inadvertent result of an editing decision and a visual goof: there is a deleted scene in which Blair explains much more directly that the Thing multiplies according to how many victims it takes, and in its place in the final film is a scene containing a computer simulation that director John Carpenter acknowledges was a failed attempt at explaining the organism's life cycle.

TonyPH

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