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What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 03:04:32


Post by: flamingkillamajig


I remember a family member once saw some movie and in it the bad guys tracked the good guys to an island using a cell phone connection they had. Keep in mind this phone didn't work and i guess a signal was somehow achieved in the middle of F off nowhere stranded on an island.

For me there are a few but i'm gonna have to say some of the vehicles and similar in 'the terminator' series.

I just find the fact they have helicopters and all sorts of things able to be maintained and fueled when they're under constant attack everywhere to be a bit hard. The aircraft carrier base seemed pretty odd. I'm not a specialist in the field but i think aircraft carriers need massive supplies and maintenance.

I'll get into much more later but my internet's about to cut out for today.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 03:38:45


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


I think the list you requested is nearly infinite. You'd have better luck asking for movies that had no such errors, or at least not too egregious ones.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 04:12:10


Post by: Grey Templar


A better, and perhaps more interesting, question would be "Is there any movie ever that had no technical issues or plotholes and thus was technically flawless?"


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 11:06:21


Post by: KingCracker


 Grey Templar wrote:
A better, and perhaps more interesting, question would be "Is there any movie ever that had no technical issues or plotholes and thus was technically flawless?"


Yes.

Dungeons and Dragons.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 11:10:45


Post by: Mr Morden


Every film I have ever watched.

IMO good movies you don't really notice until after,

In Bad movies (The Last Jedi is a prime example of this) however you are sitting there going "wtf" and it breaks immersion.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 11:39:16


Post by: LordofHats


Give me a movie and I'll probably find a plot hole somewhere. I mean come on. Narrative conventions in fiction pretty much always rely on some degree of unrealistic (there's an entire website dedicated to finding plot holes in basically everything). Even great works are often littered with plot holes and "what the feth" moments that if you dig into them deeply enough make no sense whatsoever

All alien invasion movies pretty much come down to a glaringly stupid/obvious design flaw being exploited by the heroes and a complete lack of contingency planning on the part of the invaders.

Correspondingly lots of haunted house/place movies have someone who tries to warn the heroes off of doing what they're doing but doesn't actually tell them why they shouldn't do it and instead just gives some cryptic warning that won't even make sense until after gak has hit the fan.

Pretty much any time travel plot inevitably runs into the problem of why time travel was used after the fact to resolve the plot before it even began.

Star Wars... Oh jesus where to I begin? TLDR: Star Wars is basically just a long story about religious fanatics driving the galaxy continually into war and the galaxy just going along with it cause reasons. Don't even get me started about how the place "wise" master Yoda and Obi-Wan decided to hide super evil Vader's super force powerful son was with his own family. I'm sorry even if Vader cut all ties and thought Padme died with the kids, that just seems super fething pointlessly risky like what the gak? You got a whole galaxy to hide the kid in and the first place you go is Anakin Skywalker's mom's adopted son? Not to mention how the Death Star, a planet killer, decided to wait for a planet to be out of the way before blowing up a moon filled with rebel scum. It's a planet killer! I'm pretty sure blowing up the planet will probably take the moon with it!

I got more;

Spoiler:
Percy Jackson's entire story (the movie that is) could have been solved in about five seconds if anyone so much as bothered to use common sense/talk to anyone before trying to kill them.

Anyone ever wonder how the T-Rex in Jurassic Park the Lost World managed to kill members of that boat in places it couldn't possibly fit? Like the guy at the wheel. How the feth did he get eaten if he was at the wheel?

In Oceans Eleven the bags containing the hooker ads at the end of the scheme literally appear out of thin air. Even the makers of the film acknowledge that it's a glaring plot hole because there's no conceivable way that the bags could have gotten there.

When between Space Seed and Wrath of Khan did Khan meet Chekov?

So in Alien, what exactly was Burke's plan after letting the Facehuggers lose in medical, but before getting off the planet? I imagine it would have taken mere seconds for everyone else to realize it was him who let them lose, and that's not counting the possibility that either of them wake up before he gets off the planet and accuses him of doing it. I mean I guess the guy was kind of dumb in the first place but then how the feth did he ever end up in a position of authority being that stupid?

Super evil villain Voldemort could have won in the second movie by just letting the Basillisk kill Harry. I'm starting to think Voldemort is really stupid and find the idea that he ever posed a credible threat a sign of nothing more than general idiocy on the part of everyone who wasn't genocidally evil. I mean he gets maybe a half dozen chances to just kill Harry outright, and doesn't because of the usual cartoon villain arrogance that generally comes with being an adult villain in a children's media series, but come on. It gets kind of absurd at a point how many times he could have won outright just by dropping his need to gloat for a few seconds. And lets not forget that time machine that was used in the third film and then never ever brought up again. Ever. Even though it probably could have single devicingly solved the entire plot line of the franchise. And then there's that time Hermoine erased her parent's memories of her to protect them... from people who can probably find out where she lives and probably don't give a gak that her parents don't remember her. Honestly I could make an entire thread just pointing out all the bat gak crazy plot holes in these movies. I assume some probably translate to the books to.

Speaking of villains who lose because of their need to gloat, Kirei Kotomine and Gilgamesh from the Fate franchise (games, tv series, and films). Seriously, these two could have won everything just by dropping their smug sense of superiority down a level. It's especially egregious with Gilgamesh who is so smugly superior he doesn't even give a gak about what anyone else thinks but somehow gives up on using his literal world destroying super sword against the only thing capable of stopping him because his pride demands that he fight his opponent on even terms? The feth he didn't seem to have that hang up for the last ten battles he'd fought prior to that one.

The basic premise of the Incredibles is all kinds of fethed up. First off there's this silly bit where Super Heroes get banned, but what about the Super Villains? Literally never addressed in the film. Like what, Super Villains just packed up and went home cause the Super Heroes had to go away? What? And then there's the whole bit where Syndrome is horribly (and like crazily) unnecessarily evil for having such a goal as giving everyone super powers. The guy makes a giant evil robot to destroy a city so that he can create demand for and market his super gizmos? I'm sorry you don't need to level a metropolitan area to convince me that I want to buy a glove that shoots freaking lasers!

In I am Legend the not zombies are smart enough to set complex traps but too dumb to use guns.

In the Lion King Scar practically states outright to Mufasa that he wants to be king and will kill Mufasa while his back is turned. It's a pretty egregious failure to recognize a clear threat for a presumably wise King. Lion Guard actually makes it worse after revealing Scar had already killed four others in a botch coup attempt that Mufasa knew about!

In Hercules, despite having access to all the souls in hell Hades never notices that Herc isn't there after Pain and Panic claim to have succeeded in killing him.

How did Indy get into that Submarine in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark? No seriously. Go back and watch it. One second he's on the submarine after Marian gets nabbed, and the next time you see him he's in the secret sub-base after what must be more than a thousand miles of open ocean before the sub even pulls into the dock How the feth did he avoid dying on the ocean and manage to sneak into the base before the sub even arrived?


I'll even throw in a TV show; Pokemon, where parents send their children off into a super powered monster infested wilderness unsupervised and with no protection other than a baby monster who may or may not like their kid, with only the thin hope that the power of friendship will keep their child alive. Oh and apparently no one goes to school until 20 seasons after their 10th birthday.

Also this;






What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 11:58:25


Post by: AndrewGPaul


"When between Space Seed and Wrath of Khan did Khan meet Chekov? "

IIRC, Walter Koenig's theory is that Chekov was a random goldshirt on the Enterprise at the time, and was in front of Khan in the queue for the bogs. Khan remembers him because he left a particularly stinky floater.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 12:00:59


Post by: LordofHats


It's as good as any


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 12:01:08


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Pretty much any 'why didn't you just stand your ground' type slasher flick.

I do enjoy such films, but man. So many of the killers are idiotic and easy to stop if someone would just put up a fight!


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 12:01:52


Post by: Overread


A lot of plot holes in films are the result of cutting scenes to fit into time constraints which are often not set by the director but the the studio/cinema group that buys the film to display.

Alien 3 was seriously messed up when they cut huge chunks out for the theatre release; you can really see these errors when you compare it to the directors cut which adds in a lot of missing parts. Sergio Leone had huge problems with cinema groups cutting his films up, apparently when he made his final film and the cinema group still cut content out he gave up making any more. What's worse is the cut bits often get lost or broken up under different owners so rebuilding can be near impossible.

I bet the indiana jones part you mention was likely a result of an earlier scene or two being cut to make the film fit the time-frame. Oddly it seems that cinema groups prioritize the time over the story coherency. That and when you've watched a film 50 times over cutting bits out chances are that you forget which bits are missing in the final draft because your mind fits in the bits that you already saw. Much like how you can watch a whole film and miss bits and then only realise when you watch it again.


That said I'd say that films are one thing, but many modern crime dramas are VASTLY worse at the crime of unrealistic daftness. Yet it can work. NCIS has some very questionable science going on in Abby's Lab to the point where even those without much technical know-how can see the gaps. Yet the drama works because its more character driven than science (the science is there to give them a way to resolve most cases in 1 to 2 days or so).

Also every film with a bomb - ever - where whoever wires up the bomb colour-codes the wires. Seriously just make them all the same colour!

(Ps my personal peeve with a lot of modern crime dramas is that the investigators appear to never investigate. Instead way too many basically run around headless until they get the "lab report" which then normally outlines exactly what happened and who likely did it).


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 12:13:12


Post by: LordofHats


I think the directors cut thing is really more of a modern phenomena. There used to be a lot less editing in films, and budgets were tighter. Scenes weren't filmed and then just cut to save run time. Often scenes had to be stretched out to fill run time. There are definitely some glaring examples in more recent years though of really bizarre cutting decisions.

I think a lot of plot holes spawn for the very simple reason that no one was really thinking about it as a problem at the time. I know when I'm writing it can be chapters before I realize I've made one. A lot of the time it doesn't really matter, especially since many go completely unnoticed so long as the audience is engaged and entertained otherwise.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 12:22:01


Post by: Overread


I also think a lot of it is how much you draw your reader/viewers in. If you draw them in well and build up the world enough then most can make up the missing minor bits from what they already know. It's impossible to write or film everything that is to take part, so there will always be some gaps. In a good production the viewer/reader can fill in those gaps without much struggle or the gaps don't really matter.

Imagination is a core part of writing or viewing; it makes up the bits that are missing an allows us to accept it as reality even though there are oddities and gaps taking place.

One thing I think that has changed in hollywood films is that pacing appears to be a lost art. Many book to film conversions often feel like they "rush" key parts just to fit it all into a single film. That can often sap all the gravity of a situation because the build up and development happens so fast the the audience hardly gets to settle to appreciate it before BAM the key moment happens.


Also wasn't Gangs of New York something like 8 hours long before they cut it?


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 12:34:01


Post by: LordofHats


I don't know that pacing is a lost art so much as the current trend is really fast pacing. Getting to the point and getting there fast is prioritized over "messy" issues of continuity. It's partially advantageous in a way. If the plot moves quickly enough from scene to scene people don't have time to notice minor continuity errors.

The problem with a lot of films I think is that they introduce big continuity errors that the fast pacing doesn't really fix, like in Freddy vs Jason when the main characters travel across four states in an hour without sleeping. Or that time in Transformers Revenge of the Fallen when the main character crosses three national borders and a quasi-war zone to get to Giza from Petra in like 45 minutes. They probably got away with it in Freddy vs Jason cause who cares if the Elm Street is in Ohio while Crystal Lake is in Jersey? But Transformers? Sorry even people only vaguely aware of where Petra is know it's not within 45 minutes of the Giza pyramids so it immediately sends up red flags that get noticed in such a bad film.

I feel like the Last Jedi also suffered this. For a 2 and half hour film it covers a lot of ground! They were moving at a quick clip from moment to moment. Unfortunately the WTF moments keep building up with more than enough of them that it ruined the experience for a lot of people which is where I think the polarization on the film really is.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 13:47:45


Post by: Mr Morden


I thought the pcaing in TLJ was all over the pace

We had fast paced action followed by an hour of tedium (ship of Fools and Casino World) with occassional interesting bits (pretty much anything with Rey of Ben) and then super fast pace again.

So the film dragged on for far to too long, the director had more than enough time - he simply used it badly. Quite a common problem with modern direrctors


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 14:33:05


Post by: Iron_Captain


 LordofHats wrote:

Star Wars... Oh jesus where to I begin? TLDR: Star Wars is basically just a long story about religious fanatics driving the galaxy continually into war and the galaxy just going along with it cause reasons. Don't even get me started about how the place "wise" master Yoda and Obi-Wan decided to hide super evil Vader's super force powerful son was with his own family. I'm sorry even if Vader cut all ties and thought Padme died with the kids, that just seems super fething pointlessly risky like what the gak? You got a whole galaxy to hide the kid in and the first place you go is Anakin Skywalker's mom's adopted son? Not to mention how the Death Star, a planet killer, decided to wait for a planet to be out of the way before blowing up a moon filled with rebel scum. It's a planet killer! I'm pretty sure blowing up the planet will probably take the moon with it!

I can actually understand Obi-Wan's reasoning behind hiding Luke on Tatooine:

Anakin absolutely hated Tatooine, and it was a total backwater. Probably one of the last places in the galaxy Darth Vader or the Empire would ever come looking. I think it is quite telling that in the movies you see Darth Vader leading every operation personally (like boarding the Tantive IV or the whole thing on Bespin) but when looking for the droids on Tatooine he stays in his ship.
Not that Star Wars isn't full of plot holes. Like the aforementioned droids. Why did Vader never recognise C3PO, the droid he himself had built? Or R2D2, who had been present at pretty much every important event that happened in the prequels? Why did R2D2 never tell any of this really important information to Luke? And how come Obi-Wan did not recognise the droids either?


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 14:56:56


Post by: alanmckenzie


One that's always bothered me is the T-Rex attack scene in Jurassic Park.

The T-Rex pushes the car off the same side of the road from where she had just stepped...

Except now there's like a 15 meter drop.

Hoping someone can provide me with some reasoning here.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 15:00:55


Post by: LunarSol


 LordofHats wrote:
I don't know that pacing is a lost art so much as the current trend is really fast pacing. Getting to the point and getting there fast is prioritized over "messy" issues of continuity. It's partially advantageous in a way. If the plot moves quickly enough from scene to scene people don't have time to notice minor continuity errors.


We had an awful era in the early 2000's where filmmakers tried to shore up all their plot holes (half of which aren't actually plot holes; just because the movie doesn't explain something doesn't mean its a plot hole...) but just ended up making 3 hour drags that no one wants to watch after the first viewing. Most of the stuff in the 80's and 90's was far more willing to just let stuff happen and not worry too much about explaining every little detail and ended up being a lot easier to rewatch due to the better pacing. Personally, I'm all for the return to better paced films. Ep7 is one of my more rewatched films due to the abhorrence of downtime, even if I'm still annoyed it doesn't bother to explain its own conflict very well.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 15:05:06


Post by: sirlynchmob


The best example of glaring plot holes is still raiders of the lost ark, forget the submarine it's really this glaring story problem:




What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 16:20:34


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


 alanmckenzie wrote:
One that's always bothered me is the T-Rex attack scene in Jurassic Park.

The T-Rex pushes the car off the same side of the road from where she had just stepped...

Except now there's like a 15 meter drop.

Hoping someone can provide me with some reasoning here.


Everyone knows that T-Rex are the forefathers of Tiggers (that's what the T stands for), and therefore have ded spring tails.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 17:04:54


Post by: AndrewGPaul


Indiana Jones: the biggest plot hole is why the Germans are digging in a British-controlled area.

As for the submarine, the cargo ship departed from presumably Alexandria, at night. Next day, it was stopped by the U-boat, which ended up at a small island which I think would be in Greece somewhere (again, a British ally in the 30s). It arrived there, I think, the same day it intercepted the cargo ship, so it doesn't seem impossible that it sailed the whole way on the surface.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 17:20:27


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


 alanmckenzie wrote:
One that's always bothered me is the T-Rex attack scene in Jurassic Park.

The T-Rex pushes the car off the same side of the road from where she had just stepped...

Except now there's like a 15 meter drop.

Hoping someone can provide me with some reasoning here.



This is easy. T-Rex is a Theropod. Birds are evolved from Theropods. Therefore, the T-Rex flew up to the tree next to the fence and hopped along the branches.

It's all set up by Grant earlier in the film.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 17:36:38


Post by: simonr1978


 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Indiana Jones: the biggest plot hole is why the Germans are digging in a British-controlled area.

As for the submarine, the cargo ship departed from presumably Alexandria, at night. Next day, it was stopped by the U-boat, which ended up at a small island which I think would be in Greece somewhere (again, a British ally in the 30s). It arrived there, I think, the same day it intercepted the cargo ship, so it doesn't seem impossible that it sailed the whole way on the surface.


I'm pretty sure it's shown submerging just after the crew close the hatches and with Jones seen to still be outside.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 17:44:03


Post by: Grey Templar


 LordofHats wrote:
I think the directors cut thing is really more of a modern phenomena. There used to be a lot less editing in films, and budgets were tighter. Scenes weren't filmed and then just cut to save run time. Often scenes had to be stretched out to fill run time. There are definitely some glaring examples in more recent years though of really bizarre cutting decisions.

I think a lot of plot holes spawn for the very simple reason that no one was really thinking about it as a problem at the time. I know when I'm writing it can be chapters before I realize I've made one. A lot of the time it doesn't really matter, especially since many go completely unnoticed so long as the audience is engaged and entertained otherwise.


Indeed. I have personally noticed that modern movies tend to be shorter than older ones. Especially in the early days of Cinema. Old silent movies were often long 4-5 hour affairs.

Today the typical movie is 1.5-2 hours.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Indiana Jones: the biggest plot hole is why the Germans are digging in a British-controlled area.


Yeah, thats a good one. Egypt never fell to the Nazis.


As for the submarine, the cargo ship departed from presumably Alexandria, at night. Next day, it was stopped by the U-boat, which ended up at a small island which I think would be in Greece somewhere (again, a British ally in the 30s). It arrived there, I think, the same day it intercepted the cargo ship, so it doesn't seem impossible that it sailed the whole way on the surface.


Well its possible that island was in Italy somewhere.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 21:32:15


Post by: LordofHats


sirlynchmob wrote:
The best example of glaring plot holes is still raiders of the lost ark, forget the submarine it's really this glaring story problem:




Brilliant!


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 22:34:37


Post by: -Loki-


 Iron_Captain wrote:
Why did Vader never recognise C3PO, the droid he himself had built? Or R2D2, who had been present at pretty much every important event that happened in the prequels?


These ones are easy to explain. Vader never actually sees R2D2 in the OT (doesn't go to Tatooine, doesn't see him on the Death Star, doesn't see him on Hoth, doesn't see him on Bespin (door locks R2 out), doesn't see him on Endor (Luke surrenders himself and leaves the droids behind)).

The only time he ever sees C3PO is on Bespin, in pieces on Chewies back, in a location where they had an identical droid in a different coloured skin. There's no reason for Vader to even consider it's the droid he built 30 years ago when they're apparently common.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/11 22:54:14


Post by: Overread


In theory Vader does see C3PO and R2D2 when he captures the Falcon and allows them to escape. Granted we never see him meet them, but it would be daft to think the Death Star hasn't got a single CCTV cam in the whole structure. However at the time he was very pre-occupied with Obiwan and the Rebellion. After 20odd years chances are the droid he made and R2D2 were far from his mind at the time (and chances are he's blocked off a lot of his pre-Vader memories and just doesn't dwell upon it).

Ergo he might well have forgotten them. Which isn't unreasonable - consider how many friends from school you knew really well who you've not seen in ten or twenty years and if you'd recognise them at all; esp in a different setting and situation.


Heck if you've ever worked with someone and always seen them in the same clothes and setting; then seeing them well outside of that can almost make you not recognise them.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 00:47:07


Post by: Grey Templar


 Overread wrote:
In theory Vader does see C3PO and R2D2 when he captures the Falcon and allows them to escape. Granted we never see him meet them, but it would be daft to think the Death Star hasn't got a single CCTV cam in the whole structure.


I don't know. It certainly seems like CCTV doesn't exist in Star Wars since a lot of what happens in the setting would have been completely foiled by it.

They could never have gotten off the Falcon with Chewie to get to the control room if CCTV was a thing for example. The officer wouldn't have walked over to the window to check on TK-421, he would have simply looked at a camera. And the Falcon would have been under constant surveillance being an intruder upon a secret Imperial facility.

Han, Luke, and Chewie would have been scrutinized on their way to the detention levels. Especially in the area holding at the time the most significant prisoner in the Empire.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 00:57:19


Post by: trexmeyer


I never understood the obsession with strategic/plothole/logical failings by characters in film. This all happens in reality. Why do we expect characters in film to be perfect all the time?


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 01:02:58


Post by: Grey Templar


 trexmeyer wrote:
I never understood the obsession with strategic/plothole/logical failings by characters in film. This all happens in reality. Why do we expect characters in film to be perfect all the time?


Reality doesn't have "Plot holes" though. Real Nazis looking for the Ark would never have been digging in Egypt because it was under British control and they couldn't get there to do it.

Indiana Jones would have been just as irrelevant to the ultimate outcome of course, but that's not really a plot hole so much as a writer failing to actually make the Hero effect his own story.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 01:31:33


Post by: LordofHats


Raiders of the Lost Ark takes place in 1936. Egypt being under British control didn't stop lots of people from not Britain going there and doing stuff and the Ahenerbe project did go outside Germany to explore the "history" of the Aryan race. They never went to Egypt but I don't think that really had anything to do with who was running the place at the time so much as there was nothing there of interest to them. Really the part that doesn't make sense is that they have soldiers with them and are clearly a military outfit who never would have gotten permission to dig for anything.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 09:23:41


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


U-571.

Yep. I went there.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 12:59:10


Post by: AndrewGPaul


 LordofHats wrote:
Raiders of the Lost Ark takes place in 1936. Egypt being under British control didn't stop lots of people from not Britain going there and doing stuff and the Ahenerbe project did go outside Germany to explore the "history" of the Aryan race. They never went to Egypt but I don't think that really had anything to do with who was running the place at the time so much as there was nothing there of interest to them. Really the part that doesn't make sense is that they have soldiers with them and are clearly a military outfit who never would have gotten permission to dig for anything.


Yes, that's what I was getting at. An archeological dig with German scientists led by a Frenchman? No problem. A battalion of German soldiers and a plane from 10 years in the future? not so much. But then again, that's not really a plot hole; it doesn't contradict anything within the logic of the film's story, as such.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 13:03:40


Post by: LordofHats


I think much like a lot things in U-571, that just falls under the realm of "artistic license."


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 13:20:24


Post by: AndrewGPaul


A bit of a mind-twister, this one:

In Doctor Who, the 6th Doctor's companion, Mel, was never introduced. The first time she appears, it's in a show-within-the-show, a recording of future events (from the point of view of the framing device). Later on, she appears having travelled from the future to the "present", and then the present Doctor carries on travelling with her. Whatever the "original" meeting was is never shown, and no never happened.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 13:34:02


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Ah Mel, part of the triumvirate of rubbish assistants.

Mel, Adric, Clara.

Yuck.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 LordofHats wrote:
I think much like a lot things in U-571, that just falls under the realm of "artistic license."


Or weeing on the efforts and the memory of incredibly brave men, seemingly 'because 'MURICA!!!!' as a marketing device.

Poor show. Very poor show.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 14:50:23


Post by: Backfire


 LordofHats wrote:
I don't know that pacing is a lost art so much as the current trend is really fast pacing. Getting to the point and getting there fast is prioritized over "messy" issues of continuity. It's partially advantageous in a way. If the plot moves quickly enough from scene to scene people don't have time to notice minor continuity errors.


Big problem today is that action scenes take FOREVER. If there is some kind of fight, duel or land/air/space combat scene, it takes ages with tons of hits, millions of cuts, swirling camera work, explosions and whatnot. Take a look at Luke vs Vader confrontation at Empire Strikes Back - no director today would film anything like that. Luke and Vader would first swirl lightsabers for 5 minutes, then they would exchange few lines of witty retortees, then another long swath of lightsaber action etc. Also, if there is one vs many fight - such as if the bad guys have some disposable minions to kill - then these minions come in by HUNDREDS and hero cuts them down like 50 per scene. When you use so much time for action scenes, of course you have less room for plot and character work. Producers and directors are nowadays so afraid to bore their audiences that they need to cram absurd amount of action to the movies, but end result is that action feels less and whole experience is tiresome.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 15:21:50


Post by: Overread


And yet back in the good-old-days we got Rambo and Arny action flicks all the time. Then again those were simpler stories in general and worked because they were often one-off films designed to stand alone and be nothing more than an action flick.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 19:36:31


Post by: Unit1126PLL


I think one /without/ many holes and weird physics-breaking stuff is 2001: A Space Odyssey.

There are a couple of caveats:
1) The Monoliths have to be accepted as unexplained and mysterious - though I'd argue this isn't a hole but rather very deliberate.

2) The weirdness at the end is an effect of the mysterious monoliths, and while it breaks physics, that's a deliberate choice as well to inject the audience with a sense of "otherworldliness" and even distrust, which is why it's so uncomfortably disturbing. It seems to imply you can no longer trust the world around you to behave.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 20:53:37


Post by: Voss


Backfire wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
I don't know that pacing is a lost art so much as the current trend is really fast pacing. Getting to the point and getting there fast is prioritized over "messy" issues of continuity. It's partially advantageous in a way. If the plot moves quickly enough from scene to scene people don't have time to notice minor continuity errors.


Big problem today is that action scenes take FOREVER. If there is some kind of fight, duel or land/air/space combat scene, it takes ages with tons of hits, millions of cuts, swirling camera work, explosions and whatnot. Take a look at Luke vs Vader confrontation at Empire Strikes Back - no director today would film anything like that. Luke and Vader would first swirl lightsabers for 5 minutes, then they would exchange few lines of witty retortees, then another long swath of lightsaber action etc. Also, if there is one vs many fight - such as if the bad guys have some disposable minions to kill - then these minions come in by HUNDREDS and hero cuts them down like 50 per scene. When you use so much time for action scenes, of course you have less room for plot and character work. Producers and directors are nowadays so afraid to bore their audiences that they need to cram absurd amount of action to the movies, but end result is that action feels less and whole experience is tiresome.


I largely agree and this is something I don't get. Whatever current directors believe makes for an 'epic' fight scene bores me horribly. The ESB fight is actually fairly long, but it's dramatically cut right- there are three separate stages cut by the activity of the other characters, and each stage has its own theme and purpose- analysis of Luke's training, demonstration of Vader's power, then the sudden disarming end.

The counterpoint to the ESB fight is the Annie vs Obi fight at the end of the prequels. That should have been a dramatic confrontation and a swift fight. But instead it was a slog of green screen after green screen in ever more absurd and awkward places that no one sane person would even bother trying to fight in (and they'd be dead of toxic or thermal shock long before the lightsabers start banging together in earnest). What should have been an emotionally charged scene is instead... well, something that makes me check the time. Nothing at all of interest happens between the verbal confrontation and Obi cutting Anakin out of his reckless jump. Nothing. They could have done the whole fight right in front of the ship and moved on.

The Hobbit films are rather similar- extensive CGI and action scenes with a lot of length and not much in the way of stakes. It's CGI for the sake of it, at the expense of storytelling.
And as much as I like the movie overall, the beginning of Age of Ultron fits this category. The mighty supers are just punching fools through wacky and unconvincing slo-mo shots. The end isn't quite so bad, as there are civilians, stakes, sacrifice and insight into characters and motivations, but the beginning set up expectations for awful by being empty and soulless.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 21:33:03


Post by: Compel


It's interesting you mention The Hobbit.

I was watching The Two Towers over Christmas and "The Battle of Helms Deep" is actually, overall, really very short.

Like the longest section of the actual fighting I think is Aragorn and Gimli at the gate. The rest of it is more establishing, "yes, they're fighting, this is the situation."


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/12 22:59:38


Post by: Grey Templar


Yup, but even the extended fight scenes in the LOTR were meaningful.

Few specific duels lasted more than a few seconds, and in every case there was tension. At very few times were the heroes simply easily slaughtering tons of no name minions. There were plenty of times that the various heroes were actually in grave danger from even your basic red shirt. Aragorn gets beat up countless times and has a plethora of small injuries. And some of the most important fights were over in a few seconds. Eowyn vs the Witch King lasts approximately 1:30, of which 15 seconds were the witch king disentangling himself from the Fell Beast. There is still some banter, but its 4 simple lines instead of a long drawn out 5 minute conversation between meaningless blows. I think the longest duel was Aragorn vs Lurtz in Fellowship, and that fight had exactly 0 words exchanged between them and Aragorn had a lot of close calls in that fight.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 00:42:38


Post by: AegisGrimm


In the Harry Potter complaint, remember that Voldemort never killed Harry in the numerous times he had the chance to do it easily because of the gigantic plot reason as to why he doesn't want Harry dead.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 00:44:43


Post by: Backfire


Voss wrote:

The counterpoint to the ESB fight is the Annie vs Obi fight at the end of the prequels. That should have been a dramatic confrontation and a swift fight. But instead it was a slog of green screen after green screen in ever more absurd and awkward places that no one sane person would even bother trying to fight in (and they'd be dead of toxic or thermal shock long before the lightsabers start banging together in earnest). What should have been an emotionally charged scene is instead... well, something that makes me check the time. Nothing at all of interest happens between the verbal confrontation and Obi cutting Anakin out of his reckless jump. Nothing. They could have done the whole fight right in front of the ship and moved on.


Oh yeah. I was actually somewhat pumped when they staged the fight, because previous lightsaber fights in prequels had been so devoid of emotion...now finally we had characters who had something going for the fight. And then the super epic fight was boring as heck as they just whacked away on lightsabers without any thought or point. At some points it got real silly, they were climbing in girders and whatnot, fighting on a lava stream...and then Obiwan casually hops to 0.5m higher elevation than Anakin and supposedly it is now hopeless situation for Anakin??

^oh right, there is a big plot hole, for purposes of the topic.

Voss wrote:

The Hobbit films are rather similar- extensive CGI and action scenes with a lot of length and not much in the way of stakes. It's CGI for the sake of it, at the expense of storytelling.
And as much as I like the movie overall, the beginning of Age of Ultron fits this category. The mighty supers are just punching fools through wacky and unconvincing slo-mo shots. The end isn't quite so bad, as there are civilians, stakes, sacrifice and insight into characters and motivations, but the beginning set up expectations for awful by being empty and soulless.


Couldn't possibly agree more. Problem with Hobbits was that for some reason, Jackson decided that the Hobbits should be even more epic and awesome than LOTR. So he loaded the films with INSANE AMOUNT OF CRAP. If heroes killed 20 goblins in the 'Fellowship', they should kill 200 in the prequels, because that is EPIC, right?? Honestly the end action sequence of 'Desolation of Smaug', with the dragon chasing them through the mountain for 20 minutes and dwarves building a giant golden statue to fight it (??!!) I was ready to take up any quick exit out of the movie, even if it included a pair of razor blades and half-filled bath tub.

Age of Ultron was also a disappointment for reasons you listed. Ultron should be super scary and strong and evil. If he does have secondary bodies, they should also be scary. Instead Ultron duplicates were useless one-hit goons for heroes to cut through, even less scary as Trade Federation battledroids.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 02:17:01


Post by: Voss


I barely remember the statue. I vaguely remember the gold tidal wave, but nothing about why they'd do it or how it wasn't utterly contrived. I was fighting hard not to fall asleep after the Bilbo/Smaug dialogue, while contemplating why they'd stretch it out for yet another film.

I think the highlight of all three films was the goblin town song, but I have no idea why the goblins were nuclear mutants, why they were living on rickety wooden platforms above an infinite hole, and why the rush to escape turned into wholesale slaughter. Caves are not built by Star Wars safety enginneers that hate safety rails on platforms.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 05:35:50


Post by: Crazy_Carnifex


 Grey Templar wrote:
Yup, but even the extended fight scenes in the LOTR were meaningful.

Few specific duels lasted more than a few seconds, and in every case there was tension. At very few times were the heroes simply easily slaughtering tons of no name minions. There were plenty of times that the various heroes were actually in grave danger from even your basic red shirt. Aragorn gets beat up countless times and has a plethora of small injuries. And some of the most important fights were over in a few seconds. Eowyn vs the Witch King lasts approximately 1:30, of which 15 seconds were the witch king disentangling himself from the Fell Beast. There is still some banter, but its 4 simple lines instead of a long drawn out 5 minute conversation between meaningless blows. I think the longest duel was Aragorn vs Lurtz in Fellowship, and that fight had exactly 0 words exchanged between them and Aragorn had a lot of close calls in that fight.


Well, it's more like Vigo Mortisson had a few close calls in that fight.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 06:16:38


Post by: LordofHats


Backfire wrote:


Oh yeah. I was actually somewhat pumped when they staged the fight, because previous lightsaber fights in prequels had been so devoid of emotion...now finally we had characters who had something going for the fight. And then the super epic fight was boring as heck as they just whacked away on lightsabers without any thought or point. At some points it got real silly, they were climbing in girders and whatnot, fighting on a lava stream...and then Obiwan casually hops to 0.5m higher elevation than Anakin and supposedly it is now hopeless situation for Anakin??

^oh right, there is a big plot hole, for purposes of the topic.


It's not a plot hole at all once you realize that Obi-Wan's special ability is High Ground. He's actually a reality warper, who alters space such that he always holds high ground on any uneven terrain. Think about it;

Obi-Wan vs Maul : Obi-Wan wins, because for Obi-Wan low ground is actually high ground
Obi-Wan vs Jango : draw, because while Obi-Wan mystically converted the low ground into high ground once he stepped onto even terrain with his opponent he lost his buff
Obi-Wan vs Dooku : Dooku wins because terrain was perfectly even and Obi-Wan couldn't abuse his buff
Obi-Wan vs Dooku 2 : Dooku wins because terrain was perfectly even
Obi-Wan vs Grevious : Obi-Wan wins the moment he is knocked into an area below Grevious, thus granting him the High Ground
Obi-Wan vs Anakin : Obi-Wan wins because he had the high ground almost the entire fight

Really Obi-Wan should have been sent to fight Palpatine. The Senate building is horribly uneven terrain and Obi-Wan would have had the High Ground the entire time!


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 06:17:18


Post by: Compel


If I wanted to be mean about Star Wars and ESB, I'd say that the timelines just don't make sense in them. - EG the whole 'I lost the Imperial Cruisers' line, yet Luke and Ben are just hanging out playing with a lightsaber.

Or just how long was Luke supposed to be training with Yoda anyway and how far away is Bespin with a broken Hyperdrive?

Did the ewoks serve cooked stormtroopers to the Rebel heroes in Endor? They obviously ate them, what about everyone else?

But since everything else in the films are so frikking awesome, those sorts of questions only really come up years later.



What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 06:20:12


Post by: Gordon Shumway


People are missing the Citizen Kane of plot holes here. How does anybody know what Kane's last words were? Leave it to Citizen Kane to have the Citizen Kane of all plot holes. Interestingly, from looking at the above films, I've noticed that plot holes have nothing at all to do with whether one likes a movie or not. Or whether one considers it "good". One could extend the idea to suggest that plot isn't really all that important when it comes to move tastes. That, I view as a good thing.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 17:50:42


Post by: Grey Templar


 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
Yup, but even the extended fight scenes in the LOTR were meaningful.

Few specific duels lasted more than a few seconds, and in every case there was tension. At very few times were the heroes simply easily slaughtering tons of no name minions. There were plenty of times that the various heroes were actually in grave danger from even your basic red shirt. Aragorn gets beat up countless times and has a plethora of small injuries. And some of the most important fights were over in a few seconds. Eowyn vs the Witch King lasts approximately 1:30, of which 15 seconds were the witch king disentangling himself from the Fell Beast. There is still some banter, but its 4 simple lines instead of a long drawn out 5 minute conversation between meaningless blows. I think the longest duel was Aragorn vs Lurtz in Fellowship, and that fight had exactly 0 words exchanged between them and Aragorn had a lot of close calls in that fight.


Well, it's more like Vigo Mortisson had a few close calls in that fight.


Yeah. That man is a legend. Broken bones, cracked teeth, etc...


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 18:54:15


Post by: Kaiyanwang


 Gordon Shumway wrote:
People are missing the Citizen Kane of plot holes here. How does anybody know what Kane's last words were? Leave it to Citizen Kane to have the Citizen Kane of all plot holes. Interestingly, from looking at the above films, I've noticed that plot holes have nothing at all to do with whether one likes a movie or not. Or whether one considers it "good". One could extend the idea to suggest that plot isn't really all that important when it comes to move tastes. That, I view as a good thing.


I think depends all from the immersion. If it pulls you out of the movie, is bad.
I should add that speaking for my personal experience, the expectations (discussed elsewhere) change from movie to movie. If I watch a so-bad-is-good schlock, the plot holes are part of the fun as much as special effect failures, genuine bad acting and such.
With other movies I am less merciful.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 19:21:20


Post by: reds8n


 -Loki- wrote:
 Iron_Captain wrote:
Why did Vader never recognise C3PO, the droid he himself had built? Or R2D2, who had been present at pretty much every important event that happened in the prequels?


These ones are easy to explain. Vader never actually sees R2D2 in the OT (doesn't go to Tatooine, doesn't see him on the Death Star, doesn't see him on Hoth, doesn't see him on Bespin (door locks R2 out), doesn't see him on Endor (Luke surrenders himself and leaves the droids behind)).

The only time he ever sees C3PO is on Bespin, in pieces on Chewies back, in a location where they had an identical droid in a different coloured skin. There's no reason for Vader to even consider it's the droid he built 30 years ago when they're apparently common.



*ahem*

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Thank_the_Maker

Spoiler:







I believe there's a similar story that explains how Vader discovered that Luke Skywalker was in fact his father.

At the end of the prequels he doesn't even know he has children and only learns about Leia in ROTJ -- guess things like DNA tests and the like weren't around

related :

https://io9.gizmodo.com/so-now-we-know-how-c-3po-got-his-red-arm-in-the-force-a-1770741572


sure seems a long way of saying " so JJ Abrams could get a % cut of toy sales" but there you go.

I've always wondered, right back from when I first saw it in the cinema, how the T-1000 was able to be sent back in time as it wasn't surrounded by living tissue ?

And in ET we see he can make things move with his mind -- the bike scene.

.. so why didn't he do that/similar when trying to get back to his spaceship ?

also :

http://www.refinery29.com/2017/06/159903/cars-3-pixar-universe-conspiracies


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 19:48:44


Post by: Formosa


 LordofHats wrote:
I think much like a lot things in U-571, that just falls under the realm of "artistic license."


I think it comes more under the US "re writing its own history", if we went with movies then the USA won the second world war single handed !!


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/13 20:55:56


Post by: LordofHats


 Formosa wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
I think much like a lot things in U-571, that just falls under the realm of "artistic license."


I think it comes more under the US "re writing its own history", if we went with movies then the USA won the second world war single handed !!


Yeah but what can you do? America likes to brag


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/14 00:10:54


Post by: A Town Called Malus


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think one /without/ many holes and weird physics-breaking stuff is 2001: A Space Odyssey.

There are a couple of caveats:
1) The Monoliths have to be accepted as unexplained and mysterious - though I'd argue this isn't a hole but rather very deliberate.

2) The weirdness at the end is an effect of the mysterious monoliths, and while it breaks physics, that's a deliberate choice as well to inject the audience with a sense of "otherworldliness" and even distrust, which is why it's so uncomfortably disturbing. It seems to imply you can no longer trust the world around you to behave.


Was about to raise 2001 as a possible contender for a film without plot holes. But then it is written by Arthur C. Clarke, so you would expect nothing but the best when it came to the science (such as the docking procedure, rotation being used to generate artificial "gravity", etc.)

As for the Monolith weirdness, we just have to remember Clarke's third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

It's also a bit of a recurring theme in Clarke's works that things are not always fully explained, which is what helps cement their realism. Rendezvous with Rama, for example, has the set up whereby the protagonists only have a limited time to discover anything about Rama itself and are starting from scratch, no prior knowledge but guesses based on our own technology. As such many of its mysteries are left as mysteries as there wouldn't physically be enough time to find them out in the timespan they have.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/14 01:19:51


Post by: flamingkillamajig


 Formosa wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
I think much like a lot things in U-571, that just falls under the realm of "artistic license."


I think it comes more under the US "re writing its own history", if we went with movies then the USA won the second world war single handed !!


Yet another reason why i think we should teach all the different countries and faction's points of view during history classes. That way we get everybody's story and find the truth somewhere in the middle and cut through all the propaganda BS of all the nations. Evidence of course should be king obviously.

Also movies BS a lot. You ever see movies where the 'Bad Guys' are overly bad and the 'Good Guys' are overly good? Yes well movies based on real life events are often loosely based on them.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/14 01:59:37


Post by: Voss


 Gordon Shumway wrote:
People are missing the Citizen Kane of plot holes here. How does anybody know what Kane's last words were? Leave it to Citizen Kane to have the Citizen Kane of all plot holes. Interestingly, from looking at the above films, I've noticed that plot holes have nothing at all to do with whether one likes a movie or not. Or whether one considers it "good". One could extend the idea to suggest that plot isn't really all that important when it comes to move tastes. That, I view as a good thing.


Why in the world would plot being unimportant be a good thing? Next you're going to say flavor and nutrition are utterly irrelevant to food.


 flamingkillamajig wrote:
 Formosa wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
I think much like a lot things in U-571, that just falls under the realm of "artistic license."


I think it comes more under the US "re writing its own history", if we went with movies then the USA won the second world war single handed !!


Yet another reason why i think we should teach all the different countries and faction's points of view during history classes. That way we get everybody's story and find the truth somewhere in the middle and cut through all the propaganda BS of all the nations. .


Yeah, as someone who's spent far too much time in academic institutions and historical research, this isn't remotely practical at any level. There simply isn't time to cover everyone's posible point of view, unless you want to radically change how classes are taught and education is conducted in general, or limit history classes to two or three singular events each term, which is warps understanding in its own special way.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/14 02:40:56


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


 AegisGrimm wrote:
In the Harry Potter complaint, remember that Voldemort never killed Harry in the numerous times he had the chance to do it easily because of the gigantic plot reason as to why he doesn't want Harry dead.


Never mind that.

When Voldermort and Dumbledore are duelling in the Ministry Of Magic, Harry simply looks on and cowers.

Now, initially, fair enough. It’s an awe inspiring display of magical competence, and concentration......

But the concentration is the problem.

Harry is Ultimately a secondary school pupil. And you’re seriously telling me he doesn’t know any illicit purple-Nurpld. Chinese burn, wedgie, wet willy orsimilat spells with which to disrupt Voldermort’s concentration for ever the fraction of a second it would take for Dumbledore to stoke him down?

Now I know I’m mostly a dill weed, but drop me at Hogwarts, and those would the very first spells I’d be looking to learn.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/14 03:01:50


Post by: flamingkillamajig


Voss wrote:
 Gordon Shumway wrote:
People are missing the Citizen Kane of plot holes here. How does anybody know what Kane's last words were? Leave it to Citizen Kane to have the Citizen Kane of all plot holes. Interestingly, from looking at the above films, I've noticed that plot holes have nothing at all to do with whether one likes a movie or not. Or whether one considers it "good". One could extend the idea to suggest that plot isn't really all that important when it comes to move tastes. That, I view as a good thing.


Why in the world would plot being unimportant be a good thing? Next you're going to say flavor and nutrition are utterly irrelevant to food.


 flamingkillamajig wrote:
 Formosa wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
I think much like a lot things in U-571, that just falls under the realm of "artistic license."


I think it comes more under the US "re writing its own history", if we went with movies then the USA won the second world war single handed !!


Yet another reason why i think we should teach all the different countries and faction's points of view during history classes. That way we get everybody's story and find the truth somewhere in the middle and cut through all the propaganda BS of all the nations. .


Yeah, as someone who's spent far too much time in academic institutions and historical research, this isn't remotely practical at any level. There simply isn't time to cover everyone's posible point of view, unless you want to radically change how classes are taught and education is conducted in general, or limit history classes to two or three singular events each term, which is warps understanding in its own special way.


Yes Voss it might take too long but it'd be so very helpful. Maybe showing a few major sides and their opinions would be nice.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/14 05:09:49


Post by: Grey Templar


 Formosa wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
I think much like a lot things in U-571, that just falls under the realm of "artistic license."


I think it comes more under the US "re writing its own history", if we went with movies then the USA won the second world war single handed !!


Single handed? No, technically. Completely responsible for ensuring all other allied powers didn't fall and contributed the bulk of material support to actually end the war? Absolutely.

The US's material support and later participation is the entire reason WW2 was an allied victory.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/14 07:04:38


Post by: LordofHats


We can clear up that tangent right now by just pointing out that of the fifteen enigma machines captured by the Allies in WWII, only two were captured by people not from the British Isles, and by the time the Americans captured one the code had already been long broken. U-571 actually caused a public uproar in Britain by attributing one of the great intelligence coups of the war to Americans (as in the Prime Minister actually commented on it and Bill Clinton responded!)


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/14 22:24:20


Post by: Iron_Captain


Voss wrote:
Backfire wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
I don't know that pacing is a lost art so much as the current trend is really fast pacing. Getting to the point and getting there fast is prioritized over "messy" issues of continuity. It's partially advantageous in a way. If the plot moves quickly enough from scene to scene people don't have time to notice minor continuity errors.


Big problem today is that action scenes take FOREVER. If there is some kind of fight, duel or land/air/space combat scene, it takes ages with tons of hits, millions of cuts, swirling camera work, explosions and whatnot. Take a look at Luke vs Vader confrontation at Empire Strikes Back - no director today would film anything like that. Luke and Vader would first swirl lightsabers for 5 minutes, then they would exchange few lines of witty retortees, then another long swath of lightsaber action etc. Also, if there is one vs many fight - such as if the bad guys have some disposable minions to kill - then these minions come in by HUNDREDS and hero cuts them down like 50 per scene. When you use so much time for action scenes, of course you have less room for plot and character work. Producers and directors are nowadays so afraid to bore their audiences that they need to cram absurd amount of action to the movies, but end result is that action feels less and whole experience is tiresome.


I largely agree and this is something I don't get. Whatever current directors believe makes for an 'epic' fight scene bores me horribly. The ESB fight is actually fairly long, but it's dramatically cut right- there are three separate stages cut by the activity of the other characters, and each stage has its own theme and purpose- analysis of Luke's training, demonstration of Vader's power, then the sudden disarming end.

The counterpoint to the ESB fight is the Annie vs Obi fight at the end of the prequels. That should have been a dramatic confrontation and a swift fight. But instead it was a slog of green screen after green screen in ever more absurd and awkward places that no one sane person would even bother trying to fight in (and they'd be dead of toxic or thermal shock long before the lightsabers start banging together in earnest). What should have been an emotionally charged scene is instead... well, something that makes me check the time. Nothing at all of interest happens between the verbal confrontation and Obi cutting Anakin out of his reckless jump. Nothing. They could have done the whole fight right in front of the ship and moved on.

The Hobbit films are rather similar- extensive CGI and action scenes with a lot of length and not much in the way of stakes. It's CGI for the sake of it, at the expense of storytelling.
And as much as I like the movie overall, the beginning of Age of Ultron fits this category. The mighty supers are just punching fools through wacky and unconvincing slo-mo shots. The end isn't quite so bad, as there are civilians, stakes, sacrifice and insight into characters and motivations, but the beginning set up expectations for awful by being empty and soulless.

But action scenes are what makes a movie fun and actually worth it to watch. The light saber duels in the OT are all incredibly boring. The much longer and more elaborate duels are much more fun to watch. Besides, I need action scenes to counter my short attention span .
I do agree that the Hobbit movies overdid it though. But when you try to stretch a tiny novel out into three long movies, you kinda have to fill up all the room with action scenes. If they had been faithful to the book, they could have easily covered The Hobbit in a single movie.

Backfire wrote:


Oh yeah. I was actually somewhat pumped when they staged the fight, because previous lightsaber fights in prequels had been so devoid of emotion...now finally we had characters who had something going for the fight. And then the super epic fight was boring as heck as they just whacked away on lightsabers without any thought or point. At some points it got real silly, they were climbing in girders and whatnot, fighting on a lava stream...and then Obiwan casually hops to 0.5m higher elevation than Anakin and supposedly it is now hopeless situation for Anakin??

^oh right, there is a big plot hole, for purposes of the topic.

That is a good point though. Given how much they were jumping around just a few seconds ago, Obi Wan standing about half a meter higher than Anakin should not have mattered that much.

 LordofHats wrote:
Backfire wrote:


Oh yeah. I was actually somewhat pumped when they staged the fight, because previous lightsaber fights in prequels had been so devoid of emotion...now finally we had characters who had something going for the fight. And then the super epic fight was boring as heck as they just whacked away on lightsabers without any thought or point. At some points it got real silly, they were climbing in girders and whatnot, fighting on a lava stream...and then Obiwan casually hops to 0.5m higher elevation than Anakin and supposedly it is now hopeless situation for Anakin??

^oh right, there is a big plot hole, for purposes of the topic.


It's not a plot hole at all once you realize that Obi-Wan's special ability is High Ground. He's actually a reality warper, who alters space such that he always holds high ground on any uneven terrain. Think about it;

Obi-Wan vs Maul : Obi-Wan wins, because for Obi-Wan low ground is actually high ground
Obi-Wan vs Jango : draw, because while Obi-Wan mystically converted the low ground into high ground once he stepped onto even terrain with his opponent he lost his buff
Obi-Wan vs Dooku : Dooku wins because terrain was perfectly even and Obi-Wan couldn't abuse his buff
Obi-Wan vs Dooku 2 : Dooku wins because terrain was perfectly even
Obi-Wan vs Grevious : Obi-Wan wins the moment he is knocked into an area below Grevious, thus granting him the High Ground
Obi-Wan vs Anakin : Obi-Wan wins because he had the high ground almost the entire fight

Really Obi-Wan should have been sent to fight Palpatine. The Senate building is horribly uneven terrain and Obi-Wan would have had the High Ground the entire time!

Oh my God, my sides hurt.

One more thing I have always wondered about Star Wars is this: How the hell did the Ewoks beat the elite forces of the Empire? The Ewoks are tiny creatures with stone age technology. They should have no chance at all against much larger and stronger opponents that are armoured from top to toe and equipped with high-tech weapons, vehicles, air support and everything. Not to mention the advantages of organisation, strategy and tactics the Empire obviously should have had. It seems to me that the Imperial army is so incompetent the rebellion would have succeeded anyway and all of the heroes' exploits were kinda unneeded



What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/14 23:34:37


Post by: Crazy_Carnifex


 Iron_Captain wrote:
Voss wrote:
Backfire wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
I don't know that pacing is a lost art so much as the current trend is really fast pacing. Getting to the point and getting there fast is prioritized over "messy" issues of continuity. It's partially advantageous in a way. If the plot moves quickly enough from scene to scene people don't have time to notice minor continuity errors.


Big problem today is that action scenes take FOREVER. If there is some kind of fight, duel or land/air/space combat scene, it takes ages with tons of hits, millions of cuts, swirling camera work, explosions and whatnot. Take a look at Luke vs Vader confrontation at Empire Strikes Back - no director today would film anything like that. Luke and Vader would first swirl lightsabers for 5 minutes, then they would exchange few lines of witty retortees, then another long swath of lightsaber action etc. Also, if there is one vs many fight - such as if the bad guys have some disposable minions to kill - then these minions come in by HUNDREDS and hero cuts them down like 50 per scene. When you use so much time for action scenes, of course you have less room for plot and character work. Producers and directors are nowadays so afraid to bore their audiences that they need to cram absurd amount of action to the movies, but end result is that action feels less and whole experience is tiresome.


I largely agree and this is something I don't get. Whatever current directors believe makes for an 'epic' fight scene bores me horribly. The ESB fight is actually fairly long, but it's dramatically cut right- there are three separate stages cut by the activity of the other characters, and each stage has its own theme and purpose- analysis of Luke's training, demonstration of Vader's power, then the sudden disarming end.

The counterpoint to the ESB fight is the Annie vs Obi fight at the end of the prequels. That should have been a dramatic confrontation and a swift fight. But instead it was a slog of green screen after green screen in ever more absurd and awkward places that no one sane person would even bother trying to fight in (and they'd be dead of toxic or thermal shock long before the lightsabers start banging together in earnest). What should have been an emotionally charged scene is instead... well, something that makes me check the time. Nothing at all of interest happens between the verbal confrontation and Obi cutting Anakin out of his reckless jump. Nothing. They could have done the whole fight right in front of the ship and moved on.

The Hobbit films are rather similar- extensive CGI and action scenes with a lot of length and not much in the way of stakes. It's CGI for the sake of it, at the expense of storytelling.
And as much as I like the movie overall, the beginning of Age of Ultron fits this category. The mighty supers are just punching fools through wacky and unconvincing slo-mo shots. The end isn't quite so bad, as there are civilians, stakes, sacrifice and insight into characters and motivations, but the beginning set up expectations for awful by being empty and soulless.

But action scenes are what makes a movie fun and actually worth it to watch. The light saber duels in the OT are all incredibly boring. The much longer and more elaborate duels are much more fun to watch. Besides, I need action scenes to counter my short attention span .
I do agree that the Hobbit movies overdid it though. But when you try to stretch a tiny novel out into three long movies, you kinda have to fill up all the room with action scenes. If they had been faithful to the book, they could have easily covered The Hobbit in a single movie.

Backfire wrote:


Oh yeah. I was actually somewhat pumped when they staged the fight, because previous lightsaber fights in prequels had been so devoid of emotion...now finally we had characters who had something going for the fight. And then the super epic fight was boring as heck as they just whacked away on lightsabers without any thought or point. At some points it got real silly, they were climbing in girders and whatnot, fighting on a lava stream...and then Obiwan casually hops to 0.5m higher elevation than Anakin and supposedly it is now hopeless situation for Anakin??

^oh right, there is a big plot hole, for purposes of the topic.

That is a good point though. Given how much they were jumping around just a few seconds ago, Obi Wan standing about half a meter higher than Anakin should not have mattered that much.

 LordofHats wrote:
Backfire wrote:


Oh yeah. I was actually somewhat pumped when they staged the fight, because previous lightsaber fights in prequels had been so devoid of emotion...now finally we had characters who had something going for the fight. And then the super epic fight was boring as heck as they just whacked away on lightsabers without any thought or point. At some points it got real silly, they were climbing in girders and whatnot, fighting on a lava stream...and then Obiwan casually hops to 0.5m higher elevation than Anakin and supposedly it is now hopeless situation for Anakin??

^oh right, there is a big plot hole, for purposes of the topic.


It's not a plot hole at all once you realize that Obi-Wan's special ability is High Ground. He's actually a reality warper, who alters space such that he always holds high ground on any uneven terrain. Think about it;

Obi-Wan vs Maul : Obi-Wan wins, because for Obi-Wan low ground is actually high ground
Obi-Wan vs Jango : draw, because while Obi-Wan mystically converted the low ground into high ground once he stepped onto even terrain with his opponent he lost his buff
Obi-Wan vs Dooku : Dooku wins because terrain was perfectly even and Obi-Wan couldn't abuse his buff
Obi-Wan vs Dooku 2 : Dooku wins because terrain was perfectly even
Obi-Wan vs Grevious : Obi-Wan wins the moment he is knocked into an area below Grevious, thus granting him the High Ground
Obi-Wan vs Anakin : Obi-Wan wins because he had the high ground almost the entire fight

Really Obi-Wan should have been sent to fight Palpatine. The Senate building is horribly uneven terrain and Obi-Wan would have had the High Ground the entire time!

Oh my God, my sides hurt.

One more thing I have always wondered about Star Wars is this: How the hell did the Ewoks beat the elite forces of the Empire? The Ewoks are tiny creatures with stone age technology. They should have no chance at all against much larger and stronger opponents that are armoured from top to toe and equipped with high-tech weapons, vehicles, air support and everything. Not to mention the advantages of organisation, strategy and tactics the Empire obviously should have had. It seems to me that the Imperial army is so incompetent the rebellion would have succeeded anyway and all of the heroes' exploits were kinda unneeded



The Ewoks had the high ground.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 02:37:06


Post by: Voss


 Iron_Captain wrote:

But action scenes are what makes a movie fun and actually worth it to watch. The light saber duels in the OT are all incredibly boring. The much longer and more elaborate duels are much more fun to watch.

Not for me. They put the story on hold, and nothing of any consequence can occur. Mostly what they do is give me time to appreciate the directors' failings and general incompetence.
A duel at its heart is a story-telling device, providing insight into the characters and (hopefully) some raw emotion. They should be fast, lethal, and nothing at all like watching the entire Nutcracker ballet.

Kenobi vs Vader in the original works for the former and does pretty poorly at the second. ESB and RotJ manage both.
The prequel duels accomplish nothing but eating up screen time.
The new trilogy duels... eh. TFA has some glimpses of something, but it seems more just the idea that an SW film requires a lightsaber duel. TLJ substitutes a pointless fight with nameless mooks and a somewhat insightful confrontation where one side doesn't bother to engage, but it does shine a light on the other party... but only his flaws, which have been shown off enough.

I do agree that the Hobbit movies overdid it though. But when you try to stretch a tiny novel out into three long movies, you kinda have to fill up all the room with action scenes. If they had been faithful to the book, they could have easily covered The Hobbit in a single movie.

I actually think a single film would have been difficult without cutting parts out. There are too many important encounters that have to be there. On the other hand, without the made up chase sequences, he random dwarf-elf bigotry (in Rivendell), the extended gandalf torture porn sequence, and the absurdly lengthy cat and mouse and army sequences, it could have been done in two, and not made the films feel like doing the whole trip into mordor on foot, belaboring every step.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 03:01:09


Post by: -Loki-


IIRC it was meant to be 2. New Line wanted another trilogy.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 07:03:39


Post by: Grey Templar


 Iron_Captain wrote:


One more thing I have always wondered about Star Wars is this: How the hell did the Ewoks beat the elite forces of the Empire? The Ewoks are tiny creatures with stone age technology. They should have no chance at all against much larger and stronger opponents that are armoured from top to toe and equipped with high-tech weapons, vehicles, air support and everything. Not to mention the advantages of organisation, strategy and tactics the Empire obviously should have had. It seems to me that the Imperial army is so incompetent the rebellion would have succeeded anyway and all of the heroes' exploits were kinda unneeded



Pretty much everybody in the Star Wars setting is militarily incompetent. And while there is great weapon proliferation, there is little to no knowledge of effective military tactics or good hardware design. Plus the vast majority of sentient beings in the Galaxy are extremely pacifist.

This is why anybody who was able to organize any type of large scale military operation in Star Wars tends to quickly take control of the galaxy. There is very little resistance from the general population which means you can effectively control them with very few actual soldiers. The flipside is that you yourself are vulnerable to even a small number of opponents, hence why the tiny rebellion was able to destabilize the Empire.

If Star Wars encountered any factions from pretty much any sci-fi setting other than Star Trek they'd get steamrolled. Star Trek are even more incompetent than the people in Star Wars.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 08:54:09


Post by: JohnHwangDD


 Mr Morden wrote:
In Bad movies (The Last Jedi is a prime example of this) however you are sitting there going "wtf" and it breaks immersion.


This, so much.

I just watched Kingsman: The Golden Circle, and I WTF'd far too many times to enjoy it.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 12:05:11


Post by: Backfire


Voss wrote:
 Iron_Captain wrote:

But action scenes are what makes a movie fun and actually worth it to watch. The light saber duels in the OT are all incredibly boring. The much longer and more elaborate duels are much more fun to watch.

Not for me. They put the story on hold, and nothing of any consequence can occur. Mostly what they do is give me time to appreciate the directors' failings and general incompetence.
A duel at its heart is a story-telling device, providing insight into the characters and (hopefully) some raw emotion. They should be fast, lethal, and nothing at all like watching the entire Nutcracker ballet.


I think it's wushu-influence. Martial arts movies have often very long fight scenes and part of the lore there is that even between uneven opponents, it takes time to achieve finishing blow.
However, many directors seem to miss that even kung fu-movies often have a point in the fight, in good martial arts movies the fight is part of the character arc (proof of growth, act of revenge, painful lesson etc). Also, a fight can have a substory of its own. In a way "outer" and "inner" stories.

Lightsaber fight in Empire Strike Back is example of this. Outer storyline of the fight is that Luke wants to rescue his friends and avenge his mentor, while Vader wants to subdue Luke and convince him to dark side. Inner storyline is that Luke is talented but inexperienced and has to scrap to keep up with Vader who is mostly toying with him.

One of the best movie duels of all time is the fight between Shu Lien and Jen Yu in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Now that fight is really long but it has a point. Outer storyline is that Jen hates being patronized and has stolen a valuable sword, while Shu Lien tries to recover the sword and envies the attention young and talented Jen gets. So there are both plot point and character tension in the duel. But the fight also has an inner storyline: Jen's magic sword is superior weapon and forces more experienced Shu Lien to literally plough through her entire armoury in trying to defeat it.

An opposite example is fight between Neo and Seraph in second Matrix movie. Characters don't know each other and have no reason to fight. Seraph even says that they are fighting just for the sake of it. The fight also has no inner story. Fighters are evenly matched and have equal abilities and neither gets hurt. It is just couple of minutes tightly choreographed whacking, and it is boring as hell and adds nothing to movie but runtime.

Star Wars prequel lightsaber fights have little going for them. Phantom Menace fight I suppose has a weak inner storyline in that Darth Maul is skilled but needs to separate the Jedi to be able to defeat them. Grievous-Obiwan duel was interesting in a way that it put a Jedi vs skilled non-Jedi. However the fight itself was silly and Grievous character was presented as too comedic and weak, just like nearly all prequel villains. Obi-Wan vs Anakin had at least outer storyline for it, but no inner storyline whatsoever. It was really boring after first 10 seconds.
Also it is really disappointing how the Jedi do not use Force during the fights. It's as if only the Sith have effective and useful Force attacks.



What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 12:50:58


Post by: LordofHats


I only thought of this after watching it on TV this weekend.

Battle L.A., my favorite comedy.

This movie is just so full of those "WTF" moments and so many of them are so wacky I honestly think the film was originally intended as a spoof. While the film itself is a walking storm of military and alien invasion movie cliches, there's four glaring issues in it that will never cease to amuse me for how stupid they are on a plot level.

The first is in the opening of the invasion when the U.S. military just assumes that an invading alien force from out space has no air support. Yes. The US Military decided that aliens from outer space could cross who knows how many light years, land on earth, and begin an invasion with just foot troops. It doesn't really help that the film slugs out new alien contraptions mostly just to force the characters to do something other than they are currently doing making every plot point feel forced, but the later appearance of a armed hover jeep or a walking artillery piece aren't quite as wacky as assuming space invaders don't have any aircraft. Even if none had been seen at that point I don't believe anyone in their right mind would ever have made that assumption. It makes the first big plot twist of the film so predictable that instead of feeling bad for all the dead soldiers I laughed loudly in the middle of the theater. My fellow movie goers glared at me.

The second is after the first big plot twist when the main character, the oh so tragic NCO who we should all feel so extra bad for because his men died in combat, spends a very "tense" couple minutes performing an impromptu autopsy on a not yet dead enemy combatant looking for a good way to kill the quite sturdy alien foot troops. He finds it sure enough. Just right of where the heart should be. I.E. center of mass. I.E. Where soldiers are supposed to shoot anyway. I.E. Where the characters had been shooting aliens already up to that point in the film. Of course certainly after that scene the aliens start dropping in good order in accordance with the plot's needs.

The third, and possibly even more silly than the previous two is the typical "mother ship" of the film. The glaring design flaw in the alien invasion plan so obvious I doubt any species capable of space travel would be dumb enough to have it. Yeah it's buried underground in the middle of LA. Somehow. Despite all the news cameras and choppers seen in the opening of the film, all the military personnel and aircraft. Yeah. The aliens managed to somehow move their floating secret base into LA and bury it underground without anyone noticing. That in itself was so stupid I was ready to walk out of the theater but I wanted to see how many more cliche's I could check off the list (enough).

The last is the end of the film so stop reading if you care about spoiler for a movie from 2011. At the end of the film after being out in the field for two days, fighting constant battles, eating maybe some junk food on the second day, and being reduced from a platoon to five guys/gals the heroes instead of doing anything sensible load up on ammo and go back out to fight more aliens. lolwut? And their commanding officer lets them go. Okay. Yeah. let's not debrief the guys who just took out an alien command center and have had very close contact with the enemy. Let's not cycle them into another unit. Lets not make them get some damn sleep because they've been running on adrenaline and sappy speeches for two days. Or you know. make them actually eat some food, instead of just accepting a eye rolling movie one liner about how they already had some blood of their enemies today.Nope. They don't have time for any of that gak soldiers in real life would probably be killing for cause this is a mid-budget Hollywood war film and in mid-budget Hollywood war films American soldiers are demi-gods and we should all be on our knees ready to blow for them cause they're that much more American than the rest of us (you might notice I really hate it when movies depict the military this way).


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 14:15:52


Post by: Frazzled


 alanmckenzie wrote:
One that's always bothered me is the T-Rex attack scene in Jurassic Park.

The T-Rex pushes the car off the same side of the road from where she had just stepped...

Except now there's like a 15 meter drop.

Hoping someone can provide me with some reasoning here.


Yes I remember that one.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 14:54:19


Post by: LordofHats


Maybe we should also just link to Cinema Sins a YouTube video series that frequently points out common cliches and general inconsistencies in movies. Though probably 1/3 of what he counts as a "sin" I think is a bit of a stretch/overly picky but its his shtick I guess. Special mentioned for the episode Everything Wrong with Dragonball: Evolution which actually caused the guy to break his usual rule of not referencing source material to point out all the massive flaws between the movie and the source material.

Also Dragonball: Evolution belongs in here.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 17:22:46


Post by: Frazzled


 Iron_Captain wrote:
Voss wrote:
Backfire wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
I don't know that pacing is a lost art so much as the current trend is really fast pacing. Getting to the point and getting there fast is prioritized over "messy" issues of continuity. It's partially advantageous in a way. If the plot moves quickly enough from scene to scene people don't have time to notice minor continuity errors.


Big problem today is that action scenes take FOREVER. If there is some kind of fight, duel or land/air/space combat scene, it takes ages with tons of hits, millions of cuts, swirling camera work, explosions and whatnot. Take a look at Luke vs Vader confrontation at Empire Strikes Back - no director today would film anything like that. Luke and Vader would first swirl lightsabers for 5 minutes, then they would exchange few lines of witty retortees, then another long swath of lightsaber action etc. Also, if there is one vs many fight - such as if the bad guys have some disposable minions to kill - then these minions come in by HUNDREDS and hero cuts them down like 50 per scene. When you use so much time for action scenes, of course you have less room for plot and character work. Producers and directors are nowadays so afraid to bore their audiences that they need to cram absurd amount of action to the movies, but end result is that action feels less and whole experience is tiresome.


I largely agree and this is something I don't get. Whatever current directors believe makes for an 'epic' fight scene bores me horribly. The ESB fight is actually fairly long, but it's dramatically cut right- there are three separate stages cut by the activity of the other characters, and each stage has its own theme and purpose- analysis of Luke's training, demonstration of Vader's power, then the sudden disarming end.

The counterpoint to the ESB fight is the Annie vs Obi fight at the end of the prequels. That should have been a dramatic confrontation and a swift fight. But instead it was a slog of green screen after green screen in ever more absurd and awkward places that no one sane person would even bother trying to fight in (and they'd be dead of toxic or thermal shock long before the lightsabers start banging together in earnest). What should have been an emotionally charged scene is instead... well, something that makes me check the time. Nothing at all of interest happens between the verbal confrontation and Obi cutting Anakin out of his reckless jump. Nothing. They could have done the whole fight right in front of the ship and moved on.

The Hobbit films are rather similar- extensive CGI and action scenes with a lot of length and not much in the way of stakes. It's CGI for the sake of it, at the expense of storytelling.
And as much as I like the movie overall, the beginning of Age of Ultron fits this category. The mighty supers are just punching fools through wacky and unconvincing slo-mo shots. The end isn't quite so bad, as there are civilians, stakes, sacrifice and insight into characters and motivations, but the beginning set up expectations for awful by being empty and soulless.

But action scenes are what makes a movie fun and actually worth it to watch. The light saber duels in the OT are all incredibly boring. The much longer and more elaborate duels are much more fun to watch. Besides, I need action scenes to counter my short attention span .
I do agree that the Hobbit movies overdid it though. But when you try to stretch a tiny novel out into three long movies, you kinda have to fill up all the room with action scenes. If they had been faithful to the book, they could have easily covered The Hobbit in a single movie.

Backfire wrote:


Oh yeah. I was actually somewhat pumped when they staged the fight, because previous lightsaber fights in prequels had been so devoid of emotion...now finally we had characters who had something going for the fight. And then the super epic fight was boring as heck as they just whacked away on lightsabers without any thought or point. At some points it got real silly, they were climbing in girders and whatnot, fighting on a lava stream...and then Obiwan casually hops to 0.5m higher elevation than Anakin and supposedly it is now hopeless situation for Anakin??

^oh right, there is a big plot hole, for purposes of the topic.

That is a good point though. Given how much they were jumping around just a few seconds ago, Obi Wan standing about half a meter higher than Anakin should not have mattered that much.

 LordofHats wrote:
Backfire wrote:


Oh yeah. I was actually somewhat pumped when they staged the fight, because previous lightsaber fights in prequels had been so devoid of emotion...now finally we had characters who had something going for the fight. And then the super epic fight was boring as heck as they just whacked away on lightsabers without any thought or point. At some points it got real silly, they were climbing in girders and whatnot, fighting on a lava stream...and then Obiwan casually hops to 0.5m higher elevation than Anakin and supposedly it is now hopeless situation for Anakin??

^oh right, there is a big plot hole, for purposes of the topic.


It's not a plot hole at all once you realize that Obi-Wan's special ability is High Ground. He's actually a reality warper, who alters space such that he always holds high ground on any uneven terrain. Think about it;

Obi-Wan vs Maul : Obi-Wan wins, because for Obi-Wan low ground is actually high ground
Obi-Wan vs Jango : draw, because while Obi-Wan mystically converted the low ground into high ground once he stepped onto even terrain with his opponent he lost his buff
Obi-Wan vs Dooku : Dooku wins because terrain was perfectly even and Obi-Wan couldn't abuse his buff
Obi-Wan vs Dooku 2 : Dooku wins because terrain was perfectly even
Obi-Wan vs Grevious : Obi-Wan wins the moment he is knocked into an area below Grevious, thus granting him the High Ground
Obi-Wan vs Anakin : Obi-Wan wins because he had the high ground almost the entire fight

Really Obi-Wan should have been sent to fight Palpatine. The Senate building is horribly uneven terrain and Obi-Wan would have had the High Ground the entire time!

Oh my God, my sides hurt.

One more thing I have always wondered about Star Wars is this: How the hell did the Ewoks beat the elite forces of the Empire? The Ewoks are tiny creatures with stone age technology. They should have no chance at all against much larger and stronger opponents that are armoured from top to toe and equipped with high-tech weapons, vehicles, air support and everything. Not to mention the advantages of organisation, strategy and tactics the Empire obviously should have had. It seems to me that the Imperial army is so incompetent the rebellion would have succeeded anyway and all of the heroes' exploits were kinda unneeded



And there is the problem.our attention span has shrunk to a goldfish.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 17:30:15


Post by: Grey Templar


Which is weird, because then we should want more realistic dueling which only lasts maybe a minute. First mistake = last mistake.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 23:12:54


Post by: Backfire


Some of the biggest plotholes I remember are in Star Trek movies. Lets start with Generations.

-so the new Enterprise takes a 'quick run near Solar System', then get a distress signal from a ship and suddenly there is no one else around within several lightyears. Huh?

-the plot is that Soran wants to blow up stars to change course of Nexus so it will hit a planet he's on. Somehow, he can't enter the Nexus in a ship, even though that is how he got in it first time around. Okay, maybe it's like too risky or something and doesn't work every time?

-but why would blowing up a star change course of Nexus? Mass of the star doesn't go anywhere when the star blows up, it is just rearranged. Well it does, but it takes thousands of years.

-so then Soran and Picard both enter the Nexus. Apparently, it is possible to leave the Nexus and enter any point of timeline. Armed with this unimaginable power, Picard wants to enter the moment just before the star blows up, to have another chance against Soran in a fistfight.

-admittably, above leaves open a possibility that since Nexus grants the wisher anything they want, Picard just got an illusion of coming back and everything what happened in Star Trek franchise after that is just Picard daydreaming in the Nexus.

So lets move to reboot franchise and Into Darkness. Oh boy that film was junk but highlights...

-So Khan blows up stuff and teleports away. Where does he teleport into? To KRONOS, another side of the sector! This incredible teleport technology which would completely upturn entire civilization of the Star Trek races, is instantly ignored.

-After declaring how they can't go to Kronos, they go there.

-The plan is that they "get as close to Neutral Zone as possible" and send an away team to catch Khan. How close? Well, they travel right up to within weapon range of the planet. I repeat: a Federation Warship can enter, freely and unmolested and within the rules of the Treaty, on orbit of Klingon homeworld. What the hell?? What kind of Treaty is that? What sort of "Neutral Zone" is that?

-then they send in an armed team, in blatant violation of the Treaty. Nobody cares, not even the Klingons after Khan shows up and kills bunch of them, wearing a Starfleet uniform mind you. Wouldn't this like, spark a war or something?

-Plot point is that Khan's buddies are hidden inside torpedoes. How does this even work? Torpedoes are barely larger than a human. Average man would (and does) take up nearly all internal volume of the torpedo, leaving no room for targeting, propulsion and warhead. Which apparently the torpedoes nevertheless have as they're treated and described as operational weapons.

-Old time-travelled Spock is still active within the timeline and warns them around Khan. I know the explanation is that timeline has changed and not everything repeats the same, but how come nobody mentions enormous advantages Federation can get on science, exploration, politics and so on as they have Spock who knows everything about Khan, Cardassian, Borg, Dominion etc well in advance.

-and so on and so on. Above doesn't even cover half of it what these films have wrong in them. I wouldn't say they have plot holes, as it would imply they have a plot, which they don't. Heck, even JJ Abrams admitted that Into Darkness was basically just sequence of scenes not really connected to each other.



What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/15 23:56:20


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Is Running with the Idiot Ball a plot hole?


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/16 00:05:44


Post by: LordofHats


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Is Running with the Idiot Ball a plot hole?


Only if it necessitates someone being out of character (which happens a lot). If someone is generally stupid, and their stupidity drives a plot point it can make enough sense... unless that person is otherwise suppose to be smart, or has previously be shown/depicted as not being that stupid or something. In general though I'd say that even when an idiot ball isn't necessarily a plot hole it's usually pretty damn lazy.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/16 00:47:23


Post by: welshhoppo


The biggest plot hole for me, is that plenty of movies seem to have characters that have little to no common sense.


I could go into how the Star Wars prequels are full of characters who are dumb as rocks (is Qui-gon Jinn called that because he's drunk on gin the whole time?) or I could let Red Letter Media do it for me.

But the last hobbit movie. Awesome the dwarves are setting up a giant like wall! I know, lets leap over the bloody thing and get trapped between the orcs and the pikes.

Please, why can't people have more common sense.....


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/16 02:37:42


Post by: sirlynchmob


 welshhoppo wrote:
The biggest plot hole for me, is that plenty of movies seem to have characters that have little to no common sense.


I could go into how the Star Wars prequels are full of characters who are dumb as rocks (is Qui-gon Jinn called that because he's drunk on gin the whole time?) or I could let Red Letter Media do it for me.

But the last hobbit movie. Awesome the dwarves are setting up a giant like wall! I know, lets leap over the bloody thing and get trapped between the orcs and the pikes.

Please, why can't people have more common sense.....


If most movie characters had common sense, then most horror movies would never happen.

If you watch this vhs tape you'll die, VHS? who has that system anymore, tosses it out, why risk it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
another major plot hole I just remembered.

Jurassic world. The whole mess could have been avoided if they had just checked the tracking device first.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/16 04:49:35


Post by: Grey Templar


sirlynchmob wrote:

Jurassic world. The whole mess could have been avoided if they had just checked the tracking device first.


Sort of. I mean, the chick did immediately call Asset Containment. Who immediately said it was still in the pen.

The real flaw here is that A) the other people immediately went into the pen instead of staying indoors when the location of the creature was unknown. And B) that the pen for some reason only has one human sized access door and one dinosaur sized access door. And they are on opposite sides of the enclosure and the guard opens the big dino door to escape, instead of the access hatch which should have been right there.

Really, any large dino pen should have had regular human doors at regular intervals. Not even have doors, just doorways into a hallway so you don't have to fiddle with a door if you need to escape quickly.

The Jurassic Park movies were not made by anybody familiar with how large animals are contained or transported.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/16 15:24:16


Post by: Elemental


 LordofHats wrote:
The third, and possibly even more silly than the previous two is the typical "mother ship" of the film. The glaring design flaw in the alien invasion plan so obvious I doubt any species capable of space travel would be dumb enough to have it. Yeah it's buried underground in the middle of LA. Somehow. Despite all the news cameras and choppers seen in the opening of the film, all the military personnel and aircraft. Yeah. The aliens managed to somehow move their floating secret base into LA and bury it underground without anyone noticing. That in itself was so stupid I was ready to walk out of the theater but I wanted to see how many more cliche's I could check off the list (enough).


They must have had the same people from Transformers 2, who were able to cover up the giant robots wrecking half of New York in plain view of thousands of people.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/16 18:14:45


Post by: JohnHwangDD


 Grey Templar wrote:
The Jurassic Park movies were not made by anybody familiar with how large animals are contained or transported.


If the dinos in JP were contained like similarly large and/or dangerous non-dinos in zoos (e.g. Tigers, Elephants, Killer Whales), then a lot of the plot nonsense never happens.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/16 19:09:59


Post by: Grey Templar


Aye. Electric fences aren't used instead of regular fences. You always have both a regular and an electric fence.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 00:33:52


Post by: Backfire


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
The Jurassic Park movies were not made by anybody familiar with how large animals are contained or transported.


If the dinos in JP were contained like similarly large and/or dangerous non-dinos in zoos (e.g. Tigers, Elephants, Killer Whales), then a lot of the plot nonsense never happens.


Two further clichés annoy me in JP movies:
-dinosaurs are invulnerable to conventional weapons. Even Raptors can't be killed by bullets and they are no larger than current crop of predators which are hardly bulletproof. I think in Jurassic World there was one raptor killed by RPG, not sure.

-dinosaurs find humans absolutely delicious and always try to eat them, chasing humans and risking themselves to unreasonable extent even though there would be plenty of easier meals available. In JP3, Spinosaurus chased a group of tiny humans through entire island.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 00:45:32


Post by: Grey Templar


Pretty much.

The truth is most large predators ignore humans entirely. We'd simply be too small to make a good meal worth the effort of chasing down. If we got too close they might take a swipe at you, but they wouldn't go out of their way to hunt us.

Even Raptors likely wouldn't pay humans much heed. Like Lions or Wolves, they'd limit themselves to larger prey worth the effort and only attack humans opportunistically. Heck, real raptors would probably have made decent pets. They'd have the same characteristics which made wolves possible to domesticate. Intelligent and social, which would be something humans could hijack to make them into pets.

Especially the smaller Raptors, like Veloceraptors(who were really the size of large chickens). Its not like a Veloceraptor would be any more dangerous than a dog. And dogs can be quite dangerous.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 01:04:46


Post by: CptJake


 Grey Templar wrote:
Aye. Electric fences aren't used instead of regular fences. You always have both a regular and an electric fence.


Heck, I do that for our goats!



What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 02:12:42


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Backfire wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
The Jurassic Park movies were not made by anybody familiar with how large animals are contained or transported.


If the dinos in JP were contained like similarly large and/or dangerous non-dinos in zoos (e.g. Tigers, Elephants, Killer Whales), then a lot of the plot nonsense never happens.


Two further clichés annoy me in JP movies:
-dinosaurs are invulnerable to conventional weapons. Even Raptors can't be killed by bullets and they are no larger than current crop of predators which are hardly bulletproof. I think in Jurassic World there was one raptor killed by RPG, not sure.

-dinosaurs find humans absolutely delicious and always try to eat them, chasing humans and risking themselves to unreasonable extent even though there would be plenty of easier meals available. In JP3, Spinosaurus chased a group of tiny humans through entire island.



Peter Jackson's King Kong is the absolute worst for this. Just so, so bad. It starts with a V-Rex dropping half a ton on uneaten Dino carcass to chase the forgettable actress for miles. The V-Rex wants to eat her so bad that he fights ninja Kong for her, even lunging for her while tangled up and at the mercy of another predator. Later on, when the actress pretty much genocides a herd of sauropods via The Lemming Maneuver, the V-Rexes weave around mountains of fresh meat in pursuit of her.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 03:43:52


Post by: Vulcan


 Grey Templar wrote:
 Iron_Captain wrote:


One more thing I have always wondered about Star Wars is this: How the hell did the Ewoks beat the elite forces of the Empire? The Ewoks are tiny creatures with stone age technology. They should have no chance at all against much larger and stronger opponents that are armoured from top to toe and equipped with high-tech weapons, vehicles, air support and everything. Not to mention the advantages of organisation, strategy and tactics the Empire obviously should have had. It seems to me that the Imperial army is so incompetent the rebellion would have succeeded anyway and all of the heroes' exploits were kinda unneeded



Pretty much everybody in the Star Wars setting is militarily incompetent. And while there is great weapon proliferation, there is little to no knowledge of effective military tactics or good hardware design. Plus the vast majority of sentient beings in the Galaxy are extremely pacifist.

This is why anybody who was able to organize any type of large scale military operation in Star Wars tends to quickly take control of the galaxy. There is very little resistance from the general population which means you can effectively control them with very few actual soldiers. The flipside is that you yourself are vulnerable to even a small number of opponents, hence why the tiny rebellion was able to destabilize the Empire.

If Star Wars encountered any factions from pretty much any sci-fi setting other than Star Trek they'd get steamrolled. Star Trek are even more incompetent than the people in Star Wars.


Agreed.

Let's take the latest movie. If the First Order had a single decent tactician in their high command they win this easily, and within the first thirty minutes. All they had to do was have half their star destroyers stay in hyperspace a second or two longer, drop out of hyperspace on the OTHER side of the Resistance force, and you have yourself a nice little Resistance Sandwich to snack on before taking the rest of the galaxy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 LordofHats wrote:
I only thought of this after watching it on TV this weekend.

Battle L.A., my favorite comedy.

This movie is just so full of those "WTF" moments and so many of them are so wacky I honestly think the film was originally intended as a spoof. While the film itself is a walking storm of military and alien invasion movie cliches, there's four glaring issues in it that will never cease to amuse me for how stupid they are on a plot level.

The first is in the opening of the invasion when the U.S. military just assumes that an invading alien force from out space has no air support. Yes. The US Military decided that aliens from outer space could cross who knows how many light years, land on earth, and begin an invasion with just foot troops. It doesn't really help that the film slugs out new alien contraptions mostly just to force the characters to do something other than they are currently doing making every plot point feel forced, but the later appearance of a armed hover jeep or a walking artillery piece aren't quite as wacky as assuming space invaders don't have any aircraft. Even if none had been seen at that point I don't believe anyone in their right mind would ever have made that assumption. It makes the first big plot twist of the film so predictable that instead of feeling bad for all the dead soldiers I laughed loudly in the middle of the theater. My fellow movie goers glared at me.

The second is after the first big plot twist when the main character, the oh so tragic NCO who we should all feel so extra bad for because his men died in combat, spends a very "tense" couple minutes performing an impromptu autopsy on a not yet dead enemy combatant looking for a good way to kill the quite sturdy alien foot troops. He finds it sure enough. Just right of where the heart should be. I.E. center of mass. I.E. Where soldiers are supposed to shoot anyway. I.E. Where the characters had been shooting aliens already up to that point in the film. Of course certainly after that scene the aliens start dropping in good order in accordance with the plot's needs.

The third, and possibly even more silly than the previous two is the typical "mother ship" of the film. The glaring design flaw in the alien invasion plan so obvious I doubt any species capable of space travel would be dumb enough to have it. Yeah it's buried underground in the middle of LA. Somehow. Despite all the news cameras and choppers seen in the opening of the film, all the military personnel and aircraft. Yeah. The aliens managed to somehow move their floating secret base into LA and bury it underground without anyone noticing. That in itself was so stupid I was ready to walk out of the theater but I wanted to see how many more cliche's I could check off the list (enough).

The last is the end of the film so stop reading if you care about spoiler for a movie from 2011. At the end of the film after being out in the field for two days, fighting constant battles, eating maybe some junk food on the second day, and being reduced from a platoon to five guys/gals the heroes instead of doing anything sensible load up on ammo and go back out to fight more aliens. lolwut? And their commanding officer lets them go. Okay. Yeah. let's not debrief the guys who just took out an alien command center and have had very close contact with the enemy. Let's not cycle them into another unit. Lets not make them get some damn sleep because they've been running on adrenaline and sappy speeches for two days. Or you know. make them actually eat some food, instead of just accepting a eye rolling movie one liner about how they already had some blood of their enemies today.Nope. They don't have time for any of that gak soldiers in real life would probably be killing for cause this is a mid-budget Hollywood war film and in mid-budget Hollywood war films American soldiers are demi-gods and we should all be on our knees ready to blow for them cause they're that much more American than the rest of us (you might notice I really hate it when movies depict the military this way).


Actually, the very first plothole is that the aliens came to earth for water... which, even if there's no resistance from the obviously intelligent and marginally spacefaring natives, means you have to lift that water out of the earth's gravity well.

Any race that can cross interstellar distances can easily collect all the water they'd ever need in the Oort cloud without ever coming within 50 AU's of the earth. At that distance they'd barely be impacted by the SUN's gravity well.

Long and short: There is ZERO reason for those aliens to come to Earth in the first place.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 04:14:01


Post by: LunarSol


 Gordon Shumway wrote:
People are missing the Citizen Kane of plot holes here. How does anybody know what Kane's last words were? Leave it to Citizen Kane to have the Citizen Kane of all plot holes. Interestingly, from looking at the above films, I've noticed that plot holes have nothing at all to do with whether one likes a movie or not. Or whether one considers it "good". One could extend the idea to suggest that plot isn't really all that important when it comes to move tastes. That, I view as a good thing.


The butler was in the room with him when he died. It's mentioned later in the film. It doesn't totally fit with what we're lead to believe from the opening scene, but it is addressed in the film.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 09:48:23


Post by: AndrewGPaul


 Vulcan wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I only thought of this after watching it on TV this weekend.

Battle L.A., my favorite comedy.


Actually, the very first plothole is that the aliens came to earth for water...


A plot hole shared by the original '80s V*. But not quite as bad as Signs, in which a species of aliens fatally allergic to water land on Earth and walk about unprotected. That's like us going skinny-dipping in a vat of sulphuric acid. Never mind being killed by whatever mechanism the protagonist uses to cover them in water, they should have burnt up simply by walking around in the open air.

*And Independence day, for that matter - or just about any alien invasion movie. I doubt there's anything on Earth the aliens couldn't have got elsewhere in the solar system without us even noticing.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 11:30:08


Post by: Elemental


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
The Jurassic Park movies were not made by anybody familiar with how large animals are contained or transported.


If the dinos in JP were contained like similarly large and/or dangerous non-dinos in zoos (e.g. Tigers, Elephants, Killer Whales), then a lot of the plot nonsense never happens.


You know, I'm reading this thread and I'm thinking about how utterly boring the Jurassic Park (and many others) movies would have been if internet geeks had written them. "Here are some dinosaurs which don't escape. Humans look at them. Credits." For a lot of these, I think the correct response is just to shrug and say "Yeah, but it makes the movie more enjoyable." Either enjoyable in the sense that the viewer doesn't care about the weak bit in the plot because it enables something awesome." or enjoyable in that it lets the viewer look smart on the internet afterwards.

In fairness, JP did leave out a big plothole from the book, which was Malcolm going on about how chaos theory means life will inevitably rebel against attempts to contain it. Hence why we got massacred by cows and pigs thousands of years ago. Oh, and Michael Crichton would like to let you know that All Science Is Bad and humans haven't really progressed. Demonstrating how science is bad by showing how it can give us totally wicked awesome dinosaurs.....wasn't very well thought out.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 12:16:29


Post by: Backfire


Alas, JP the movie leaves out a major plot point of the book, that dinosaurs reproduce on their own despite management attempts to make them sterile (it is mentioned in the film, but not extrapolated in any way). Park's tracking system was designed to track the dinosaurs all the time but since the programmers assumed there would be fixed number of dinosaurs, it only tracked the same dinosaurs and ignored the 'new' ones. So they constantly assumed there were only 8 velociraptors in the park, when in reality there were dozens and they were escaping all the time.

Sure thing, that also doesn't make much sense if you think about it (the park has gamekeepers and caretakers, wouldn't they notice extra dinosaurs? Hundreds of cameras never notice dinosaur nests or baby dinosaurs?) but at least that is an additional explanation why things go haywire beyond mere "turn the power off".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Elemental wrote:

In fairness, JP did leave out a big plothole from the book, which was Malcolm going on about how chaos theory means life will inevitably rebel against attempts to contain it. Hence why we got massacred by cows and pigs thousands of years ago. Oh, and Michael Crichton would like to let you know that All Science Is Bad and humans haven't really progressed. Demonstrating how science is bad by showing how it can give us totally wicked awesome dinosaurs.....wasn't very well thought out.


Hmm...Malcolm's point was rather that the Park was attempting to manage dinosaurs with 'standard' procedures and it wasn't going to work because dinosaurs were 'unstandard', ie. we don't know enough about them compared to modern animals like cows, chicken, elephants etc. In fact some of it was shown to be true even before the Park collapsed - nobody had foreseen a possibility that one of the dinosaur species spits venom, making it that much harder to handle.

And in fairness, dangerous animals sometimes do escape even from modern Zoos.

Totally agree about Crichton's preachiness. It got worse over time.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 17:59:54


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Backfire wrote:
Alas, JP the movie leaves out a major plot point of the book, that dinosaurs reproduce on their own despite management attempts to make them sterile (it is mentioned in the film, but not extrapolated in any way).

the Park was attempting to manage dinosaurs with 'standard' procedures and it wasn't going to work because dinosaurs were 'unstandard',


The movie *showed* the offspring from "all female" (parthenogenesis actually happens in RL, btw), which was just fine by me, as it was obvious that there would be more dinos than planned.

Have you been to the SD Zoo? They have tiger and elephant enclosures, and the basic design is far more sensible than what JP did. The elephant enclosures are reinforced with double-door entry traps. The Jurassic enclosures are far worse in design.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 18:24:54


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


The Terminator.

Why hang around?

Why not GTFO as soon as you can? Do what John Connor does between T2 and T3 and live completely off the grid - assumed names, move countries etc etc.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 19:05:38


Post by: Grey Templar


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Backfire wrote:
Alas, JP the movie leaves out a major plot point of the book, that dinosaurs reproduce on their own despite management attempts to make them sterile (it is mentioned in the film, but not extrapolated in any way).

the Park was attempting to manage dinosaurs with 'standard' procedures and it wasn't going to work because dinosaurs were 'unstandard',


The movie *showed* the offspring from "all female" (parthenogenesis actually happens in RL, btw), which was just fine by me, as it was obvious that there would be more dinos than planned.

Have you been to the SD Zoo? They have tiger and elephant enclosures, and the basic design is far more sensible than what JP did. The elephant enclosures are reinforced with double-door entry traps. The Jurassic enclosures are far worse in design.


It wasn't Parthenogenesis. It was Sequential Hermaphroditism. A process where an individual of one sex changes into the opposite sex through a normal biological process for that species. So some of the Raptors changed sex from female to male and reproduced sexually, not a female undergoing Parthenogenesis to cause her eggs to generate a new female without the input of male Gametes.

In most species that undergo this process it is a fixed process. All individuals are born one sex, and under some environmental trigger they will change into the other sex. The trigger can be age or simply lack of the opposite sex. It is usually not a reversible process, though there are a few where it is.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 19:08:10


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


But Raptor parthogenesis would have virgin-birthed so many memes!

Huge missed opportunity.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/17 19:16:44


Post by: Grey Templar


An interesting side note. Parthenogenesis, as we know it today, only ever results in the same sex as the mother individual. However, this is because of how Chromosomes in most species works, including humans. The Male Chromosomes are XY, and the Female ones are XX.

So if a female undergoes Parthenogenesis, her chromosomes can only result in a female offspring.

However, in some species the Chromosomes are reversed. The Female chromosomes are XY and the Males are XX. This is true of birds.

In a species like this where it is the female gamete that determines the sex of the offspring, Parthenogenesis could result in either sex being born. So if the Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were like birds and all had female members of their species as the individuals carrying the XY chromosomes, then a single incident of Parthenogenesis could result in suddenly a bunch of male offspring allowing for normal reproduction from that point. It would also result in some offspring with YY chromosomes, which would probably never hatch/make it to full term pregnancy due to deformity. This isn't what happened in the movie, but it is another route they could have taken.


If the researchers in Jurassic Park had really cared about "No unauthorized breeding!" they would have simply spayed/neutered all the dinosaurs instead of the long convoluted process of simply have a single sex. Besides, it seems for research purposes they would have wanted examples of both sexes in the park.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 00:14:29


Post by: AegisGrimm


 AndrewGPaul wrote:
 Vulcan wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I only thought of this after watching it on TV this weekend.

Battle L.A., my favorite comedy.


Actually, the very first plothole is that the aliens came to earth for water...


A plot hole shared by the original '80s V*. But not quite as bad as Signs, in which a species of aliens fatally allergic to water land on Earth and walk about unprotected. That's like us going skinny-dipping in a vat of sulphuric acid. Never mind being killed by whatever mechanism the protagonist uses to cover them in water, they should have burnt up simply by walking around in the open air.

*And Independence day, for that matter - or just about any alien invasion movie. I doubt there's anything on Earth the aliens couldn't have got elsewhere in the solar system without us even noticing.


But, but....established in Resurgence, the ID4 aliens are here for our metallic core! It's not like any other planets have those! Especially not ones that require absolutely no expenditure of resources to exterminate the natives first, lol.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 01:03:19


Post by: Cheesecat


 Gordon Shumway wrote:
People are missing the Citizen Kane of plot holes here. How does anybody know what Kane's last words were? Leave it to Citizen Kane to have the Citizen Kane of all plot holes. Interestingly, from looking at the above films, I've noticed that plot holes have nothing at all to do with whether one likes a movie or not. Or whether one considers it "good". One could extend the idea to suggest that plot isn't really all that important when it comes to move tastes. That, I view as a good thing.


The butler was in the room and heard the words, did you even watch the movie?


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 08:54:29


Post by: Backfire


 Grey Templar wrote:

If the researchers in Jurassic Park had really cared about "No unauthorized breeding!" they would have simply spayed/neutered all the dinosaurs instead of the long convoluted process of simply have a single sex. Besides, it seems for research purposes they would have wanted examples of both sexes in the park.


This is what they did in the book, they radiated all produced dinosaurs' reproductive organs, however it was noted that "it is not 100% reliable method".


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 15:11:15


Post by: AndrewGPaul


 AegisGrimm wrote:
 AndrewGPaul wrote:
 Vulcan wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I only thought of this after watching it on TV this weekend.

Battle L.A., my favorite comedy.


Actually, the very first plothole is that the aliens came to earth for water...


A plot hole shared by the original '80s V*. But not quite as bad as Signs, in which a species of aliens fatally allergic to water land on Earth and walk about unprotected. That's like us going skinny-dipping in a vat of sulphuric acid. Never mind being killed by whatever mechanism the protagonist uses to cover them in water, they should have burnt up simply by walking around in the open air.

*And Independence day, for that matter - or just about any alien invasion movie. I doubt there's anything on Earth the aliens couldn't have got elsewhere in the solar system without us even noticing.


But, but....established in Resurgence, the ID4 aliens are here for our metallic core! It's not like any other planets have those! Especially not ones that require absolutely no expenditure of resources to exterminate the natives first, lol.


Is that more or less stupid than the plot of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, where the titular rolling psychopaths intend to hollow out the Earth's core with a huge bomb, fit engines in the hole and fly the planet around as a spaceship?


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 15:14:51


Post by: sirlynchmob


 AndrewGPaul wrote:
 AegisGrimm wrote:
 AndrewGPaul wrote:
 Vulcan wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I only thought of this after watching it on TV this weekend.

Battle L.A., my favorite comedy.


Actually, the very first plothole is that the aliens came to earth for water...


A plot hole shared by the original '80s V*. But not quite as bad as Signs, in which a species of aliens fatally allergic to water land on Earth and walk about unprotected. That's like us going skinny-dipping in a vat of sulphuric acid. Never mind being killed by whatever mechanism the protagonist uses to cover them in water, they should have burnt up simply by walking around in the open air.

*And Independence day, for that matter - or just about any alien invasion movie. I doubt there's anything on Earth the aliens couldn't have got elsewhere in the solar system without us even noticing.


But, but....established in Resurgence, the ID4 aliens are here for our metallic core! It's not like any other planets have those! Especially not ones that require absolutely no expenditure of resources to exterminate the natives first, lol.


Is that more or less stupid than the plot of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, where the titular rolling psychopaths intend to hollow out the Earth's core with a huge bomb, fit engines in the hole and fly the planet around as a spaceship?


FYI, they're phallic rolling psychopaths.

It's pretty brilliant though, instead of taking the earths resources bit by bit, just take the whole planet in one go and deliver it to the factories


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 16:14:48


Post by: AndrewGPaul


 Grey Templar wrote:
If the researchers in Jurassic Park had really cared about "No unauthorized breeding!" they would have simply spayed/neutered all the dinosaurs instead of the long convoluted process of simply have a single sex. Besides, it seems for research purposes they would have wanted examples of both sexes in the park.


The only research purpose Hammond was interested in was "how much money can I charge for people to look at these?"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
sirlynchmob wrote:
FYI, they're phallic rolling psychopaths.


"titular", as in, they're in the title of the serial.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 16:37:54


Post by: sirlynchmob


 AndrewGPaul wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
If the researchers in Jurassic Park had really cared about "No unauthorized breeding!" they would have simply spayed/neutered all the dinosaurs instead of the long convoluted process of simply have a single sex. Besides, it seems for research purposes they would have wanted examples of both sexes in the park.


The only research purpose Hammond was interested in was "how much money can I charge for people to look at these?"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
sirlynchmob wrote:
FYI, they're phallic rolling psychopaths.


"titular", as in, they're in the title of the serial.


I know what it means, I went for a pun.

You can't bring in doctor who in a discussion about plot holes and inconsistencies. it's like bringing a nuke to a knife fight


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 18:01:10


Post by: Grey Templar


Dr Who is basically one huge plot hole. Its full of timey-wimiy gobbldy [see forum posting rules]. Its not supposed to make sense.

Edit: how is g o o k is a bad word?


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 18:13:45


Post by: A Town Called Malus


 Grey Templar wrote:
Dr Who is basically one huge plot hole. Its full of timey-wimiy gobbldy [see forum posting rules]. Its not supposed to make sense.

Edit: how is g o o k is a bad word?


Because one of its definitions is a racial slur.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 18:39:00


Post by: Turnip Jedi


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Terminator.

Why hang around?

Why not GTFO as soon as you can? Do what John Connor does between T2 and T3 and live completely off the grid - assumed names, move countries etc etc.


But isn't that more or less what Sarah does at the end ? The film happens over at most three days and whilst Kyle's mission is to protect Sarah removing the Arnuld-800 first seems sensible (I've always suspected Kyle had at least an inkling regarding John's parentage)


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 20:29:52


Post by: AndrewGPaul


 A Town Called Malus wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
Dr Who is basically one huge plot hole. Its full of timey-wimiy gobbldy [see forum posting rules]. Its not supposed to make sense.

Edit: how is g o o k is a bad word?


Because one of its definitions is a racial slur.


It should be one word - Gobbledygook. Which has nothing, IIRC, to do with the Vietnamese.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 21:26:19


Post by: chromedog


 Grey Templar wrote:



If the researchers in Jurassic Park had really cared about "No unauthorized breeding!" they would have simply spayed/neutered all the dinosaurs instead of the long convoluted process of simply have a single sex. Besides, it seems for research purposes they would have wanted examples of both sexes in the park.


If they were serious about "no unauthorised breeding" then they wouldn't have used rana to fill the dna gaps in. It was a "quick fix" that bit them on the arse.

ALL the dinos in the park were CREATED as females, which they thought meant they couldn't breed.
One of the geneticists obviously forgot that certain frog species WILL change sex with given environmental triggers (coincidentally, the frog species they used the rana from). One of those triggers being "not enough males" - this also happens with some fish (Barramundi do it).
They also bred them to be deficient in a specific amino acid, without which, they would die (and was only provided in their food at the park). In the book, the dinos were already on the mainland (The compy attack from the second movie is the beginning of the first book) and had begun to find sources of that amino acid themselves by raiding crops.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 22:33:15


Post by: Backfire


 AndrewGPaul wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
If the researchers in Jurassic Park had really cared about "No unauthorized breeding!" they would have simply spayed/neutered all the dinosaurs instead of the long convoluted process of simply have a single sex. Besides, it seems for research purposes they would have wanted examples of both sexes in the park.


The only research purpose Hammond was interested in was "how much money can I charge for people to look at these?"


Actually Hammond is somewhat as a dinosaur purist and especially aims to bring them out for the kids. In the book, head scientist proposes to Hammond that they should replace their dinosaurs with genetically modified ones; because the "real" dinosaurs they created don't conform to dinosaur stereotypes people have. They look different and are too fast and too active. He wants to create slow and cumbersome dinosaurs as pure showpieces. Hammond refuses because he is sure that people will love his "real" dinosaurs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Backfire wrote:
Alas, JP the movie leaves out a major plot point of the book, that dinosaurs reproduce on their own despite management attempts to make them sterile (it is mentioned in the film, but not extrapolated in any way).

the Park was attempting to manage dinosaurs with 'standard' procedures and it wasn't going to work because dinosaurs were 'unstandard',


The movie *showed* the offspring from "all female" (parthenogenesis actually happens in RL, btw), which was just fine by me, as it was obvious that there would be more dinos than planned.

Have you been to the SD Zoo? They have tiger and elephant enclosures, and the basic design is far more sensible than what JP did. The elephant enclosures are reinforced with double-door entry traps. The Jurassic enclosures are far worse in design.


Movie showed them, but only as a side note: it bore little meaning in regards of the plot and why things were going wrong.
Parthenogenesis happens, though usually with fishes and lizards. I don't remember whether there are many examples of Archosaur parthenogenesis. It is thought nearly impossible for mammals.

I haven't been in SD Zoo* (or any proper zoo for that matter), but no disagreement the enclosures on JP were super bad. I was only making the argument from Malcolm's viewpoint - that the Park was trying to contain large number of animals with very little known about them, and that added too many 'unknown unknowns' to the system which was already very complicated. Although I found the logic "if something goes wrong, then it draws everything to hell" somewhat stretched and not very well connected to real world where the human agents would actively work to contain the problems.

*maybe the enclosures there were improved, post-JP catastrophe model?


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/18 23:10:22


Post by: JohnHwangDD


OK, sure, but that's kinda like a zookeeper about to take receipt of a new animal that's broadly similar in size and lethality to a tiger, and deciding that no, they'll use a cow pen instead of a tiger enclosure.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/19 04:21:32


Post by: Grey Templar


 chromedog wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:



If the researchers in Jurassic Park had really cared about "No unauthorized breeding!" they would have simply spayed/neutered all the dinosaurs instead of the long convoluted process of simply have a single sex. Besides, it seems for research purposes they would have wanted examples of both sexes in the park.


If they were serious about "no unauthorised breeding" then they wouldn't have used rana to fill the dna gaps in. It was a "quick fix" that bit them on the arse.

ALL the dinos in the park were CREATED as females, which they thought meant they couldn't breed.
One of the geneticists obviously forgot that certain frog species WILL change sex with given environmental triggers (coincidentally, the frog species they used the rana from). One of those triggers being "not enough males" - this also happens with some fish (Barramundi do it).
They also bred them to be deficient in a specific amino acid, without which, they would die (and was only provided in their food at the park). In the book, the dinos were already on the mainland (The compy attack from the second movie is the beginning of the first book) and had begun to find sources of that amino acid themselves by raiding crops.


The amino acid deficiency is another issue that falls apart since IIRC the one they mentioned is actually pretty easily obtained. Especially for the carnivores.

Really, all of Jurassic Park had tons of really convoluted "security" measures that were way more complex than necessary.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/19 09:34:52


Post by: AndrewGPaul


The book was written just after someone had told Michael Crichton about chaos theory, and he went "ooh, that's cool!". The whole point there is that small changes in input can lead to massive changes* in the endpoint, and that's what we see in the book. All the "plot holes" are there to drive that theme.

* but not unpredictable ones - "chaos" theory is entirely deterministic, and if you know the starting conditions, you can plot exactly the evolution of the system. The problems arise when you can't know the starting conditions exactly. Again, that's what happens in the book. Most of the problems and the consequences are easily understood by the protagonists once they know of them - the lysine deficiency, the use of amphibian DNA and the velociraptors. The one thing that no-one really grasps is Hammond ripping off Dennis Nedry.

One thing I missed from the book was the scene near the end in the 'raptor nest, where they demonstrate how intelligent they are. Something of it was shown in the third film, but not, IMO, to the same extent.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/19 22:18:11


Post by: Grey Templar


Yeah, that showed up in the third movie with the stolen Raptor eggs and the Raptors letting the humans go after they got their eggs back.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/19 23:28:16


Post by: ScootyPuffJunior


 LordofHats wrote:
Raiders of the Lost Ark takes place in 1936. Egypt being under British control didn't stop lots of people from not Britain going there and doing stuff and the Ahenerbe project did go outside Germany to explore the "history" of the Aryan race. They never went to Egypt but I don't think that really had anything to do with who was running the place at the time so much as there was nothing there of interest to them. Really the part that doesn't make sense is that they have soldiers with them and are clearly a military outfit who never would have gotten permission to dig for anything.
Not to mention that despite being set in 1936, all of the Nazi gear in Egypt has the Afrika Korps logo painted on it, but the DAK wasn't organized until early 1941. Also, the soldiers use MP 40 submachine guns throughout the movie, despite it being set two years before it was designed and four years before it was put into production.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 00:55:41


Post by: Vulcan


 AegisGrimm wrote:
 AndrewGPaul wrote:
 Vulcan wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I only thought of this after watching it on TV this weekend.

Battle L.A., my favorite comedy.


Actually, the very first plothole is that the aliens came to earth for water...


A plot hole shared by the original '80s V*. But not quite as bad as Signs, in which a species of aliens fatally allergic to water land on Earth and walk about unprotected. That's like us going skinny-dipping in a vat of sulphuric acid. Never mind being killed by whatever mechanism the protagonist uses to cover them in water, they should have burnt up simply by walking around in the open air.

*And Independence day, for that matter - or just about any alien invasion movie. I doubt there's anything on Earth the aliens couldn't have got elsewhere in the solar system without us even noticing.


But, but....established in Resurgence, the ID4 aliens are here for our metallic core! It's not like any other planets have those! Especially not ones that require absolutely no expenditure of resources to exterminate the natives first, lol.


That... doesn't help. There's plenty of metal floating around in the asteroid belt...


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 01:05:11


Post by: dogma


 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
Raiders of the Lost Ark takes place in 1936. Egypt being under British control didn't stop lots of people from not Britain going there and doing stuff and the Ahenerbe project did go outside Germany to explore the "history" of the Aryan race. They never went to Egypt but I don't think that really had anything to do with who was running the place at the time so much as there was nothing there of interest to them. Really the part that doesn't make sense is that they have soldiers with them and are clearly a military outfit who never would have gotten permission to dig for anything.
Not to mention that despite being set in 1936, all of the Nazi gear in Egypt has the Afrika Korps logo painted on it, but the DAK wasn't organized until early 1941. Also, the soldiers use MP 40 submachine guns throughout the movie, despite it being set two years before it was designed and four years before it was put into production.


Since we're nitpicking: most of the "snakes" in the snake scene weren't snakes at all, but legless lizards.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 01:08:34


Post by: sirlynchmob


 dogma wrote:
 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
Raiders of the Lost Ark takes place in 1936. Egypt being under British control didn't stop lots of people from not Britain going there and doing stuff and the Ahenerbe project did go outside Germany to explore the "history" of the Aryan race. They never went to Egypt but I don't think that really had anything to do with who was running the place at the time so much as there was nothing there of interest to them. Really the part that doesn't make sense is that they have soldiers with them and are clearly a military outfit who never would have gotten permission to dig for anything.
Not to mention that despite being set in 1936, all of the Nazi gear in Egypt has the Afrika Korps logo painted on it, but the DAK wasn't organized until early 1941. Also, the soldiers use MP 40 submachine guns throughout the movie, despite it being set two years before it was designed and four years before it was put into production.


Since we're nitpicking: most of the "snakes" in the snake scene weren't snakes at all, but legless lizards.


and you could see the reflection of the cobra in the glass they put between the snake and Indy


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 01:16:58


Post by: dogma


 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Also, the soldiers use MP 40 submachine guns throughout the movie, despite it being set two years before it was designed and four years before it was put into production.


It would be hard to justify the production of MP 36 and MP 38 props when you're already sitting on a ton of WWII equivalents.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 01:35:04


Post by: Pink Horror


 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
Raiders of the Lost Ark takes place in 1936. Egypt being under British control didn't stop lots of people from not Britain going there and doing stuff and the Ahenerbe project did go outside Germany to explore the "history" of the Aryan race. They never went to Egypt but I don't think that really had anything to do with who was running the place at the time so much as there was nothing there of interest to them. Really the part that doesn't make sense is that they have soldiers with them and are clearly a military outfit who never would have gotten permission to dig for anything.
Not to mention that despite being set in 1936, all of the Nazi gear in Egypt has the Afrika Korps logo painted on it, but the DAK wasn't organized until early 1941. Also, the soldiers use MP 40 submachine guns throughout the movie, despite it being set two years before it was designed and four years before it was put into production.


I don't really care about fictional anachronisms because it's an alternate universe anyway. If it was our universe, it wouldn't have Indiana Jones or the magical Lost Ark in it.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 05:16:17


Post by: Crazy_Carnifex


Backfire wrote:


Parthenogenesis happens, though usually with fishes and lizards. I don't remember whether there are many examples of Archosaur parthenogenesis. It is thought nearly impossible for mammals.


Parthenogenesis is known in birds, and if I recall correctly is actually not uncommon in species like turkey. Thing here is because birds use ZW chromosomes (meaning the females have different sex chromosomes), then females can produce male offspring (ZZ), potentially giving them an advantage in a low-male environment. Fish/Reptiles use other methods of sex determination, so can also produce males using only females genetic data. Mammals, in contrast, have females with a single type of sex chromosome, meaning that they would only ever produce female offspring. This doesn't confer any type of advantage, so is selected against to avoid wasting resources for no benefit.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 05:52:41


Post by: Gordon Shumway


 Cheesecat wrote:
 Gordon Shumway wrote:
People are missing the Citizen Kane of plot holes here. How does anybody know what Kane's last words were? Leave it to Citizen Kane to have the Citizen Kane of all plot holes. Interestingly, from looking at the above films, I've noticed that plot holes have nothing at all to do with whether one likes a movie or not. Or whether one considers it "good". One could extend the idea to suggest that plot isn't really all that important when it comes to move tastes. That, I view as a good thing.


The butler was in the room and heard the words, did you even watch the movie?


There was no butler. A nurse came in after he died. A cool reverse angle deep focus wide angle shot reflecting the nurse coming in. She might have heard it. Chances are she heard the globe crashing down. Did you watch it? He says the word, and dies. She comes in. She lays his hands across his chest. Fade to black. "News on the March" begins. No butler. It's been the lol #plothole of cinema for the past 60 years. Where have you been? Want a refresher? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-r0b_XeRkG4

Edit: I should probably follow up on my earlier point about why plot doesn't matter to me and why I view people not caring about holes as a good thing. I am a formalist. Other art forms (the novel) have better techniques of conveying plot. It's not that I don't think plot is unimportant in a movie, it's just one of the least interesting aspects of a movie to me. Plop any kid down in front of pretty much any movie, they will get the plot. Will they see why the camera angles, or the costume design or the editing tempo or sound design plays a role or how it affects them? Probably not. That is what I find interesting. I'm weird though.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 06:32:19


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


I get where you're coming from, and feel that I likely enjoyed the film for a few of the same reasons you did. However, I find that plot, or rather the writing in general when it is bad enough, can overpower the other aspects. All of the angles and the best editing tempo in the world can't "save Martha".


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 06:44:31


Post by: Gordon Shumway


I completely agree (not with your ultimate conclusion but the premise). Every aspect needs to work together to create a cohesive whole. A lot of the plot holes listed above, I don't really think are plot holes (scripts make a lot of them a lot more clear where they were coming from or trying to achieve), but other bad aspects of movie making. That said, have you ever read the original script of CK? It's hilarious. Aliens is another good original script. Star Wars is more stomach churning than good, but it is interesting. Out of the three fellas that walked out of that school on the same day, Lucas definitely had the most to try to overcome. Edit: that was not to imply that the three movies mentioned above were out of the same school, for those pendacticts in the audience.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 09:44:17


Post by: JohnHwangDD


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I get where you're coming from, and feel that I likely enjoyed the film for a few of the same reasons you did. However, I find that plot, or rather the writing in general when it is bad enough, can overpower the other aspects. All of the angles and the best editing tempo in the world can't "save Martha".


"Martha"? Crap. Now I have to check and see if MovieBob has completed part 3 of his magnum opus Really That Bad.
____

He has!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuwxDLdXALc

*sigh* Need to find another hour+ to watch that and hope it wraps things up.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 11:31:16


Post by: AndrewGPaul


 Gordon Shumway wrote:
 Cheesecat wrote:
 Gordon Shumway wrote:
People are missing the Citizen Kane of plot holes here. How does anybody know what Kane's last words were? Leave it to Citizen Kane to have the Citizen Kane of all plot holes. Interestingly, from looking at the above films, I've noticed that plot holes have nothing at all to do with whether one likes a movie or not. Or whether one considers it "good". One could extend the idea to suggest that plot isn't really all that important when it comes to move tastes. That, I view as a good thing.


The butler was in the room and heard the words, did you even watch the movie?


There was no butler. A nurse came in after he died. A cool reverse angle deep focus wide angle shot reflecting the nurse coming in. She might have heard it. Chances are she heard the globe crashing down. Did you watch it? He says the word, and dies. She comes in. She lays his hands across his chest. Fade to black. "News on the March" begins. No butler. It's been the lol #plothole of cinema for the past 60 years. Where have you been? Want a refresher? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-r0b_XeRkG4


One suggestion is that that scene is from the butler's POV; you don't see him in the room because you're looking through his eyes. That sounds like a subsequent rationalisation rather than a deliberate act on Welles' part, though.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 15:10:15


Post by: Cheesecat


 Gordon Shumway wrote:
 Cheesecat wrote:
 Gordon Shumway wrote:
People are missing the Citizen Kane of plot holes here. How does anybody know what Kane's last words were? Leave it to Citizen Kane to have the Citizen Kane of all plot holes. Interestingly, from looking at the above films, I've noticed that plot holes have nothing at all to do with whether one likes a movie or not. Or whether one considers it "good". One could extend the idea to suggest that plot isn't really all that important when it comes to move tastes. That, I view as a good thing.


The butler was in the room and heard the words, did you even watch the movie?


There was no butler. A nurse came in after he died. A cool reverse angle deep focus wide angle shot reflecting the nurse coming in. She might have heard it. Chances are she heard the globe crashing down. Did you watch it? He says the word, and dies. She comes in. She lays his hands across his chest. Fade to black. "News on the March" begins. No butler. It's been the lol #plothole of cinema for the past 60 years. Where have you been? Want a refresher? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-r0b_XeRkG4

Edit: I should probably follow up on my earlier point about why plot doesn't matter to me and why I view people not caring about holes as a good thing. I am a formalist. Other art forms (the novel) have better techniques of conveying plot. It's not that I don't think plot is unimportant in a movie, it's just one of the least interesting aspects of a movie to me. Plop any kid down in front of pretty much any movie, they will get the plot. Will they see why the camera angles, or the costume design or the editing tempo or sound design plays a role or how it affects them? Probably not. That is what I find interesting. I'm weird though.


They establish the butler heard his last words though (see below) and we know he's telling the truth because we as the audience watch him speak his last words on camera. Unless you have 360 degree view of the room as he uttered the words "Rosebud" you can't be 100% sure the

butler wasn't in the room, never mind the camera could have been first person perspective (from the butler) during that time (meaning you wouldn't see him).

"...I heard him say it that other time too. He just said 'Rosebud', then he dropped the glass ball and it broke on the floor."

01:51:37 (1hr51min37secs) (According to the timecode on the Blu-ray release)


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 15:50:56


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I completely agree (not with your ultimate conclusion but the premise). Every aspect needs to work together to create a cohesive whole. A lot of the plot holes listed above, I don't really think are plot holes (scripts make a lot of them a lot more clear where they were coming from or trying to achieve), but other bad aspects of movie making. That said, have you ever read the original script of CK? It's hilarious. Aliens is another good original script. Star Wars is more stomach churning than good, but it is interesting. Out of the three fellas that walked out of that school on the same day, Lucas definitely had the most to try to overcome. Edit: that was not to imply that the three movies mentioned above were out of the same school, for those pendacticts in the audience.


For some reason, I thought we were in the TLJ thread. Most of the plot holes in this thread are indeed smaller, less intrusive holes in film so good that people easily overlook them. Likely each person has his or her own threshold for what they are willing to overlook in terms of plot holes, and their own sense of how the rest of the film aspect cohere to make the film.




What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 16:41:16


Post by: ScootyPuffJunior


 dogma wrote:
 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Also, the soldiers use MP 40 submachine guns throughout the movie, despite it being set two years before it was designed and four years before it was put into production.


It would be hard to justify the production of MP 36 and MP 38 props when you're already sitting on a ton of WWII equivalents.
The MP36 was a prototype that never made it into production, so no soldier would have anything that resembles an MP38/40 in 1936.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/20 22:54:50


Post by: Snake Tortoise


The Halloween series. If you lived in Haddonfield (and especially if you were related to Michael Myers) you wouldn't stay there for Halloween, you'd go away for a few days every year. I suppose that's less of a plot hole and more just dumb decision making by the protagonists, which applies to practically every horror movie. In zombie movies (or TWD) where the zombies don't run it's a wonder anybody actually dies.


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/21 00:59:09


Post by: sirlynchmob


 Snake Tortoise wrote:
The Halloween series. If you lived in Haddonfield (and especially if you were related to Michael Myers) you wouldn't stay there for Halloween, you'd go away for a few days every year. I suppose that's less of a plot hole and more just dumb decision making by the protagonists, which applies to practically every horror movie. In zombie movies (or TWD) where the zombies don't run it's a wonder anybody actually dies.


speaking of horror movies, don't date Ash (bruce the man campbell)

Evil dead 1, he takes his gf to a cabin and everyone but him dies. he comes back talking about demons.
Evil dead 2, tired of his current gf, he takes her to the same cabin, everyone dies, he comes back talking about demons.

Don't go to a cabin with demons, he's a psychopath


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/21 02:38:33


Post by: JohnHwangDD


I started in on this elsewhere, but Prometheus should be called out here, along with Highlander 2...


What movies have you seen with plotholes/technical/strategic issues? @ 2018/01/21 11:10:52


Post by: welshhoppo


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I started in on this elsewhere, but Prometheus should be called out here, along with Highlander 2...



Nah Alien Covenant gets a bigger say.


Nothing would have happened if they followed BASIC PROCEDURE and wore frigging masks!