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U-571.

Yep. I went there.

 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.

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

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.

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.

 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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

 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.

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!

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.

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.

 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...

 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.

 -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



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

 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 !!

 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

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

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.

 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.

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!)