The Real plot hole in Speed is that, by his own admission, it took Dennis Hopper’s character a long time to set up the bus sting. But he threw together the ransom grab (including cutting a hole in the sidewalk under the mailbox) practically overnight.
Wouldn’t that have stopped the bus and set off the explosive?
Not if he did it before the bus got to 50, which IIRC armed the bomb.
I’ve never seen the movie, but didn’t the bomb arm itself once the bus got over 50? happywaffle’s friend was talking about shooting out the tires before the bus got to that point.
I thought of that too! Actually it goes even further: he gripes about taking two years to set up the elevator thing in Act One. The bus thing happens an unspecified period of time later, maybe a few months? And it seems much more complicated to have done.
THEN there’s the ransom grab.
Wait, y’all are talking like the ransom grab wasn’t part of the bus thing from the beginning. He lures Jack to the bus and alerts him to the bomb to set up a hostage situation. It was obvious to me that a ransom demand was coming. What am I missing?
Ah, I had forgotten that bit. It’s been years since I’ve seen the movie.
I don’t know if “person in midst of stressful situation fails to think of obvious solution” is a plot hole… I mean, even if shooting out the tires on the bus in speed would have worked (and I have no idea how practical an idea that actually is), it strikes me as entirely plausible that Keanu was so stressed out about what was going on, and so committed to the idea that he would catch the bus and signal the driver, that he just plain didn’t think of any other options.
That’s different than, say, Die Hard 2, where an entire tower full of trained professionals, in a stressful-but-not-particularly-time-critical situation, somehow failed to come up with any of dozens of ways to contact all the plains in the air.
Is that really legal though? (I know, I know, realism isn’t Speed’s strong point).
To me it just seems really risky- to pull out a gun and shoot out the tires on a bus FILLED with innocent civilians?
Like i get it, if the guy was speeding or a robber or some fugitive, shooting out his tires.
But a random bus filled with civvies? Wouldn’t the potential for something like the bus crashing or flipping (unlikely, but still), warrant the use of caution? Plus, did he REALLY know there was a bomb on the bus? What if it was a lie, and he just shot an an innocent vehicle? It seems complicated and messy to just start firing then and there.
Speed 2.
Plot holes you could sail a cruise ship though.
Can’t shut off the engines? What no fuel valves? What no threaded fittings on the fuel lines? Engines don’t run without fuel.
Heading straight for the oil tanker, the hero turns the bow thrusters by hand and steers the ship away from a collision. Riiiiiight. Pull the other one, it has bells on it.
At the moment I’m referring to, the bus is pulling away from a stop, moving 20 mph or less. A blown tire or two would just stop the bus.
Regarding the Matrix question…
Aren’t the “operators” essentially just hackers? They are only needed to get into the Matrix if you don’t want the Machine to know about it. Otherwise, the machine controls access to the Matrix, and keeps millions of people there. For Joe P’s character, who’s not concerned about Agents since that’s the point of his trip, there is no need for the operators.
Granted, there are a lot of head scratching things in the Matrix, but that one didn’t seem too unbelievable, at least compared to the rest.
For these types of lists, I always bring up the first Superman movie with Chris Reeve. The entire point of Lex Luthor’s evil plan is that even with Supe’s great speed, he can’t go coast to coast in ~20 minutes to redirect both missiles. Yet, after Lois is dead, he can fly fast enough to circle the Earth several times per second. Not to mention fast enough to catch an ICBM in the first place.
Well, the way I heered it:
[spoiler]much of the movie is the killer’s (the female main character’s) imagination. Which means that the beginning was imagined, as well; the two girls were never friends, and they didn’t ride together to one girl’s home for a holiday. They never actually knew each other. Rather, the killer watched and obsessed over her from a distance, followed her home (in that mysterious truck), imagined the relationship, and set up this whole situation in her mind.
Of course, this doesn’t explain the shot of the killer (as a male) in the truck pleasuring himself with the severed head of a prior victim…[/spoiler]
Well, he was fine with commandeering somebody’s car and tearing the door off in a pretty risky piece of driving.
Back to the Future 2. 17-year-old Marty and Jennifer from 1985 go forward to 2015 to stop Marty’s son from being arrested. They succeed in that mission. Then Jennifer ends up at their future home, hidden in the closet, watching 47-year-old Marty mingle with the family.
That’s fine, except…there should be no 47-year-old Marty. He should arrive there only as a 17-year-old, with the rest of his family wondering where he’s been for the last 30 years.
Under that logic, there would be no 40something Jennifer either and no son to be rescued.
You have to read the book. The plot is extremely complicated. When the two film versions were made, they would have been practically x-rated if they followed Raymond Chandler’s book closely. Chandler is a master of plot twists. I read this as a pretty standard noir novel until the resolution. All of Chandler’s books are like that, and all are well worth reading in my opinion.
Hmm…yeah you’re right.
I read the book. I dunno about inadmissable, [spoiler]but the evidence was a taped conversation between him and his mistress, which has her admitting to being the driver when their car killed the young man. IIRC, the tape was created in an apartment that they had sublet for the purpose of their trysts, and the owner had had a private detective place bugs in the apartment, to detect the unauthorized sublet, which (I suppose) would have enabled him to evict the lessee, jack up the rent, and put it on the market again.
For some reason, this was considered to be problematic to the defense, so they had to concoct a plausible reason for Sherman to have placed the bugs himself, and a realistic story to show him to have had the necessary expertise.[/spoiler]
A more serious one from Back to the Future 2 is – after he’s stolen the deLorean and taken the Sports Guide back to his 1955 self, how can Biff return to the future where he stole the car? The future’s been changed! He shouldn’t be able to get to the one that Doc and Marty are in.
Another question is why he’d want to return to that future even if he could, when he’s got a time-travelling car at his disposal and can go anywhere (and anytime) he wants, and when returning the deLorean to the future just lets Doc and Martuy return to the past and undo everything.