The official movie plot holes thread

Stinsok · #1 08-19-2010, 06:52 PM

What's buggin' you?

CBgaragebassist · #2 08-19-2010, 07:06 PM

Danny Elfman. Not plot-related, but still...

Stinsok · #3 08-19-2010, 07:08 PM

Danny Elfman is truly a lucky man.

**Bryan R. Tyler** · #4 08-19-2010, 08:52 PM

Any movie where someone travels back in time to fix something. If they fixed it, then there would be no reason to go back in time in the future to fix it, so they wouldn't go back in time so it never would have been fixed.

f'nar f'nar · #5 08-19-2010, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryan R. Tyler

Any movie where someone travels back in time to fix something. If they fixed it, then there would be no reason to go back in time in the future to fix it, so they wouldn't go back in time so it never would have been fixed.

I guess that all depends on the kind of time travel theories you subscribe to. The "Single Unviverse' theory or Back to the Future theory. Or the "Multi-Tangent Universe" theory as seen in Terminator 2.

**Bryan R. Tyler** · #6 08-19-2010, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by f'nar f'nar

I guess that all depends on the kind of time travel theories you subscribe to. The "Single Unviverse' theory or Back to the Future theory. Or the "Multi-Tangent Universe" theory as seen in Terminator 2.

How would it work in either? Changing the past would negate the need to change the past in the future. Since the past happens before the future, whatever change happened at the point in the past would have happened before someone could go back to make it happen.

chicago_mike · #7 08-19-2010, 10:08 PM

You don't go into "your" past but a parallel you past. So you don;t actually change your history, but your parallel you history.

Thank you Michio kaku

Back to plot holes you could drive a singlecut 7 string thru..
Umm, in Krull....why didnt they just use the horses in the beginning to get to the evil guys lair? Could have avoided the swamps, the changling thing, all that muck.

**Bryan R. Tyler** · #8 08-19-2010, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chicago_mike

You don't go into "your" past but a parallel you past. So you don;t actually change your history, but your parallel you history.

Thank you Michio kaku

Even in a parallel past, the past still exists before the future. Let's say you went back in time to change their past- they had a sign that said "Welcome To London." You wanted to change that sign to say "Welcome To Londontown." So the idea is that you'd go back in time to change it to "Londontown"- but the problem is if you go back to change it to "Londontown," then the sign would say "Londontown" in the past, and the future you would never go back to change it to "Londontown" because it already says that. But it couldn't say that unless you went back, which creates the conundrum as to why those types of scenarios don't work. Whatever you want to go back in time to change has already been changed before you went back there, negating your need to go back there.

The only way you can make sense of time travel is if time is not a real, constant thing. Which would mean you wouldn't be "time traveling"

"High Tension" had some pretty big plot holes IIRC when trying to explain it's "twist" ending. Still a good horror flick.

knumbskull · #9 08-20-2010, 12:57 AM

re: Batman: in real life, a rich guy who liked to dress up in tight black rubber and beat people up would only do so behind the doors of certain private clubs.

dinghy · #10 08-20-2010, 02:10 AM

The eagles in Lord of the Rings. Movies would have been over in 20 minutes if they used them at the beginning.

chicago_mike · #11 08-20-2010, 03:27 AM

Time is not a constant though...time bends, turns and twists and we can manipulate time even. simple motion proves this so...what does this mean with time travel?

You make a valid point of, "If I wanted to change the sign, it would already have been changed.." type of theory..not going backwards because you already did..

But....theres variables. Infinite variables. One variable..you fry yourself by accident, or get eaten by a dinosaur because you calculated time travel wrong..

Do you create an infinite loop? no, its not that simple. Remember we only experience time, in the now. we can remember and we can predict...our time warping..if I may be so bold to call it that, is very rudimentary. Take the case of scientists using an atomic clock on an airplane to find out they indeed travelled backwards in time. It wasn't anything humanly noticeable, but it did indeed happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X02WMNoHSm8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnkE2...eature=related

**Bryan R. Tyler** · #12 08-20-2010, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chicago_mike

Time is not a constant though...time bends, turns and twists and we can manipulate time even. simple motion proves this so...what does this mean with time travel?

You make a valid point of, "If I wanted to change the sign, it would already have been changed.." type of theory..not going backwards because you already did..

But....theres variables. Infinite variables. One variable..you fry yourself by accident, or get eaten by a dinosaur because you calculated time travel wrong..

Those variables don't exist simultaneously in the same universe though. Once you die, you're dead. Another you from a different universe may follow the same "timeline" and perish by a different variable, but that, for all intents and purposes, is a completely different guy.

Quote:

Do you create an infinite loop? no, its not that simple. Remember we only experience time, in the now. we can remember and we can predict...our time warping..if I may be so bold to call it that, is very rudimentary. Take the case of scientists using an atomic clock on an airplane to find out they indeed travelled backwards in time. It wasn't anything humanly noticeable, but it did indeed happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X02WMNoHSm8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnkE2...eature=related

I didn't say time travel isn't possible- I think it may well be possible in the distant future. But the past still exists before the future, even if the future goes back behind the past. Take the idea of going back in time to shoot yourself in the head. You may accomplish time travel, but in no scenario can you shoot yourself dead and still go on to the future to go back in time to shoot yourself. You'd be dead and couldn't grow up to fly back in time. You may go back and shoot yourself in a parallel universe, but that is effectively shooting a completely different person. Variables can appear through different timelines, but not the same one. Time travel isn't the issue I have- it's the idea of "fixing" something through time travel. You'd either be "fixing" something in someone else's universe, so it wouldn't affect you, or you wouldn't do anything at all when it came to your own universe.

Sorry for the thread derail. Let's just imagine how this thread is going in a parallel universe where I didn't bring up time travel

**Bryan R. Tyler** · #13 08-20-2010, 06:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dinghy

The eagles in Lord of the Rings. Movies would have been over in 20 minutes if they used them at the beginning.

I thought the same thing when I saw that movie. I figured it was explained in the book which I haven't read and they didn't have time for all the exposition in the movie.

hrodbert696 · #14 08-20-2010, 06:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dinghy

The eagles in Lord of the Rings. Movies would have been over in 20 minutes if they used them at the beginning.

The eagles aren't a plot hole, they're a deus ex machina.

True, the movie never really explains them, but in the book the point is that they are not at anyone's command, they make up their own minds when they care to get involved in the rest of the world's business -- nobody "uses" them.

Hoover · #15 08-20-2010, 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryan R. Tyler

Time travel isn't the issue I have- it's the idea of "fixing" something through time travel. You'd either be "fixing" something in someone else's universe, so it wouldn't affect you, or you wouldn't do anything at all when it came to your own universe.

I've read just enough about the Multiverse theory of time travel to know that the folks who espouse said theories don't seem to have a problem with these issues you complain of.

I'm not saying they explain it convincingly, or that I necessarily even believe them...but, if I'm groking the Multiverse concept correctly, You can go back in time to fix something in someone else's universe, and that someone else can still be You.

Now pass the bong.

Mark Latimour · #16 08-20-2010, 07:36 AM

Armageddon. Nuff said....

**Bryan R. Tyler** · #17 08-20-2010, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Latimour

Armageddon. Nuff said....

They've been studying a very large meteor in the meteor belt, and one of the things they're surmising is the notion that because of the density/structure of meteors compared to rocks, trying to blow them up in a standard fashion may not work very well. Good to know now, as there's a big meteor that has a good chance of hitting Earth in 2182.

Kawai-chang · #18 08-20-2010, 09:30 AM

The "Housewife Into Supersoldier" Phenomenon. Never could figure out how a suburban woman could become a gritty combat vet in a matter of hours.

Not knocking the adaptability of the ladies, by any means, just seems to be a stretch.

Kawai-chang · #19 08-20-2010, 09:31 AM

And anyone's ability to get a full-on roundhouse kick to the melon and not go to Sleepyland. Or at least "Oh My Lord, that hurt and I'm leaving now"-land.

**Bryan R. Tyler** · #20 08-20-2010, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kawai-chang

And anyone's ability to get a full-on roundhouse kick to the melon and not go to Sleepyland. Or at least "Oh My Lord, that hurt and I'm leaving now"-land.

Hey, little Clay Guida can take a full-on unblocked head kick and keep coming at you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kI6jejTKNg#t=1m36s