[Paradigm]

I thought I'd make a thread for the more nitpicky among us to point out plot holes and other errors in famous movies, thereby ruining them for other people. Here's a few to start:

1. In The Matrix, it's established that you need "Operator" to plug you in and out of the Matrix. The character "Cypher," who acts as a sort of Judas in the film, meets with Agent Smith in the Matrix to collaborate with him and sell out the group. So who plugged him in?

2. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazis are trying to find the lost Ark of the Covenant, because apparently invoking the God of the people you're trying to exterminate sounds like a good idea. So Indy sets out to find the Ark before the Nazis get to it. But as we find out towards the end, Indy knows a secret about the Ark: it tends to melt people's faces off. Suppose the plan went perfectly, and they found the Ark, sent it back to Berlin to be unveiled by the fuhrer. BAM! Hitler's face turns into a pile of stinking fascist sludge. So the most rational course of action Indy could've taken would be to sit home and do absolutely nothing.

3. In The Terminator, a mechanical version of the former governor of California goes back in time to kill Sarah Connor before she can give birth to John Connor, the leader of the resistance to humanity's future robot overlords. So the humans send back Michael Biehn, a member of the resistance, to protect her. When sparks aren't flying from all the gunshots and mayhem, they're flying between Michael Biehn and Sarah Connor, and at the end of the movie, we find out that she's pregnant with John Connor. We also find out in Terminator 2 that the crushed remains of the Terminator contained a chip that falls into the hands of a computer company that ends up creating Skynet. So, wait a minute: The Terminator goes back in time to stop John Connor from being born, who wouldn't have been born if Michael Biehn hadn't gone back to stop the Terminator, and the Terminator wouldn't have been created if he hadn't gone back in time and left behind the computer chip used to create Skynet. Holy time paradox, Batman!

[Rich]

The terminator is still plausible to that point. Why shouldn't a future create itself through backwards time travel if that is possible? The problem is that the chip is destroyed at the end of film so there can't be any terminators at all. The end of film 2 of course happens before Michael Biehn's flashbacks from film 1.

[Lightman]

Terminator is easily solvable. Each incident of time travel creates a new timeline. In the original timeline, John Connor wasn't the son of Michael Beihn.

[quetzalcoatl]

[youtube]O4mQqVqRB7I[/youtube]

No one is in the room when Kane utters the word "rosebud." Technically this invalidates the entire premise of the movie.

[AFAIK]

In The Matrix, it's established that you need "Operator" to plug you in and out of the Matrix. The character "Cypher," who acts as a sort of Judas in the film, meets with Agent Smith in the Matrix to collaborate with him and sell out the group. So who plugged him in?

There's a scene in which Cypher is sat in front of the monitors and Neo walks up behind him. Startled Cypher exclaims, "You scared the bejeesus out of me!" It is possible that Cypher was conversing with Agent Smith here and the restaurant scene was a visual representation made for cinematic effect or because it fits on the screen better than a guy with a chat box. (Remember that Neo couldn't read code at this point.)

The Terminator goes back in time to stop John Connor from being born, who wouldn't have been born if Michael Biehn hadn't gone back to stop the Terminator, and the Terminator wouldn't have been created if he hadn't gone back in time and left behind the computer chip used to create Skynet. Holy time paradox, Batman!

A man often meets his fate on the road he takes to avoid it.

Edit- Shouldn't invisible people be blind? If light passes straight through them or is refracted around them it would miss their retinas. If their eyes were exempt from invisibility there should be some cool visual effects caused by their eyes refracting the light and striking their retinas

[Nets]

2. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazis are trying to find the lost Ark of the Covenant, because apparently invoking the God of the people you're trying to exterminate sounds like a good idea. So Indy sets out to find the Ark before the Nazis get to it. But as we find out towards the end, Indy knows a secret about the Ark: it tends to melt people's faces off. Suppose the plan went perfectly, and they found the Ark, sent it back to Berlin to be unveiled by the fuhrer. BAM! Hitler's face turns into a pile of stinking fascist sludge. So the most rational course of action Indy could've taken would be to sit home and do absolutely nothing.

It has been pointed out before that Indiana Jones has basically zero effect on the plot of Raiders.... He may shift timetables here and there but the movie could basically unfold identically with or without Indy.

[Potemkin]

It has been pointed out before that Indiana Jones has basically zero effect on the plot of Raiders.... He may shift timetables here and there but the movie could basically unfold identically with or without Indy.

True. But you can get around that by imagining that Yahweh is using Indy as a witness to his awesome godly majesty as he melts the faces off the Nazis at the end. Or something. Meh, I dunno, maybe the scriptwriters just goofed up or something, whaddaya want from me?

[Paradigm]

Actually, it would have different without Indy:



Of course, it wouldn't be the first time Hitler escaped death by sheer dumb luck.

[Nets]

It has been a while since I've seen the movie. Remind me, why would it get opened in Berlin?

[Paradigm]

To be presented to Hitler as a prize.

[Nets]

Right but why wouldn't the guy dressed like the Kohen Gadol still not first peek inside?

[Paradigm]

Okay, so I watched it again, and you're right. They decide to open it before sending it back to Berlin so they can be sure it's the real deal. Of course, he also leads the Nazis to the correct site for the Ark when they've been digging in the wrong place, so they might not have even found it without him. I also remembered another famous plot hole in that movie: the infamous submarine scene. Indy swims to the U-boat that's about to dive and grabs onto the periscope, at which point he should have drowned or caught hypothermia. The next scene shows him inside the sub, a bit wet but otherwise okay. How did he manage to sneak inside the sub while it was diving? Possible resolution: Indy is Aquaman.

[Nets]

But without Indy the Nazis would have just gotten the full amulet to begin with, and then dug in the right place, right?

[Rich]

Actually the terminator shouldn't be mentioned without mentioning its essential and true message. The terminator is evil and the terminator is a symbolic representation of Apple as is clearly indicated by the 6502 assembly code that the terminator runs on. John Connor is Linus Torvalds. Kyle Reece is a prophetic representation of Google and its ironically named Linux based Android operating System. Google of course hadn't even been born in 1984. This why "The Android" returns as mankind's saviour in the second film.

[Americanroyalty]

Indy is Aquaman in the last crusade movie he jumps into the ocean during the middle of a massive storm (just look at the waves splashing over the boat) and then some how makes it safely to shore.

[colliric]

Indy is Aquaman in the last crusade movie he jumps into the ocean during the middle of a massive storm (just look at the waves splashing over the boat) and then some how makes it safely to shore.

This is not a plothole. Plotholes are totally unexplained.

Indy is shown grabbing onto a floating life preserver, implying by "Hollywood logic" that he survived and made it back.

[neopagan]

Okay, going back a bit to Bogey and Becall in "Key Largo." The finale plays out in the Florida Strait on a sport fishing boat heading for Cuba. Bogey is able to get rid of the bad guys one at a time due in part to thick fog. I have spent a lot of time on the stretch of water and never saw fog.

[Godstud]

Hitler is harder to kill than that. He's practically invincible. See Danger 5.

[youtube]0Z09bNgSeMI[/youtube]

[Prosthetic Conscience]

No one is in the room when Kane utters the word "rosebud." Technically this invalidates the entire premise of the movie.

Unless, that is, being a rich man, he had an early intercom system so that he could call for his nurse, and she heard it via that.

[colliric]

I tend to think about the Matrix one that Cypher figured out a way to plug himself in without the others knowing it.

He's a Hacker after all. He hacked the Matrix and figured out how to jack in by himself.