# 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:** 15\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/121 "2006-03-03T18:13:56Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > That damn movie **Flightplan** that I finally caught last night. > I tired to figure out just how many things this Air Marshall had to pull off to get his plan to work. > > -Kill Jodi Foster’s husband and get away with it. > -Make sure that the coroner she use’s is the one he’s being helped with. > -Make sure he get’s assigned to the same flight as she does. > -Make sure no one sees the daughter board the plane. > -Make sure no one sees the daughter on the plane. > -Somehow get the daughter off the manifest. > -Get the boarding pass away from Jodi without her noticing. > -Hope to god Jodi falls asleep and doesn’t wake up while he takes the daughter. > -Hope no one notices him taking the daughter. > -Hope the daughter doesn’t make a scene while she’s being taken. > -Hope no one on the crew besides his stewardess helper don’t look in the nose of the plane. > -Hope Jodi goes nuts enough to seek out and unlock the coffin so he can get his explosives out. > -Get some people on the ground to agree to the hijackers demands of wiring money. > -Hope there’s no swat team at the airport to deal with. > > And probably a whole lot of other points I missed. Just waaay to far fetched to even attempt. Yeah. Of course, he could always have just told the Captain there was a terrorist on board demanding money and that it needed to be wired to Account X. Then he could later get his money out of the account, assuming he’d use whatever menthod in the original plan… None of the other wackiness was even necessary. At all. Because one can just tell the Captain that there’s a bomb and he’ll call up Corporate and have them put $50M into a random account… -Joe ---
**Author:** ![vertizontal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@vertizontal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vertizontal)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/122 "2006-03-03T19:32:19Z")
> [@Scuba\_Ben](#): > > Last week I realized that there’s a plot hole in the premise of _Gilligan’s Island_. > > As we know from the theme song, the _Minnow_ sets out on a three hour cruise. Allowing for reserves, the boat probably carries enough fuel for 6 - 8 hours of travel. I can’t imagine a small boat like that having a top speed over 25 knots, even in a storm. So that gives the boat an operating radius of 200 nautical miles in a straight line, and in the chaos of a storm, probably not much over 100 to 120 nm. > > And yet the _Minnow_ not only grounds on an uncharted island, but stays there without rescue for an extended period of time. With a movie star and a millionaire on the missing boat, there should have been an extensive SAR effort. > > I’d like to hear from some sailor types on how hard it may be to find such a boat in a 120 nm search radius after a storm. I don’t think this is a plot hole. It’s not really relavent what the duration of the scheduled cruise was, or how much fuel was on board. Once they got into the storm, they could have gotten off couse, run out of fuel, and drifted for days, taking them very far away from their origin. > [@jali](#): > > I’ve always wondered why they all had luggage for the 3 hour tour. My personal theory: The three-hour tour was a tour that was supposed to take them from one Hawaiian island and drop them off at another. Thus, they took their stuff with them. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/123 "2006-03-04T16:00:40Z")
> [@Agrippina](#): > > I think it says something in the book where Lecter showed respect to Barney and not Chilton because Barney knew how dangerous Lecter could be and that Lecter could turn on anybody at anytime. Chilton and the cops, on the other hand, thought they were better than him. So they ended up letting their guard down and, well, there you go. It might be more believable if everyone doesn’t abruptly become moronic weaklings whenever Lector comes by. Lector is not what you’d call a physically imposing man, and raw viciousness doesn’t go that far when facing down a pissed-off cop with a billy club. And of course, everyone makes all kinds of dumb mistakes next to Lector. He was the Batman power. Most people near him starts to get stupid, except their sidekicks. ---
**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 4, 2006, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/124 "2006-03-04T17:33:33Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > It might be more believable if everyone doesn’t abruptly become moronic weaklings whenever Lector comes by. Lector is not what you’d call a physically imposing man, and raw viciousness doesn’t go that far when facing down a pissed-off cop with a billy club. And of course, everyone makes all kinds of dumb mistakes next to Lector. > > He was the Batman power. Most people near him starts to get stupid, except their sidekicks. Not to mention the fact that the world’s most famous vicious serial killer would rate at least his own SWAT detail right by the cage instead of two police officers nearing retirement. That always kind of pissed me off, too. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/125 "2006-03-04T18:31:24Z")
It was really too minor to be a plothole but I still remember it being a stupid scene in a generally good TV series. On the series Wiseguy, Frank (one of the good guys) has been taken hostage. Roger (a guy that’s half way between being a bad guy and a good guy) is ordered to shoot him by the chief bad guy. Roger takes a submachine gun walks over and shoots Frank who falls over. The chief bad guy, and all of us watching the show, are convinced Roger killed Frank and he’s now decided to join the bad guy side. Except, as it turns out, Roger didn’t really shoot Frank. He had loaded the gun with blanks and Frank took a dive. Now, on TV that’s going to work. Because TV censors have decided that the sight of actual blood is too much for viewers. So people who are shot on TV just fall down and die without a mark on them. But it was unrealistic as hell to pretend that the chief bad guy wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between Frank pretending to be shot by a submachine gun and Frank really being shot by a submachine gun. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/126 "2006-03-04T21:15:50Z")
Sort of a plothole, more of an annoying scene: In _The Notebook_, James Garner is in a private meeting with the doctor, who refers to the patient as “Miss Hamilton”. While that might make sense when around her (she seems unaware of her marriage), it’s either incredibly insensitive or insulting when speaking directly to her husband. Of course the only reason for this is so that there’s a “surprise” ending (more of an attempted emotionally manipulative payoff) when it’s finally revealed what happened. This error made me think there was something else going on, which at least kept it interesting, but ultimately just annoyed me. The movie would have been 10-500x better if James Garner had turned out to be the ‘Baxter’ (Asa?). ---
**Author:** ![mamboman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@mamboman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamboman)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/127 "2006-03-04T23:29:42Z")
Dunno if it’s a plothole, per se, more like a monent which just doesn’t fit, but in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, why does Dave tell HAL he’d like to hear him sing the song? Just seems out of character for Dave, being so determined as he was to shut HAL down. Was he feeling sympathy for HAL? mm ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/128 "2006-03-04T23:35:16Z")
> [@mamboman](#): > > Dunno if it’s a plothole, per se, more like a monent which just doesn’t fit, but in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, why does Dave tell HAL he’d like to hear him sing the song? Just seems out of character for Dave, being so determined as he was to shut HAL down. Was he feeling sympathy for HAL? > > mm Dave is lonely, scared, irrational himself by now, and apparantly having some second thoughts. ymmv ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2006, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/129 "2006-03-05T08:57:28Z")
> [@mamboman](#): > > Dunno if it’s a plothole, per se, more like a monent which just doesn’t fit, but in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, why does Dave tell HAL he’d like to hear him sing the song? Just seems out of character for Dave, being so determined as he was to shut HAL down. Was he feeling sympathy for HAL? I got the impression that Dave wasn’t actually angry with HAL, he understood that HAL was just a computer that was behaving irrationally because it had been given conflicting orders. He knows that he needs to shut HAL down, but there’s no feeling of revenge or triumph. Plus, I think he was a bit rattled when HAL started saying that he was afraid. Or, Dave could have thought that if HAL’s occupied with singing his dumb song, he won’t try anything while Dave’s yanking out the last control chips. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2006, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/130 "2006-03-05T09:55:51Z")
> [@Airman Doors](#): > > But not this town. Oh, no. Life goes on as usual, all the way to the end when the storm hits. There’s no mention of it, and they all seem taken by surprise. In 1986. :rolleyes: Not defending the movie, which I’ve never seen, but [exactly this situation](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/16/newsid_2533000/2533219.stm) happened in England. In 1987. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2006, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/131 "2006-03-05T10:25:21Z")
It’s not a movie, but in the final episode of **Star Trek: The Next Generation** ("All Good Things . . . "), the plot centers around Picard traveling between three different time periods. In the earlier two, he encounters a strange anomaly in space. It’s larger in the earlier time. This is eventually explained by the fact that the anomaly is made of _anti-time_; it is created in the future and then grows backwards into the past, so that the further back you go the bigger it gets. If Picard can’t find a way to stop it, it will keep growing back in time until it destroys humanity before they ever existed. Picard leads a ship to look for the anomaly in the future-most of the three time periods, but they don’t find anything. The crew thinks Picard has gone senile. But then there’s the pivotal scene in the 10-Forward lounge, where Picard realizes that he _created_ the anomaly by scanning for it in all three time periods. The reason they hadn’t seen it in the future-most time period was because they hadn’t created it yet. The crew returns to the site of the anomaly, and sure enough, there it is. Picard is vindicated. Coordinating their actions in all three time periods, they manage to destroy it. Q (who has been manipulating events the whole time) explains to Picard that his realization of the paradox in 10-Forward was the key – at that moment he revealed humanity’s true potential to see beyond their limitations and so forth. Too bad Picard’s realization makes no sense. If they _created_ the anomaly by performing their scan, then in should have been there _before_ the scan, and _not_ been their when they returned afterwards. Because it was already established that the anomaly grows _backwards in time_. ---
**Author:** ![RobuSensei](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/919ad9/32.png) [@RobuSensei](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobuSensei)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/132 "2006-03-05T15:47:28Z")
[Another view on Gilligan’s Island.](http://www.montecook.com/arch_lineos55.html) Short version: The money, the clothes, the tons of visitors who instantly forget how to get back to the island, all of it was the delusions of one survivor laying on the beach, dehydrated, delirious, dying… ---
**Author:** ![urban1a](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47c2d/32.png) [@urban1a](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urban1a)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/133 "2006-03-05T18:10:01Z")
I remember seeing an old British movie (maybe SciFi, maybe ‘The Day The Earth Caught Fire’) and they referred to a cyclone in the US but the accompanying picture was of a tornado. Could that what the movie could have been trying to suggest? Bob ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2006, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/134 "2006-03-05T18:22:14Z")
Wasn’t the tornado in _The Wizard of Oz_ referred to as a cyclone? Did the word ever have a dual meaning? ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2006, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718/135 "2006-03-05T19:36:07Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > _Silence of the Lambs_–Even if Hannibal could get his handcuffs off with a paper cilp/ink pen improvised gimzo, when he attacked the first cop, they second cop would have shot him dead in about 5 seconds. And then in _Hannibal_ we see that the man who could get his handcuffs off while his wrists were shackled together behind his back through a cell door using only a tool improvised from a ball point pen… had one hand cuffed to Starling’s through a refrigerator door handle in a fully stocked kitchen and was unable to find any way to escape that did not involve cutting someone’s hand off. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-biggest-plothole-and-other-ridiculous-scenes-in-movies/346718.md?page=6)