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19 Of The Most Infamous ‘Plot Holes’ That The Movies Actually Explained, But The Audience Didn’t Notice
Article created by: Mindaugas Balčiauskas
Ah, plot holes—they’re gaping maws where the lack of logic meets bad writing to capsize a movie and make it sink just like Jack from ‘Titanic’ (sorry, was that too soon to make a joke about it? Rose might not like it!).
But… here’s the problem. Some major movie plot holes aren’t even plot holes! In fact, the films themselves explain everything away, whether openly or more subtly. To the perceptive viewer, everything makes sense because they see the producers gracefully covering their tracks through visual and verbal storytelling.
To the internet, however, these supposed ‘plot holes’ are a stain on the movies’ reputations. We’ve collected some of the best non-plot hole ‘plot holes’ for you to enjoy from the fun and enlightening thread by redditor Animeking1108 (you can tell that they’re a visual media fan already). Don’t forget to upvote the responses that made the most sense to you as you continue scrolling. Onward to cinematic glory!
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#1
Why Don't Marty's Parents Realize They'd Met Their Own Son/Remember What He Looked Like In Back To The Future (1985)?
They knew him for a week over 20 years before he would look like that. And the only people he saw on a regular basis in that week were Doc, who knew, and Lorraine, who would be eager to forget a silly teenage crush she had just before meeting her soulmate.
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#2
Why Kevin Didn't Call The Cops In Home Alone (1990)?
Phone line was cut from the falling trees.
#3
Why Did Voldemort Not Just Shoot Harry In Harry Potter?
He shoots zero people throughout the entire story. I doubt that he even knows what a gun is.
#4
Why Didn't Vader Sense That Leia Was His Daughter In Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode Iv) 1977?
Vader didn't sense that Luke was his son either. He thought Padme had a miscarriage. He only knows Luke is his son when Palpatine flat out tells him.
#5
Why Did Nasa Train Oil Drillers How To Be Astronauts When They Could've Just Trained Astronauts To Drill Oil In Armageddon (1998)?
Except that NASA and other space agencies do this all the time; they're called mission specialists and they have specialized training in some field the flight crew doesn't. They don't get taught how to fly the ship, just how not to die in space.
Also, for the record, drilling for oil — or any kind of deep core geological work — is extremely specialized, and most of the people in the positions the team of drillers in Armageddon were in have a lot of letters behind their names.
#6
Why Didn't They Just Fly The Eagles To Mordor In The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy?
Well, maybe that tower with the giant demonic eye could see them coming miles away and order an army of Orcs to shoot them down, just off the top of my head.
#7
If Buzz Lightyear Doesn't Think He's A Toy, Why Does He Freeze Up When Humans Are Around In Toy Story (1995)?
Because he's on an alien planet and that's what everyone else does when these giants walk into the room. He needs to blend in.
It also might just be an instinct all toys have. You can't exactly have toys not holding still just because they don't consciously know any better.
#8
Why Didn't Jack And Rose Just Share The Big Door In Titanic (1997) When They Could've Both Fit?
Jack and Rose could not have both gotten onto the door. They even showed Jack trying to climb up and the whole thing capsizing.
#9
Why Did The Couple In A Quiet Place (2018) Selfishly Decide To Have Another Baby In The Middle Of What Is Essentially An Apocalypse?
The couple likely got pregnant regardless of their own wishes. There's basically zero infrastructure left and they've been reduced to raiding an abandoned pharmacy for whatever random medicine might be left. Sure, they could probably find a few packs of pills and condoms, but after that, what exactly are your birth control options? Give yourself a birth control implant? Perform your own vasectomy? Pull out and hope for the best?
Sure, they probably could have been more careful, but the number of people I saw criticizing this as if it's impossible to get pregnant without consciously choosing to do so was hilarious.
Leolynn Cauthron 6 months ago
This is the era of idiot children. Many probably DONT understand how babies are made or just refuse to believe it. It’s also the era of anti-science so…
#10
How Did Batman Get Back Into Gotham In The Dark Knight Rises (2008) When It Was Under Bane's Control?
Obviously, Bruce is a man of stealth who knows every way into, out of, and through Gotham; not just the roads that were seized by Bane. The real question is how he recovered from that spinal break and hokey prison surgery enough to make the trek and fight at all.
#11
How Did Anyone Know Charles Foster Kane's Last Word In Citizen Kane (1941) When He Appeared To Die Alone?
Just because he’s the only one in the shot when he dies doesn’t mean none of his staff weren’t just out of shot.
#12
Why Emo Toby Maguire In Spiderman 3 (2007) Is So Cringey?
He is SUPPOSED to be cringey. People in the scene even comment on his cringiness.
#13
Katniss In Hunger Games (2012) Didn’t Let Prim Take Tesserae Because If Prim Got Picked, Katniss Could Volunteer For Her Anyway
The explanation is that if Prim takes tesserae, she will keep getting her name entered into the games more often every year, including after Katniss turns 18 and becomes ineligible to volunteer.
#14
In Captain America: Civil War (21016), Tony Stark Just Figures Out That Peter Parker Is Spider-Man And We Are Never Told How
That doesn't break the rules of the universe, however, since we know that Tony Stark can probably easily access a lot of security footage (he even shows some to Peter) and we can imagine that he used that to track Peter down; or there may be a different explanation, dude's an Avenger after all. It would be different if, say, that teacher from the maths competition group in Homecoming just knew Peter's identity, without explanation, because one of the rules of the universe is that Peter keeps his secret identity pretty secret
#15
How Does A Human-Made Virus Work On Alien-Made Technology In Independence Day (1996)?
Everyone jokes about the alien mothership not having anti-virus, but why would they? They're a hivemind species that communicates telepathically, and they seem to have an extremely high level of social cohesion. Computer viruses aren't like actual viruses. They're not naturally occurring; humans created them because humans are malicious towards each other. It's entirely possible an alien species that uses telepathy to communicate wouldn't even concieve of such a thing, and it doesn't seem likely that any of the species they've faced thus far have given them reason to consider it. Plus, even if they did have such defenses, at that point Jeff Goldblum has a direct hardline connection anyway.
#16
Harry Potter. Why Didn't They Just Use The Time-Turner To Go Back In Time And Defeat Voldemort?
Because the one Hermione has is only meant to go back hours, not days or years. And going back years would cause major disruptions anyway.
#17
That The Eagles Could Have Carried The Fellowship To Mordor And Circumvented The Whole Plot Of Lord Of The Rings
Sauron has flying things, too. And a bunch of giant eagles probably wouldn't go unnoticed and just gotten torn and/or shot out of the sky and the crash site thoroughly investigated.
(And yeah, if you've read the books, you know the eagles are sentient and probably would have refused. But I also get that's not obvious in the movies. So I try to confine myself to the films when talking with someone who's only seen the films.)
Leolynn Cauthron 6 months ago
Yep. The Eagles are sentient with wills of their own. They aren’t public transportation or Rent-a-Eagle. In fact my understanding is that they pretty much keep to themselves and helping the Fellowship was a really huge favor.
#18
Nobody “Teleported” In Game Of Thrones
The passage of time can speed up or slow down based on the needs of the narrative.
#19
Why Darth Vader Couldn't Sense That Lea Was His Daughter In Star Wars?
Vader couldn't sense Lea was his daughter because that's not something that's possible in the Star Wars universe. He didn't sense Luke, either. Palpatine literally told him.
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