lionhead

9th Oct 2019

Captain Marvel (2019)

Stupidity: Mar-Vell's laboratory is a spaceship that the captions identify as an imperial cruiser, not exactly the kind of thing that can go missing unnoticed. Since the Kree were so determined in finding Mar-Vell's work and are so attached to it that they keep Carol around, how is it possible that in 1989 or ever since they haven't looked for her cruiser? Carol manages to uncloak it without using any secret code (that she wouldn't know since Mar-Vell told her about the whole alien thing just barely before dying and was not privy to any security measure).

Sammo

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Suggested correction: Decloaking the ship still necessitated knowing its location. The Kree didn't know where it was, so couldn't decloak it.

But they don't even look for it. He literally goes "oh, well, the engine is gone, let's go home", without any attempt to look for Mar-Vell's project or, again, the big cruiser thingy. Something so important, and yet the empire does not care about it to probe around for it.

Sammo

In your other entry you suggest Ronan doesn't even know about Mar-Vell's project. More likely he doesn't care, since he is a fanatic who worships the old ways. Its logical he will ignore it, especially when his interests have been turned towards Carol flying around blasting through his ships. Which he later forgets for whatever reason as well.

lionhead

No, no, I am referring to Yon-Rogg in the past, and the empire as a whole: they are after whatever work Mar-Vell was doing, to the point of keeping around with a very flawed brainwashing plan an incredibly dangerous being created with that technology, but don't look for her ship or evidence of her work, at all. 6 years with the knowledge that somewhere around (or on) Earth there's the key to unlimited destroying power and/or a hyperfast engine, and everyone is like "Meh, whatever" for no reason.

Sammo

9th Oct 2019

Captain Marvel (2019)

Stupidity: Carol enters the Imperial Cruiser that doubles as a secret laboratory, uncloaking it. She does not cloak it back, so the villains just find it immediately. But blood-thirsty Ronan, despite having multiple ships, does not target it or acknowledge it, despite fully knowing that Earth has no defenses and is not a threat, while a Kree vessel would necessitate countermeasures.

Sammo

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Suggested correction: The Kree wanted what was on the ship. Destroying it would not achieve their goals. Additionally, since Carol was able to decloak it using her suit, so could any other Kree soldiers.

If to decloak it they need to know the location, it had to be visible to begin with? Going by the movie, Ronan has not even been informed about Mar-Vell's project. If the movie still remembers there is any (no indication is given), he suddenly finds a ship not part of his fleet and does not question it, simply going by what the plot wants him to do. Which, actually, could be fully intentional, since he obviously just cares about blowing stuff up and does not care even if any of his fellow Krees is still on the planet (not that the movie implies it, as movies normally would, but he's such a one-note character that it could be possible).

Sammo

Earth doesn't have defenses and is not a threat, the Kree cruiser is obviously not part of Earth's defenses but is one of their own. He just didn't realise it is a target instead. Besides, Kree are on board, why would he target it?

lionhead

That's exactly the point of what I originally said: Earth is not a threat, but he, fresh off his jump, right away gets in bombing mode without checking where the other Krees are (Yon-Rogg is on Earth at that exact moment, right the spot he is dropping the bombs at, even!) or batting an eye at the cruiser that happens to be already there, not target it but ask "what is going on here?", hail them or receive a report about the situation and where he is supposed to blow his load (would have been a single line of dialogue, here it seems an issue entirely ignored because plot moves from A to B): as a member of the military he is supposed to coordinate his attacks (like he did earlier on the first meeting with the Skrulls, where he bombed a specific part of the planet). Here all his instructions have been "Come at once, Earth has been infiltrated!", but he launches the bombs right away, seconds after jumping close to Earth.

Sammo

9th Oct 2019

Captain Marvel (2019)

Plot hole: Mar-Vell's achievement, what makes her work so coveted by both Kree and Skrull, is the "lightspeed" engine equipped on the jet. This "lightspeed" engine is unable to outrun the Kree fighter sent after it. It's hard to imagine how Carol being the test pilot for this technology has failed to ever realise that this is what was being studied and how she is a test pilot for an engine that is never used at a fraction of its capabilities.

Sammo

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Suggested correction: Clearly the engine was not being run at its full potential at that point. It was experimental and would never fly at FTL speeds in the atmosphere of a planet.

Absolutely! But what sort of "tests" have they been doing on it for all those months or years?

Sammo

Can't simply start using an FTL to outrun a bogey. You probably could wind up inside a planet or destroy the atmosphere. She probably has her reasons not to use it. Who knows what Mar-vell was really testing, maybe that was just a ruse and all she was doing was buying time to come up with a plan to use the engine to help the Skrulls without the Kree finding them. There is no plothole if you simply can't imagine what the motives are.

lionhead

The engine had to be important, otherwise the whole ruse of Mar-Vell being Dr. Lawson would have been pointless: she already had the Tesseract itself aboard her ship, where the Earthlings could never find it if she chose to disappear overnight, so it had to be work related to the engine itself and its implications, how to actually handle it. It is implied that the engine works (she instructs Carol before dying to "save them without me" and Talos says that now they can reassemble the "thousands scattered around the galaxy"), so again, it seems absurd that the engine cannot give the slightest extra punch to her ship, which already was headed towards space, the laboratory, and that she can't fly up out of atmosphere - or that she tested something dealing with lightspeed or close to it, for all that time, to the point of making a somewhat working prototype, but never figured it out.

Sammo

I submitted a text change request and I hope the entry has a chance to be reinstated some time. As I said in the other comments, it makes no sense that Carol is the test pilot of a lightspeed engine, the lightspeed engine is completed and works, but the test pilot herself has no idea the engine works and can't produce any ever significant boost. They are already in 'space' when the scene begins, it's not like they would risk to crash into Earth.

Sammo

Will wait for the rewording then but right now the entry is rightfully corrected. More reasons could in fact be given. Carol is the test pilot for a spacecraft that happens to have a FTL engine (which I turns out is what it was all about). The FTL isn't active when they are being chased and doesn't provide extra boost to the spacecraft's regular engines. Wouldn't help either as there can be several simple reasons why one can not use it at that time.

lionhead

The FTL engine then has been developed and finished without Carol having any input on it and she flew with it for no reason. What has Mar-vell been doing all this time and why has she bothered with Carol at all? Does not even need Pegasus project since the Tesseract is aboard her own cloaked ship and not in the research facility downstairs. If the engine is off, why is it on the plane at all? Looks very active later when the plan crashes and Carol makes it explode with a single blast, etc.

Sammo

6th Oct 2019

Captain Marvel (2019)

Plot hole: Fury comments on Vers' lack of weapon and issues radio messages about her, referring to her as a single 'suspect' during the whole chase, ignoring entirely the fact that a sniper shot him with a futuristic weapon as well. In fact, the weapon is a complete non sequitur and random element; we saw the Skrull emerge from the sea, unarmed and no Skrull weapon is shown in the rest of the movie. And the sniper runs away without it, presumably leaving the weapon or remains of it for SHIELD to study (and do nothing with it for the next decade).

Sammo

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Suggested correction: They haven't even seen the other suspect and can only chase 1 person at a time, he only radios it in once. The weapon is an arm weapon that disappears under the cloak of the human form.

lionhead

The weapon is a rifle, (he looks like he is using two hands when he uses it, check out at 29:14) that he did not have to begin with, and at no point in the movie Skrulls seem to be able to conceal weapons in their suits - if they were, ironically enough the 'identification' Carol jokingly brings later to Fury blasting the juke-box would be wrong. It's unnacounted before and after the incident. As for the first part, I can't agree on the fact that they haven't seen the other suspect: Fury turns around before the blasts is fired and at least they know they were shot at from an unknown perp, even more reason to instantly radio about it. The whole dynamic of the scene brings instantly the sole focus on Vers (understandably from a movie logic perspective, but I am here to nitpick how unnatural it is), to the point that he asks 'Rook' if he has seen her weapon, as if being shot at with energy blasts from rooftops were normal, and he does not say anything about the other person.

Sammo

They may not show concealing their weapons that way but they do show the ability to hide various large objects including cattle prods under their disguises without effort (like in the fight against the Kree earlier). Their camouflage ability is highly sophisticated. It won't be difficult to conceal any weapon. As for the part about the sniper never being mentioned, you have a point but I question if it's really a "plot hole" rather than a simple character error. Fury focuses on Carol, he could be doing that for a lot of reasons, the best one I can come up with is that is the suspect they have a face on and fired a powerfull blast without a weapon. Logical they are interested in her, enough to make sure she doesn't get away from them.

lionhead

Ehh, they were concealing the weapons under big cloaks, not making them appear out of thin air around their hands. When they land on Earth they are with just their normal suits with no camo. I think that if they had the power to do that sort of trick with their guns it would have been set up earlier, fighting against Carol everyone either starts with a weapon or does not, nobody is shown summoning a weapon out of the suit. I agree on the matter of Fury's behaviour being more accurately a character error, considering that other meaningful members of his team are Skrulls at that point. Distinctions can be blurry especially when I don't break down a topic focused on a single event in the movie ("Skrull sniping with unexplained weapon nobody seems to care about") into 2-3 different separate submissions to the website.

Sammo

The cloaks were part of the camouflage. At one point they are all wearing cloaks, the next they are not and are carrying weapons. If they can do that to conceal weapons, they can do a lot more.

lionhead

6th Oct 2019

Captain Marvel (2019)

Corrected entry: Fury is laughing off the idea of Vers being an alien and asks a normal cop to put her under arrest. But then, it would not make sense SHIELD even bothered to arrive on the scene (assuming Fury was in LA already) if they did not detect also the crash of the escape pod, the huge ship exploding in atmosphere and thus treat the problem as serious. They also arrive simultaneously as the cop, in daylight, when Vers crashed at night.

Sammo

Correction: Their knowledge of aliens was the same as anybody in those days. Fury just thought she was some crazy person, with perhaps some forbidden weapons and/or communications technology. They arrived after the security guard called it in, since there were multiple incidents at that location they decided to send in SHIELD agents (regular agents) besides a regular cop in case there was a connection. Since they arrived in daylight I'd say they had quite a drive to get there.

lionhead

Just a note: was not just regular agents, Keller is on the site as well, he's the first to arrive even (I did not notice it the first two times I have watched the movie, partly because the deleted scene in the office made me imagine a different scenario). So it's important enough that the top brass from SHIELD (plus rookie Coulsen and whoever drove Keller) arrive but at the same time they waltz in with the odd normal cop as backup. They can't be there because of some dude said there's a lady in a suit, did they even notice a spaceship blow up (you'd expect so but the movie and MCU ignore it later when larger ships suffer the same fate)? I don't want to repeat myself too much and I agree with what you wrote: to me the dynamic seems quite strange. In such a long time the first respondents (in the middle of a city) arrive only when SHIELD arrives, an hour after they've been called. And no cop or fireman arrived before on the impact zone? The response to this crisis is pure 'movie logic'.

Right, Keller being there is weird already, since he just disappears when they confront Carol. Couldn't be Talos in disguise either or he would attack her. His questions at the autopsy suggests he replaced Keller after the chase. If that's got to do with deleted scenes though, not sure how to handle that. I agree that's weird, but a plot hole? The security guard called in the lady asking wierd questions, probably nothing about the crash. Anyway the response can still be explained by SHIELD taking over and have the regular law enforcement not respond until they arrive as well. Again, even in the 90's SHIELD seems to have a lot of power and control. You can only guess at what they really know or think.

lionhead

In the deleted scene, Talos in disguises enters Keller's office thanks to the real Coulson kindly opening the door for him and the real Keller is discovered knocked out, bound and gagged there indicating he took his place. But deleted scenes are always tricky and in case of this particular movie they have to be discarded altogether I think, since some contradict the movie (Vers begins the movie meeting Jude Law as he is training some kids and does not visit him in his room; Vers bullies the biker guy into giving her the bike, etc). Anyway yes, we both agree the situation is weird, I understand you being as usual more cautious than me when it comes to call a contrived and scarcely logical behaviour a "plot hole" and I appreciate it, matter of opinion, we both pointed out what's wrong and what sort of explanation, lack thereof (or perhaps no need of) there is.

Sammo

7th Oct 2019

Captain Marvel (2019)

Stupidity: Project Pegasus is a billion dollar structure with no security guards besides the couple dudes Fury shows the badge to at the entrance, no video surveillance, and once SHIELD arrives nobody has to even open a locked door anymore.

Sammo

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

Suggested correction: First of all, Fury was allowed in as it's a government facility and he works for the government and as a SHIELD agent is allowed access. It's inside a mountain and they passed multiple security guards as they drove in, armed guards. Everything is thumb prints and cameras which was quite elaborate for that time. To say they lack in security is quite an understatement. SHIELD has quite some authority and can easily take control in the Pegasus project facility.

lionhead

You are right about the main entrance being truly secure both for guards and strategic position. The problem is that they are free to just roam the facility for an hour, blast through doors, not a soul in sight, no evidence of camera monitoring the inside of the structure, and once the gag of the pad is finished, no door requires it. Actually, funnily enough you can see a guard of the place opening the elevator for Fury and the supervisor, as if the thumprint scan was needed to even get into the elevator itself, but Keller then just walks into the archive just fine (from a different door than the one Vers blasted). There are keypads to exit places (for instance the hangar, when the agents in pursuit break through the door you can see a keypad on the wall) but only when it's convenient (Vers and Fury walked through that same door with no problem, not to mention the fact that the whole stairs seem to have none, which is funny for a place that has keypads both sides of doors).

Sammo

30th Jun 2019

Captain Marvel (2019)

Corrected entry: When Fury parks his car inside the Pegasus facility, the car's headlights are on. They're still on when he and Vers walk away. A few seconds later, when they're approached by security and Fury produces his ID, the lights have been turned off.

Correction: Most cars have automatic headlights that turn off after switching the engine off. It takes a few seconds. Have been around since the 60's.

lionhead

14th Mar 2019

Captain Marvel (2019)

Corrected entry: In the scenes set in June of 1995, "Vers" uses a Windows 95 computer to search the internet via dial-up. Windows 95 wasn't released until August 24, 1995, two months after those scenes were set.

Correction: A beta version of Windows 95 (probably build 347) was released before June, when this takes place. They could be using that. It included MSN, for internet access.

lionhead

Good guess. That preview version was available for $19.95 in the U.S.

FleetCommand

I think that's a reach - especially back then beta versions were much harder to come by - you couldn't just download it, you'd have to apply and receive a CD or floppies. She's in an internet cafe if memory serves, and why would they go to the hassle of installing a beta OS which most people would never have used before, and which would run the risk of having bugs, etc.?

Jon Sandys

Windows 95 had one of the most expensive advertisements and launch programs to this date. (Second to Windows 8's.) Microsoft had special personnel known as Evangelists who went to potential customers encouraging them to test Windows 95 and give feedback. They didn't send the 3.5" diskettes with post; the Evangelists delivered them personally. Microsoft didn't become a software giant by sitting on its behind, waiting for customers.

FleetCommand

Correction: The month is never specified in the film.

True Lies was released on home video on July 15th - any cardboard standee in a Blockbuster would be for an upcoming or very recent release. By late August something else would have replaced it.

Jon Sandys

Not if it was a popular rental, then they would keep promoting it.

ctown28

When they're looking at the black box recording, there's a calendar on the wall that reads June.

Brian Katcher

Correction: The recycle bin icon on the desktop is an oval shape which was first introduced in Windows ME, which wasn't released until 14th September 2000.

The corrected entry mentions a scene searching the internet via dial-up; the computer in that scene has indeed Windows 95 with a square-shaped bin. Since then this entry has kinda been more about the plausibility of Windows 95 in a public internet cafe in June than anything else. There's a separate entry about the scene when they use a totally different computer, the one at her friend's house, which has the bin you mention and is a ME edition.

Sammo

It's not, it's the rectangular bin.

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