Plot holes

Cafe Society
1

As distinguished from continuity errors or inaccuracies. I mean inconsistencies in the storyline. I can think of three:

The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy runs away in Kansas to save Toto. When she meets Professor Marvel, he immediately makes her for a runaway, and prompts her, “You want to see new cities, new mountains, new oceans!” Dorothy agrees because it’s simpler than admitting that she’s running from the law (like he’d care, but she’s a kid). Then, at the end, Glinda asks her what she’s learned, and she tearfully replies that “If I ever want to go looking for my heart’s desire, I needn’t look further than my own backyard!”

Except, not! The lesson learned should have been “Don’t run from trouble; it always follows!” Which it did. She was never looking for her heart’s desire; she always wanted to get back to Kansas (silly hick! Baum was right to have her go back to Oz!). If there was any heart’s desire, it was simply keeping Toto; wanderlust didn’t come into it.

(I might also point out the inconsistency in the Scarecrow being intelligent despite not having a brain, the Tin Man being (an) emotional (wreck) despite not having a heart, while the Cowardly Lion really is cowardly. Even when they were storming the castle, he asked the other two to “Talk me out of it.”)

Saving Private Ryan: How can Ryan remember the landing at Omaha, most of it from Miller’s POV, when he wasn’t there at all? Maybe, possibly, a buddy of his brother who was killed there filled him in, but that kind of verite flashback should come directly from the object of the fade in/out.

Metropolitan: Early in the film, Christoper Eigeman tells the redheaded guy that it would be wrong for him to withdraw from the group that he’s been drawn into, on the grounds that the girls are counting on the guys as escorts, and without them, the girls would have no social life. Except, after the deb season ends, very abruptly we see one of the girls on a date with a middle-aged record producer, another leaving for a date with a guy “None of you know, and I’d like to keep it that way,” and the other two at a weekend house party with Eigeman’s nemesis. So much for their not having social lives, or knowing anyone outside that social circle!

2

Yeah, and in The Wizard of Oz Dorothy didn’t “find it out for herself” – Glinda still had to tell her she could use the ruby slippers to get back home. In fact, she could’ve told her that at the start, and have been done with it all. It looks like she was using Dorothy to get rid of the Wicked Witch of the West (as Pepper Mill described in an essay in Teemings a couple of years ago), just like Gandalf used thirteen drawves and a hobbit to get rid of Smaug. The really Great con-men not only con you, they make you think you’re learning a Great Lesson from it all.

3

I say!

It’s true Gandalf was worried that Smaug could be used by evil e.g. the Necromancer, but he intended to go with the party and help them.
It was only because the White Council called him away that he left the party to it.

Also the dwarves would never be happy without having a go at restoring their treasure and fighting to avenge their ancestors.

And both Thorin and Bilbo learnt lessons from it all!

4

Timeline

In the book(and the movie IIRC) they say that time travel is impossible and what they are actually doing is going to a alternative reality were the past is happening now. All well and good but they then find things in this reality that were left behind by the people they sent to the alternative reality.

How did these things get jump realities :confused:

5

Conned you, too, I see.

6

Oh, hey, guys, gee I’d love to go with you to fight that ginormous fire-breathing dragon and all, but I juuuust got this message from, er, the uh White Council.

Suckers.

7

Back to the Future II. Obviously it’s necessary for the picture to continue, but it’s always bothered me that Future Biff, after giving the Sports Digest to his 1955 self, then returns to the Future when Doc and Marty are, thus allowing them to undo what he did. If I were him, I woulda gone on a spree through Time and Space, since I had this wonderful machine.

In fact, how did he get the Time Travelling DeLorean back to where Doc and Marty were? Since he changed the time reality, the future they were in should’ve changed, too.

8

In **Star Trek: Generations ** Picard goes to visit Kirk in the Nexus. He convinces him to go to the planet and help him defeat Soran. But how do they leave the Nexus and get to the planet? On horseback?

9

IIRC Guinan implied that he could leave the Nexus anytime he wanted to by just wanting to do it. He could leave it and go anywhere and anytime.

The thing about the Nexus was that you didn’t want to leave it.

10

Well, yeah, I guess.

But that opens up the whole thing about time travel solving any problem. If you can go anywhere anytime, why not go back in time to before Soran was conceived and kill his parents? Or any of a hundred other better plans than what Kirk and Picard did. You know, confronting him minutes before he’s going to implement his evil scheme. And he has the high ground. And he has a missle.

11

Right. Guinan was (in her words) torn from the Nexus; she couldn’t leave it on her own.

I mean, if Guinan couldn’t get away, how did Picard? This is someone whose steely resolve put a fork into Q’s hand when everyone else was nervously thinking he wasn’t really un-Q’d. (Whatever the term is.)

12

Because . . . it was . . . fun! (dies) :rolleyes:

Yeah, that movie sucked.

13

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that at it’s heart the answer wasn’t bollocks, as it was :slight_smile:

I’m just saying that that’s the ‘solution’ given by Guinan to Picard in the movie.

Kirk and Picard made the decision very easily IMO. Which goes against the whole strength of the Nexus’ influence which is a kinda plot hole in and of itself.

As an aside I always thought that Picard’s perfect world with the twee xmas scene with the family etc was very clichéd and obvious for a man like Picard. He’d was a independent strong wife and some kids with personality IMO.

14

Of course, a bigger question is why didn’t Soran just fly a ship into the Ribbon? I know they said that the ribbon would destroy the ship. So what? You’d be in the Nexus, and you wouldn’t have to worry about the ship.

Sounds MUCH easier than running around the galaxy blowing up stars.

15

He’d want an independent strong wife and some kids with personality IMO.

16

Its not a plot hole.
You are assuming that the movie is meant to be a flashback. It’s not. You THINK it’s a flashback because we see an old man at the Normandie cemeteries, then it cuts to Tom Hanks 50 years before. You are used to seeing similar set ups and film devices to tell you that you are now seeing a flashback. You think you are so smart that you get it without the director resorting to “do-do-dooo” music cues or fuzzy camera peripherals. It’s a cheap Spielberg manipulation trick.
The film has bookends that act as a reveal, not a plot hole.

17

MadTV did a brilliant satire on that exact thing. Basically Dorothy tells Glinda that she’s an evil sadistic bitch and why didn’t she just TELL her how to get back to Kansas instead of making her go through all that crap. It was really, really funny.

18

Here’s a plot-hole, from a major work of modern theatre: Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’. Quite famous as the world’s longest running play (yes, I know, there’s some debate about that), it’s been in continuous production in London since 1952. I had the honour of working on a production in Toronto that ran for 27 years (I was there for 3 and half years). In all that time, not one audience member ever asked me the following question:

(spoilered to preserve steady-paying jobs for stage actors)

How did the police know that Major Metcalf was going to be at Monkswell Manor, and how did they find him in time to arrange for the officer to take his place?

thwartme

19

In Rosemary’s Baby, the doctor and the covern let Rosemary go outside and shopping three days before she is due to give birth to the Son of Satan. Image if she went into labor and an ambulance took her to the hospital!

You think the doctor would have put her on home bed rest for the last monthk but that would mean she’d never realize they were a covern of witches.

20

Simple. He never did leave it- everything after the time he entered the Nexus is just an illusion. He wanted to leave… so the Nexus made him think that he’d left. I believe that’s the real reason the Nexus is so hard to leave- it always gives you what you want, and if what you want is to get out of the Nexus, it gives you that… by keeping you in it, and making you think you’d left. The only real way to get out was if you didn’t want to leave, and someone on the outside forced you to.