Whether you enjoy gripping psychological thrillers or action-packed sci-fi, there's nothing like watching a well-written movie with a surprising storyline and believable characters. However, some films have such bad mistakes in their scripts, they destroy our sense of disbelief and neither the score nor the actors' performances can save the moment.
From Gravity to Home Alone, Bored Panda put together a list of popular movies with plot holes you may not have noticed before, but beware: SPOILERS AHEAD.
After you're done scrolling, feel free to fire up our earlier article on the topic, too.
#1 Gravity
In Gravity, Matt was floating away and ordered Ryan to let go of the tethered rope, but since there's no gravity in space all Ryan had to do was gently pull the rope toward her to bring Matt back.
Image credits: Warner Bros
#2 Tangled
In Tangled, everything revolved around Rapunzel seeing the lights on her birthday, but Mother Gothel could have just lied about which day she was born.
Image credits: Walt Disney Studios
#3 Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (2004)
"The way the Marauders' Map works...wouldn't Fred and George have SEEN Peter Pettigrew sleeping in bed with Ron every night on the map?"
Image credits: Warner Bros.
#4 Avengers: Endgame
In Avengers: Endgame, Captain America traveled back in time to return the Infinity Stones, which would have changed the current timeline, yet he somehow managed to reappear in the present to give Falcon his shield. Captain America reappearing in the same timeline he left goes against all of the time travel rules Bruce Banner originally laid out. Also, how the heck did Captain America return the Stones that were on different galaxies?!
Image credits: Marvel Studios Films
#5 Toy Story
In Toy Story, if Buzz was so convinced he was a real space ranger, why did he adhere to all of the standard toy rules, like "playing dead" when a person was in the room?
Image credits: Pixar
#6 Home Alone
In Home Alone, Kevin's mom wasn't able to call him from Paris because the phone lines were down, yet Kevin was somehow able to call and order himself a pizza.
Image credits: Hughes Entertainment
#7 A Quiet Place
In A Quiet Place, instead of making shelter near the waterfall (i.e. the only place where the killer monsters couldn't hear them), they lived on a noisy farm.
Image credits: Sunday Night Productions and Platinum Dunes
#8 Star Wars Series
In the Star Wars series, the lack of air and differences in gravitational pull should have affected everyone on each new planet, especially since they're different sizes and don't have the same atmospheric pressures.
Image credits: Lucasfilm
#9 Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019)
"The line: 'Somehow, Palpatine has returned' about sums it all up."
Image credits: Lucasfilm
#10 Monsters University
In Monsters University, Mike and Sully didn't meet until their first year of college, but in Monster's, Inc. they claimed to be friends since elementary school.
Image credits: Pixar
#11 Every Single Christmas Movie
In literally every single Christmas movie, none of the parents believe in Santa, yet every year there are several unexpected presents under the tree and no one questions it.
Image credits: Walt Disney Pictures
#12 Independence Day (1996)
"Oh, this human-made computer virus magically works on their alien technology, too, because that's how computers work."
Image credits: Centropolis Entertainment
#13 Signs (2002)
"Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix find out that water is toxic to the aliens...yet the aliens have been fine walking around with all the natural humidity in the air on a planet made up of MOSTLY water."
Image credits: The Kennedy/Marshall Company
#14 The Matrix
There’s a lot of rules to remember in The Matrix. Here’s an important one: Everyone who jacks into the Matrix needs someone to plug them in, make sure they’re okay, and let them back into the real world. Got it? Good. Now forget about it. Cypher (Joe Pantoliano) visits the evil Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) in the Matrix to betray his crew. And he does all of this alone! Even though we just saw that you can’t do that alone! How? Some viewers insist he created his own code to get around this rule.
Image credits: Warner Bros
#15 Detective Pikachu (2019)
"When I saw this in theaters, the whole movie was ruined for me when his dad turned out to be Ryan Reynolds. You’re telling me this kid didn't AUTOMATICALLY recognize his dad’s voice the minute Pikachu started talking? Are you kidding me? I’m even willing to suspend my belief and say MAYBE he didn’t think about it immediately because of the shock of a talking Pikachu...but he doesn’t figure it out until the end of the movie."
Image credits: Warner Bros.
#16 The Little Mermaid
She wants to be where the people are. So Ariel, The Little Mermaid herself, makes a deal to gain legs and lose her voice, just so she can go above the sea and fall in love with Prince Eric. Complications, often involving charades, ensue. But why didn’t she write on a piece of paper to Eric about what was going on? After all, we see her write in English earlier when she signs her name for the deal. Fans asked animators this question at an event. The animators just smiled and said, “Next question.”
Image credits: Walt Disney Studios
#17 The Meg
In The Meg, the megalodons were trapped in an unexplored part of the ocean before the submarine allowed them to escape, yet Jonas somehow encountered a meg five years earlier on a different rescue mission.
Image credits: Maeday Productions
#18 The Dark Knight Rises
In The Dark Knight Rises, every single member of the Gotham police force was sent underground and got trapped, but then they magically emerged MONTHS later, all clean-shaven and well-dressed.
Image credits: Warner Bros
#19 Men In Black
In Men in Black, Earth was literally going to be blown up in an hour, but only two agents (one of whom was a newbie) were sent to save the world.
Image credits: Columbia Pictures
#20 Beauty And The Beast
In Beauty and the Beast, the Beast was actually a prince, which meant he would have been highly educated, so why did Belle have to teach him how to read?
Image credits: Walt Disney Studios
#21 The Purge (2013)
"You can just...leave the country beforehand. Also, why does no one ever try to do fraud during those hours? What a waste of potential."
Image credits: Universal Pictures
#22 Titanic
Despite letting go, they’re never letting go. The love story of Jack and Rose, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, is doomed from the start of Titanic. We know this, based on the movie’s title alone. But it doesn’t stop us from becoming emotionally invested. We do have one question. Why didn’t Rose just, like, move a couple inches to her left? If you look at that raft, and you look at how tiny 1997-Leo is, it is obvious that there’s enough room for him to fit and for them to live their dang lives!
Image credits: Paramount Pictures
#23 Limitless
In Limitless, Bradley Cooper becomes the world’s smartest man thanks to a new wonder drug. It’s actually quite an enjoyable and entertaining film (until the silly ending). However, it’s let down by one of those plot contrivances that once read, destroys the film. If he’s so smart, why does he think it’s a good idea to borrow money from a mobster? I’m an idiot and I know not to do that.
Image credits: Rogue Pictures
#24 Mamma Mia!
In Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, a huge chunk of the sequel was about Donna's very-much-alive mother (aka Cher), but in the original movie she claimed her mother was dead.
Image credits: Universal Pictures
#25 The Martian (2015)
"Dust storms of destructive magnitudes physically cannot happen on Mars, but Matt Damon can still play one hell of a botanist."
Image credits: Scott Free Productions
#26 Back To The Future (1985)
"How did Marty’s dad not recognize that his son grew up to be the person that helped him get the girl he wanted? Like, he didn't even think he looked remotely familiar later in life."
Image credits: Universal Pictures
#27 Gremlins
Gremlins has three rules for dealing with the title creatures: Don’t put them in sunlight. Don’t put them in water. And don’t feed them after midnight. If you do any of these, you’ll risk turning the cuties into destructive, bloodthirsty creatures. Simple enough, right? Let’s look closer… “Don’t feed them after midnight.” Technically speaking, it’s… always after midnight. And, simultaneously, before midnight. 12:01am is both one minute after midnight and 23 hours and 59 minutes before the next midnight. Is midnight the only time you’re allowed to feed them? Our brain hurts!
Image credits: Warner Bros
#28 Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban
In the third, more mature Harry Potter adventure, the magical gang uses a time-traveling device called a Time Turner to go back and save Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) and Harry himself (Daniel Radcliffe) from the clutches of evil Dementors. How cool! And, potentially, how franchise-killing! Why not use the Time Turner for every single adventure they’ve ever been on? Matter fact, why not go back and stop Harry’s parents from being killed by Voldemort in the first place? Fans of HP’s deep lore have justified it, but the movies make no attempt.
Image credits: Warner Bros
#29 Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
Have you heard of Star Wars? Robots, lightsabers, Death Stars? In the first prequel installment, The Phantom Menace, it’s discovered that Anakin “Grows Up To Be Darth Vader” Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) built C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and interacted with R2D2 (Kenny Baker) all the time. Cute, right? So why, in the original trilogy, does Darth “Used To Be Anakin Skywalker” Vader not recognize the droids? Why doesn’t he say or do anything with them? Has he become so hardened he’s “forgotten his past”? Or is it because the prequels were “not very well thought out”?
Image credits: Lucasfilm
#30 Mean Girls
On Wednesdays, we poke plot holes in popular film comedies. At one point in Mean Girls, everyone believes Cady (Lindsay Lohan) made the Burn Book that was actually made by Regina (Rachel McAdams) and the rest of the Plastics. She’s shunned from school as a result. But if this theory is meant to be plausible, how would Cady have any pictures or information on anyone in the school, given the fact that she’s a brand new student? Would they assume that she’s the speediest investigative journalist that ever lived?
Image credits: Paramount Pictures
#31 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
The kind of plot hole that gives directors and scriptwriters nightmares can be found in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – Angelina Jolie’s fun but flawed video game adaptation from 2001. The film focuses on Lara Croft’s mission to protect the world from the Illuminati, who are planning to use an artefact called the Triangle during a solar eclipse to inflict devastation on the world – a peak 00s plot if ever we’ve heard one. We learn that the Triangle is split into two parts, and after acquiring the first of them in Cambodia, Croft sets off on another perilous journey to retrieve the second in Siberia. The problem is, we already know the Triangle can’t work without both halves, so all Croft had to do was destroy the half she already had in her possession and the job would be done.
Image credits: Eidos Interactive
#32 E.T.
The iconic bike scene proves E.T. is basically magic and can levitate objects. So… why doesn’t he just levitate himself right at the beginning of the film and get back onto his spaceship? He’s really close to it! Poor E.T.
Image credits: Universal Pictures
#33 Hocus Pocus
In Hocus Pocus, Max, Dani, and Allison could have just surrounded themselves and the book in a circle of salt to prevent the Sanderson Sisters from getting them.
Image credits: Walt Disney Studios
#34 Beauty And The Beast (1991)
"When Belle is singing at the beginning to the sheep, we are given a clear view of the book she just took out of the library. We see an entire page that is covered in an illustration. Later, Gaston asks Belle, 'How can you read this? There's no pictures!' Yes, there are!"
Image credits: Walt Disney Studios
#35 28 Weeks Later (2007)
"Really? No one was guarding the wife who had just been rescued from the infected zone? They were wary of her enough to strap her down, but not enough to order a guard to watch her even though they did so for the two kids? Right."
Image credits: Koan Films
#36 Armageddon (1998)
"I like to imagine there was a conversation behind the scenes like this: Ben Affleck: 'Wouldn't it be easier to train astronauts to be drillers than it would be to train oil drillers to be astronauts?' Michael Bay: 'Shut the [hell] up.'"
Image credits: Touchstone Pictures
#37 Jurassic Park (1993)
"The buildup to the introduction of the T-Rex in this is great. They literally made her seismic. You didn't know where she was coming from, but you definitely knew she was coming...then at the end, she sneaks up on everyone inside of a building."
Image credits: Universal Pictures
#38 Citizen Kane
Widely considered one of the best movies ever made, Orson Welles’ sprawling Citizen Kane begins with an enigma: Rosebud. The last word uttered by Charles Foster Kane, a wealthy and controversial newspaper publisher, right before he dies. What does this word mean? That question powers the entire movie. But here’s the thing: Nobody heard him say Rosebud. It’s made clear that he’s alone when he dies. So how does anyone know? If this moment were to be taken at face value, then literally the entire movie shouldn’t be able to happen. Hmm. Maybe some plot holes are fine.
Image credits: Mercury Theatre
#39 Terminator 2: Judgment Day
In the first Terminator, it’s explained that you can only send living tissue back through time, which explains why the first John Connor-killing robot is introduced to us sans clothing. The second one, Judgment Day, calls back to that moment by having T-1000 (Robert Patrick) be nude, too. But wait… T-1000 is made entirely of liquid metal. So he shouldn’t have been able to go back in time at all. There’s no living tissue involved with metal, clothing or not! Unless Skynet made some off-camera modifications to their time travel mechanics, we say “hasta la vista” to this movie’s logic.
Image credits: Le Studio Canal+ S.A.
#40 Reservoir Dogs
Near the end of Quentin Tarantino’s debut film Reservoir Dogs, four people have guns on each other. And nearly simultaneously, all of them go off. Everyone falls to the ground. A dark, absurd ending to a dark, absurd film. Except… nobody shot Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn). If you look at the scene, nobody has a gun on him, and everyone fires at someone else. Eddie’s death came from… nothing. In fact, Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) was supposed to shoot him, but Penn’s blood pack exploded before he could — and Tarantino left the mistake in.
Image credits: Dog Eat Dog Productions
#41 Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
In one of Ocean’s Eleven’s delicious final reveals, the Bellagio vault’s money is found to have been switched out with nothing but adult ads. The perfect way for Danny Ocean (George Clooney) to turn the final screw on Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). So how’d the titular eleven pull that off? Um… well… no one knows. Not even the film’s director, Steven Soderbergh. On his commentary track for the film, he admits it would’ve been impossible for the crew to do that. Looks like what happens in Vegas doesn’t need to be explained in Vegas.
Image credits: Warner Bros
#42 Minority Report
In Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise’s twisty sci-fi thriller Minority Report, “precogs” are psychics that hang out in a big bathtub (seriously) and tell the police about future crimes. In other words, they see murders happening, allowing policemen like Cruise to stop them before they happen. Understand? Kind of? Humor us here: If what the precogs see are the real “future,” and the outcome is getting arrested before the crimes are committed, then precogs wouldn’t see the actual crime, because it never happened. They would just see the arrest. Right? Or do we need to take a giant bath?
Image credits: 20th Century Fox/DreamWorks Pictures
#43 The Dark Knight
Heath Ledger’s terrifying Joker crashes a lavish fundraising party for Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). When he can’t find the attorney, he decides to chuck Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) out a window instead. Batman (Christian Bale) falls after her, rescues her from death, and onto the next scene we go! But, wait, pause for a sec. When Batman and Rachel fly out of that window, the Joker… was just at the party. With a bunch of innocent people. What happened? Did the Joker just… leave? Let all these people go? Or did they mingle and make awkward small talk?
Image credits: Warner Bros
#44 Hercules (1997)
Hades (James Woods), king of the underworld, wants Hercules (Tate Donovan) dead. He puts his best henchmen, Pain and Panic (Bobcat Goldthwait and Matt Frewer), on the job. They tell him he’s dead. And Hades believes them, for quite some time! But, as we know, they’re dead wrong. Hercules may be super strong. But Hades is, without exaggeration, the king of the underworld. Why didn’t he double check that Hercules was actually dead? Just by, like, looking around? He lives and works in the place where dead people go. Wouldn’t Hercules have shown up?
Image credits: Walt Disney Studios
#45 Edward Scissorhands
In the final moments of Tim Burton’s fantastically morbid romance Edward Scissorhands, Johnny Depp’s titular creation carves beautiful ice sculptures out of his, well, scissor hands, while an older Kim (Winona Ryder in wild makeup) waxes mythological about their romance. Beautiful? Yes. Possible? Hmm… Edward is shown working in an attic. So where did the ice come from? Edward couldn’t have gotten it himself, because he can’t sleep in a dang waterbed without his scissorhands getting in the way. Plus, how does he keep all the ice frozen in a SoCal attic?
Image credits: 20th Century Studios
#46 Ant-Man
The MCU got a fun jolt of unorthodox humor with 2015’s Ant-Man, starring Paul Rudd. Rudd’s superhero can shrink down to the size of an ant and back. But there’s a rule that he’s told often: His mass doesn’t change. He weighs the same tiny as he did normal. If taken seriously, this would render essential moments, like ants picking a tiny Ant-Man up, impossible. It would also mean he couldn’t sneak around vents — his weight would collapse them instantly. And in Captain America: Civil War, his growing bigger wouldn’t give him super strength.
Image credits: Marvel
#47 National Treasure
We know — most of the Nicolas Cage adventure flick is renowned for its calm, patient accuracy. But there’s something seriously off about the famous moment when Cage’s Benjamin Franklin Gates steals the Declaration of Independence. Other than the sheer lunacy of those words put together in that order. When Ben reads the Declaration later, we see it starts with “We the people”. But that’s the opening to the Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration begins with “When in the course of human events”. Either Ben made a serious miscalculation, or that’s a huge filmmaking error!
Image credits: Walt Disney Studios
#48 Star Trek: What Was Nero Doing For 25 Years?
Nero arrives in the Star Trek past all-guns blazing. It’s one of the finest sci-fi action scenes ever committed to film, and is responsible for much of the goodwill the 2009 Star Trek garnered. Nero has the technology and the motive to wreak havoc across the galaxy. So what does he do? Apparently sits around in his mining ship for 25 years waiting for Spock to arrive. Uh, ok… Now actually, there’s a deleted scene which explains this plot hole – Nero’s ship is damaged from Kirk Senior’s heroic sacrifice, and he’s therefore unable to prevent his capture by Klingons. So he then spends a good couple of decades in a prison. However, with it out of the film, it does make you wonder. I’m choosing to ignore some of the other plot holes in Star Trek – it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
Image credits: Bad Robot Productions
#49 Cars: Who Built The World?
There’s a whole world built vaguely along human lines, but inhabited by cars. Who built it? Why do they need towns? I like to think that there’s a whole Planet Of The Apes subplot which will be revealed one day where humans built hyper-intelligent cars who eventually overthrew their masters and then proceeded to remake society along the only lines they knew how – human civilisation. Leaving us with a mockery of our own world. A lot of people also think they’re being clever and ask how they reproduce, but that’s a silly question. They get made in factories. However, the very best solution to this plot hole can be found in the Pixar Theory. If you’ve yet to have the pleasure, I suggest you make a cup of tea and look it up.
Image credits: Pixar Animation Studio
#50 Avatar: Go Back Home
Pandora is saved. Go back home to your dying planet you humans! I like to believe that yes, the defeated humans did reflect on what they had done, and maybe decided to value life and nature above commerce and needless industrialisation. After all, that was the subtle message James Cameron was trying to teach us. But even when watching the film for the first time, all I could think was, won’t the surviving military just go back to their ship in orbit and nuke the now clearly hostile and dangerous natives? Because that’s what I would do. Of course, they might not have had weapons aboard, and the plot of the sequel may well be the return of the angry earthlings. In which case, ignore this.
Image credits: 20th Century Studios
#51 The Amazing Spider-Man: Lizard’s Rubbish Plan
Honestly, does creating lizard men make any sense to anyone? Why is he doing it? Does he even know? In fact, the entire character is just completely all over the place and never really defined – can he control when and how he turns into a lizard? Is he simply a lackey of the unseen Norman Osborn? How can he find time to go and fight Peter Parker at his high-school when he’s on a strict evil plan time-scale? But none of the Lizard issues annoy me as much as when Peter dresses up as Spider-Man to keep his identity secret and then goes around taking pictures on a camera which is clearly marked PETER PARKER.
Image credits: Marvel
#52 Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes: Never Questioning The Monkey
Not once – once! – in five years together does Freida Pinto’s character decide to ask James Franco why he has a super intelligent child-ape in his house. There’s nothing else to say.
Image credits: RatPac-Dune Entertainment
#53 Return Of The Jedi: Storm Trooper Armour
We all love Ewoks (we do), but even as a child I was a bit incredulous that the cute little bears could defeat an entire legion of the Emperor’s best troops. It wasn’t their ingenuity or fighting skills I doubted though, it was the fact that sticks and stones could apparently pierce armour. It must have been made of paper they way some of them go down. Obviously, the Empire is an expensive thing to run, especially when you’ve got a penchant for building moon-sized super-weapons with a limited shelf-life, but you’d hope that your best soldiers could get some decent blast armour…
Image credits: Lucasfilm
#54 The Lion King
In an unexpected moment of love for his last surviving blood relative, Scar lets Simba go rather than confirming his position of power and right to rule. ‘Run Simba, run far away and never come back’. Then he has a change of heart and sends the frankly incompetent hyenas to do the deed. It’s only the most important mission left for Scar to do, and, yeah, I get he doesn’t want to get his claws dirty, and cub murder is probably a bit much for a Disney cartoon, but come on! I wonder what happens in Kimba The White Lion?
Image credits: Walt Disney Pictures
#55 Spider-Man: Far From Home
In Spider-Man: Far From Home, EDITH was so advanced and even had facial recognition technology, but for some reason she couldn't identify Beck as an ex-Stark employee or that everything in the bar was an illusion.
Image credits: Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios
#56 Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
"They explain that if you give away the magic compass, it releases your worst fear. Jack's worst fear is Salazar and his crew, so they are freed from the Devil's Triangle when Jack trades the compass for rum. The thing is...Jack willingly gave away the compass multiple times in the previous movies, and Salazar was not freed? To be fair, the exact words were 'If you betray the compass' and, since Jack plans out everything, maybe in the previous movies he knew he would get the compass back?"
Image credits: Walt Disney Studios
#57 The Ring (2002)
"In the American version, the key plot point for the ghoul is that she's at the bottom of a well and the last thing she sees is a ring of light as they slide the covering over the top. The well top is thick brick. The round wooden cover is larger then the hole — obviously, or it would fall down and be a terrible well lid. They clearly slide the lid over the well. Basically, they should have called this The Crescent, because that's what she actually would've seen. I couldn't get over it the whole movie."
Image credits: MacDonald/Parkes Productions
#58 The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
"How do Uruk-Hai know what a 'menu' is?! Has Uruk-Hai civilization advanced enough to have a restaurant/food service industry? Are there restaurants in Isengard? Why would Saruman develop a restaurant/food service industry in Isengard when it seems like he was on a total war footing at all times, and likely wouldn't want to waste logistics and resources on developing restaurants where his dark forces could dine?"
Image credits: New Line Cinema
#59 The Karate Kid
Using the crane kick trained and perfected by Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), Daniel (Ralph Macchio) knocks out Johnny (William Zabka) and wins the tournament! Movie over, everyone cheers! Except — was this move legal? Should Daniel have been disqualified? Was he the secret villain of The Karate Kid the entire time? Earlier in the film, it’s said that “hits to the face” are not permitted, not specifying whether that includes kicks. Macchio himself called the crane kick a clear violation, and the later YouTube series Cobra Kai features its alleged legitimacy as a prominent plot point.
Image credits: Columbia Pictures
#60 Batman Begins
At the beginning of Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Dark Knight Trilogy, Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) has been slowly putting fear toxin into the water supply. Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson) goes even further, setting off an explosive microwave emitter that releases the drug at the source of Gotham’s supply. For one — if Scarecrow’s been doing it for awhile, why hasn’t everyone gone crazy already from his plan? For two — after al Ghul sets off his bonkers bomb, we see water explode. The human body is made out of 72% water. Shouldn’t humans be exploding, too?
Image credits: Warner Bros
#61 Ant-Man And The Wasp
In Ant-Man and the Wasp, no one noticed Hank's giant lab that would mysteriously appear and then disappear at random parts of the city, even though he was trying to be discreet while hiding from the FBI.
Image credits: Marvel
#62 The Hangover
In The Hangover, after going on a huge series of comical misadventures to try and find groom-to-be Doug (Justin Bartha), the Wolfpack (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis) realizes he’s just been on the Vegas hotel roof the entire time. Haha! All’s well that ends well! Except: Why didn’t Doug try to escape? If you were stuck on top of a building, wouldn’t you do anything to get down? And, frankly, how is Doug still alive? It would’ve been burning hot in Las Vegas in July, and he would’ve been majorly dehydrated at least.
Image credits: Warner Bros.
#63 Star Wars
There are plenty of plot holes in the Star Wars franchise, thanks mainly to narrative and timeline problems caused by the prequel films. However, arguably the biggest quirk comes at the end of the Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, when we learn that Obi-Wan Kenobi has taken it upon himself to protect baby Luke Skywalker from his father. How does he plan to do it? By keeping his surname and taking him to Darth Vader’s home planet of Tatooine, of course. Nice work, Obi-Wan — he’ll never think to look there.
Image credits: Lucasfilm
#64 Back To The Future Part III: The Extra Delorean
So, this is most likely one of the first plot holes many of you would ever have noticed. Marty arrives back in 1885 in a DeLorean. Sadly, the time machine springs a leak and loses all its fuel – gasoline proving hard to obtain in the 19th Century. Cue he and Doc creating an ingenious and ridiculous plan to power the DeLorean via a steam train, and various rail hijinks en-route. But: why didn’t they just dig up the fully-fuelled DeLorean the Doc had buried in the mineshaft awaiting his 1955 counterpart? Timey-wimey, wibbly wobbly stuff, I guess. More BTTF paradoxes can be found here.
Image credits: Universal Pictures
#65 The Terminator: Why Doesn’t Skynet Just Send More Terminators Back?
You’d think Skynet would want to make sure the job was done. But no, it just very occasionally sends one solitary Terminator back in time and then assumes it’s done completed its mission – a slightly risky strategy for a supposedly infallible sentient machine one might think. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of Terminators lying around. However, my favourite answer to this was suggested by critic Devin Faraci, and neatly ties in Terminator Salvation into the franchise in a way that makes it suck a hell of a lot less. Skynet is damaged at the end of Salvation, almost beaten in fact. It’s been driven to extreme action – using the last of its power to send one Terminator back in time in a desperate attempt to destroy the future, and thwart its own destruction. I really wish they’d put this on-screen.
Image credits: Hemdale Film Corporation
#66 The Avengers: Why Don’t They Bother Keeping An Eye On Bruce Banner?
So, SHIELD takes the trouble of taking their top agent, Natalia, off a vitally important mission (right in the middle of a dangerous situation too, and violating what appears to be Russian sovereignty with the threat of blowing up the building with missiles) and sending her to India with a full squad of heavily armed soldiers in order to ask Bruce Banner to come in. They’ve also spent millions researching and actually building a cage for his alter-ego. They know exactly what Hulk can do. Yet once they’ve got him onboard, the top-secret, state of the art HeliCarrier, they let Bruce casually wander around with no restraints, and no one watching him – free to be shocked by Tony Stark into potentially Hulking out. Guess they thought Banner was a really cool guy once they met him in person.
Image credits: Marvel Studios Films
#67 Iron Man 2: The Whiplash Master Plan
In a stodgy Iron Man 2, Whiplash’s attack on the Monaco Grand Prix is a real highlight – and a heart-pounding action scene. Posing as a pit crew member, Whiplash gets onto the track and directly attacks Tony Stark, who just happens to be driving a racing car, after impulsively deciding he wanted to and chucking his driver out (probably someone who would have won the race like Vettel). So how did Whiplash know he was going to do that?
Tony Stark didn’t even know he was going to do that until moments before. Is it another case of a villain magically being able to see into the future and being able to plan for everything? (see Skyfall entry later on). Well, actually, I think not. Whiplash knew Tony was likely to be at the Grand Prix – it’s a lavish event after all. And he knew if he caused some shit, Tony would respond – leading to the same fight on the track. He just got lucky with Tony deciding to drive.
Image credits: Marvel
#68 Skyfall: Silva’s Gift Of Prophecy
Was this the straw that broke the back of the ‘villain meaning to get caught’ plot device? Perhaps, as no matter how fine a film Skyfall is (and it is), Silva’s ridiculous plan just gets even sillier on re-watches. Even if we buy into the fact that his plan was first to attack M but not kill her – destroying her office, leak the agents’ identities and therefore get the government to summon her to a hearing and dismiss her in disgrace, we then have to accept that this was all to lead her into an exposed position for him to kill her – that two henchmen give him a fake police uniform backs up the fact that the hearing was always the target. But even ignoring that he could plant some explosives to bring down a tube train directly on top of Bond mid-chase, how did he know he would be captured when he was? What if Q took ages deciphering the code? He would have missed the court hearing! Oh well, it’s still a beautiful film.
Image credits: Columbia Pictures
#69 Superman: Convenient Powers
The original Superman movie has often been held up as an example of how to do a comic book movie right. It’s a truly brilliant depiction of Superman on-screen, but one thing has always bothered me about it. That stupid ending. So despite it never being mentioned at all, Superman suddenly knows he has the ability to fly round the Earth really fast and turn back time? See my earlier Harry Potter entry for how that might have been a convenient power to re-use. Then in the almost as good sequel, he’s at it again – with his magical amnesia kiss to take away the knowledge that Clark Kent is Superman. What are these powers, his special party tricks?
Image credits: Dovemead Ltd
#70 X-Men III: Wolverine
In X-Men: The Last Stand’s finale, Phoenix Jean Grey is literally tearing reality apart and ripping people into nothingness. Wolverine battles his way to his unrequited love, skin ripping from his adamantium frame. His life is being destroyed. But,weirdly, not his pants. They seem to be made from something even stronger than adamantium. No peek of a Wolver-willy for us then.
Image credits: Marvel
#71 Star Trek II
Proof that even the very finest of movies aren’t immune from gaps in logic. While of course Chekov would realise the danger they were in once the name Botany Bay is revealed, just how exactly does Khan ‘remember’ Chekov – who wasn’t even on-board the Enterprise when Space Seed took place. That’s some incredible super-human skills you have there Mr Khan. However, it took me years to realise this – so chances are no one really minds.
Image credits: Paramount Pictures
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