# The world's biggest plothole, and other ridiculous scenes in movies. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 2, 2006, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718 "2006-03-02T03:19:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/81 "2006-03-02T22:14:30Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > BUT!.. If you keep on going East, for a long enough distance, you could still end up there. I mean, since we’re on a globe and all… Right? Well, all I can say to that is, I am sure you understand what you think I said, but I am not quite certain you realize that what I said was not what I meant! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/82 "2006-03-02T22:27:24Z")
> [@Knowed Out](#): > > Return of the Jedi: C3PO becomes the translator bot for Jabba the Hut. The bounty hunter shows up with Chewbacca in chains. The bounty hunter speaks his native buzzing language to C3PO. C3PO tells Jabba what the bounty hunter said in English. Jabba responds in his native slug language. C3PO tells the bounty hunter what Jabba said in English. And so on. > > If both parties can understand English, why do they need a translator bot? Just speak English to each other. You can still make your snide remarks in your native language. > > Yes, I understand the possibility that Lucas had C3PO there for audience members who couldn’t read the subtitles, but I’m talking real-world context here. No blackmarket negotiator worth his weight in slug drippings is going to let it be known that he understands the bridge language. iI just figured te bounty hunter/Leia and/or Jabba are incapable of speaking English, liek Chewie. Or, especially in the case of Jabba, might consider it a langauge only spoken by creatures they consider “beneath” them. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/83 "2006-03-02T22:36:33Z")
And had I actually read the whole thread, I would ahve found out that peopel already made the same ponits I did. But I remeber something fomr _Silence on the Lamb_ that REALLY fucking bothers me. Slashing off someone else’s face and wearing it on top of your own will NEVER fool any trained EMT or paramedic. NEVER. No one can tell me that in the interest of getting the guy to the hospital quicker, they wouldn’t touch his face. Sorry, not buying it. In the condition that he looked, they would ALWAYS clean up the face a little and check his pupils, try to bandage his wounds, check his neck for fractures, put him in a collar, backboard, and head restraint as well. There is no way Hannibal Lector could ever have gotten out of the building. ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/84 "2006-03-02T23:30:16Z")
Wonered about that one, myself. ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/85 "2006-03-02T23:34:02Z")
Wondered about that one, myself. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/86 "2006-03-02T23:45:44Z")
> [@archmichael](#): > > I’m not very religious, but a couple of things bugged me about Constantine. > > Corinthians 17. Supposedly in the Hell Bible there is supposed to be an extra chapter that holds some prophetic language, but why would the Hell Bible have any version whatsoever of “Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians”? That didn’t bother me, because I took it the “Hell Bible” was a work which intentionally undertook to pervert the actual Bible. Was there something in the movie indicating otherwise–that the “Hell Bible” was just its own thing, written independently of the actual Bible? -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/87 "2006-03-02T23:53:47Z")
Oooh, finally a chance to post the single most annoying plothole I have come across: In **Mission Impossible** , Ethan Hunt never should have been able to solve the riddle of who Job was. Do I _really_ need to spoiler this? Aww, why take a chance. [spoiler]OK, so he figures out that Job 314 actually refers to a bible verse. He pretends to be Job and gets in touch with Max who susses him out because the real Job doesn’t quote from the bible in his messages to Max. Fine. However, later in the movie, he realizes that Job is actually Phelps when he finds that the bible he used to quote the Book of Job in the message to Max has been stamped with the logo of the Drake Hotel where Phelps had been staying. Now this plothole is threefold: 1. Why would Phelps have stolen the bible from the hotel in the first place if he didn’t quote scripture? For that matter, why steal the bible even if he did quote? Online bibles have been around for as long as the Internet, and he could have just cut and pasted. 2. Hunt never should have been able to put two and two together just from the stamp on the bible for the reasons mentioned in (1). 3. Even if he had, Phelps never should have been able to figure out how Hunt had learned that Phelps was Job.[/spoiler] It pisses me off because _the entire movie_ depends on this one clue, and they screwed it up. It would have been easy to fix, too. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/88 "2006-03-02T23:55:00Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > I don’t remember that one. Huh. Was it like Leela’s Sevateem and Tesh? Once I looked that up, yeah, sorta. It was the partly obscured warning “ **ca** ution: **li** ve ani **ma** ls” on the side of the spaceship. Never mind that the apes in the movie spoke English, you’ve got to accept that- but as I rembered it, it seemed nobody had ever touched that part of the ship or brushed off any of the dust. ---
**Author:** ![archmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@archmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/archmichael)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/89 "2006-03-03T00:17:47Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > That didn’t bother me, because I took it the “Hell Bible” was a work which intentionally undertook to pervert the actual Bible. Was there something in the movie indicating otherwise–that the “Hell Bible” was just its own thing, written independently of the actual Bible? > > -FrL- It wasn’t very well known, so if that was it’s intent it didn’t do a very good job of perverting th Bible. Constantine had to go to the Bowling Alley Guy to reference it. The guy read it over the phone, and I think he had to flip past 16 chapters of Corinthians. What those 16 chapters might contain is a head-scratcher. Other movies have mentioned different versions or extra chapters of Revelations, which prophesizes the Devil winning, so they probably wanted to avoid that cliche. It just seems odd to choose any of the ‘Letters to’ books to put in satanic prophecy. If I did the script rewrite I would say that it is a sort of ‘mirror, mirror’ thing in which a satanic version of Paul tells the Corinthians what they need to do to make way for the return of the Dark Lord. Or It was really Paul who did write it, but the Church Fathers had it left out of the Bible thinking it was blaphemy or a moment of demonic influence. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/90 "2006-03-03T00:23:32Z")
> [@archmichael](#): > > It wasn’t very well known, so if that was it’s intent it didn’t do a very good job of perverting th Bible. I’m having trouble understanding you here. The book either perverts the Bible or it doesn’t. How well known it is has nothing to do with it. I could go write up an “evil version” of Philemon (sp?) right now, then tear it up and throw it away. No one but me ever read it. But I could still thereby have successfully perverted message of the Biblical book of Philemon. That’s how I understood the “Hell Bible” in the movie–it’s just Satan’s (or his forces’) riff on the Bible. Doesn’t matter how many people have read it. Still, I like both your ideas–that it’s a sort of “alternate universe” Bible or an actual apocryphal work written by the very same authors for some arcane reason. Both interesting enough ideas IMO. -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/91 "2006-03-03T00:24:59Z")
In “Return of the Jedi,” the Rebel plan is to attack the new Death Star while the Imperial fleet is off chasing shadows, blowing it up with the Emperor on board. So the infiltration team, led by Luke, Han and Leia, arrives in a stolen shuttle, and in front of them next to the Death Star is… a massive Imperial fleet. Including a Super Star Destroyer, which Luke believes contains Darth Vader. You know, the Empire’s #1 hatchet man. And they don’t bat an eye. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/92 "2006-03-03T00:50:51Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Why would three men take two boats? Uh, so they don’t die? ---
**Author:** ![archmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@archmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/archmichael)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/93 "2006-03-03T00:56:09Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I’m having trouble understanding you here. > > The book either perverts the Bible or it doesn’t. How well known it is has nothing to do with it. > > I could go write up an “evil version” of Philemon (sp?) right now, then tear it up and throw it away. No one but me ever read it. But I could still thereby have successfully perverted message of the Biblical book of Philemon. > > That’s how I understood the “Hell Bible” in the movie–it’s just Satan’s (or his forces’) riff on the Bible. Doesn’t matter how many people have read it. I couldn’t disagree more. The Bible, and all so called ‘Word of God’ books are messages. They are effective only when they are disseminated. Messages have to be spread. This is way some evangelical Christians are trying so hard to get Bible translations into mainland China. That is why the Mormons are so keen on sending you a free book of Mormon. That’s why the Jehovah’s Witnesses want you to read the Watchtower. In your hypothetical you might have perverted it, but if no one else reads it, it fails as a message. It’s like holding an Anti-Bush protest inside your bedroom alone, with no press. You might have made a stand, but it has done nothing to counter the pro-Bush message. So a perverted Corinthians thet no one really knows much about doesn’t do anything to counter the Bible. If only the denizens of Hell are reading it, then ironically it’s preaching to the choir. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/94 "2006-03-03T01:14:44Z")
> [@vibrotronica](#): > > Did they have auto ferries across the channel in 1938/9? Yes. From [here:](http://www.theotherside.co.uk/tm-heritage/background/ferries.htm) > [@](#): > > With the growing popularity of motoring, Captain Townsend bought and converted an old minesweeper to cater for the new market of people who wanted to take their car with them on a Continental motoring holiday . Like other cross-channel travel, most of the demand was from the UK side. > > Cars were loaded onto the Dover-Calais car ferry by crane: 6,000 in the first year, rising to 31,000 in 1939 before the Second World War interupted services. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/95 "2006-03-03T02:07:38Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > In “Return of the Jedi,” the Rebel plan is to attack the new Death Star while the Imperial fleet is off chasing shadows, blowing it up with the Emperor on board. > > So the infiltration team, led by Luke, Han and Leia, arrives in a stolen shuttle, and in front of them next to the Death Star is… a massive Imperial fleet. Including a Super Star Destroyer, which Luke believes contains Darth Vader. You know, the Empire’s #1 hatchet man. > > And they don’t bat an eye. Actually, I only remember there being the Super Star Destroyer, and Han says “There are a lot of Command Ships”. I suspect an SSD guarding the death star isn’t terribly unusual, and not enough of a risk considering the prize. Or did Lucas add a fleet in the DVD version of Jedi? I stopped watching Lucas’s Magic Crayons after the Special editions in the movies, and I have the unaltered videotapes of the first trilogy. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/96 "2006-03-03T02:08:52Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > That’s how I understood the “Hell Bible” in the movie–it’s just Satan’s (or his forces’) riff on the Bible. Doesn’t matter how many people have read it. > > Still, I like both your ideas–that it’s a sort of “alternate universe” Bible or an actual apocryphal work written by the very same authors for some arcane reason. Both interesting enough ideas IMO. > > -FrL- Does the Hell Bible come up in the comic, or just in the movie? That’s one concept I’d love to find out more about. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/97 "2006-03-03T02:41:19Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > Actually, I only remember there being the Super Star Destroyer, and Han says “There are a lot of Command Ships”. Right. Apparently, there is more than one Super Star Destroyer. Han thought that Luke saw the SSD, and was _assuming_ that it was Vader’s ship. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/98 "2006-03-03T03:48:07Z")
I don’t know if it’s a plot hole, but it always annoys me about Return of the Jedi. Just the fact that the Imperial soldiers on Endor have 1 job during the battle, a very simple job: Protect the shield bunker. So when the battle starts, what do they do? They run off into the woods to chase the teddy bears, and give the rebels a chance to blow up the shield bunker. All they had to do is hold off on the teddy bear slaughter for a couple hours, stand outside the door and blast anything that tries to come through. Then again, if the Imperial Army was competent, they would have built fortications with mounted weapons and cleared open fields of fire all around bunker, giving any attacking force no cover. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/99 "2006-03-03T03:50:10Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > Then again, if the Imperial Army was competent, they would have built fortications with mounted weapons and cleared open fields of fire all around bunker, giving any attacking force no cover. If you look at it that way, I suppose it’s not surprising that the Empire didn’t last very long. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/100 "2006-03-03T04:00:05Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I think the largest single plot hole is in **Die Hard 2**. The entire premise of the movie requires that the good guys on the ground not be able to communicate with the airplanes in the air to tell them “the control tower has been taken over by bad guys, don’t believe them”. A frickin’ CHILD could come up with flaws in this idea. > > Which is a shame, because it would be a pretty good movie aside from that. Well no, actually, it wasn’t. It STARTED with some guy doing katas in the nude in the dark. Then there were the magic submachine guns that could fire real bullets and then, with no change in equipment, fire blanks (and these were magic blanks with no wadding, proven when Bruce Willis shot at the cops with them to prove they were blanks, and none of the cops did a Jon Eric Hexum or Brandon Lee imitation). Then there were the magic 20-30 second grenade fuses that allowed Willis enough time to strap himself into the EJECTION SEAT on a **C130**. Then there was the magic lighter that sent that flame chasing the airliner into the sky… No, my friend. It was NOT a pretty good movie at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718.md?page=6)