Films ruined by idiotic holes in the plot

Emp_Fab

So, I watched "All is lost" last night - a drama starring Robert Redford (and only him - nobody else appears in the entire film !) about an ocean-going yachtsman whose boat is holed at sea and his efforts to keep afloat, and then, alive.  Warning: this post contains the entire plot.

Now, I'm not a sailor, but I know enough about boats to have spent the entire film shouting abuse at Redford for being an idiot.  (I'm great fun to watch a film with, just ask Mrs Fab !).

First, his boat gets holed by a shipping container that's fallen off a ship - his boat is knee-deep in water.  His radio gets soaked and ruined.  He doesn't have a spare, not even a handheld (on an ocean-going yacht!).  His attempts at repairing the hole with fibreglass are laughable, he doesn't provide any structural bracing on the hull - just drapes fibreglass cloth over a two foot hole and paints resin on it - like that's going to hold - nothing on the inside to support it.  Then... he doesn't appear to have a handle for the manual bilge pump, so has to make one out of wood.  No mention at all of the engine, so there's no attempt to use that to pump out the three feet of water in his boat.  The electrics are apparently shot - a sealed deep-cycle battery and a submersible bilge pump don't work after being er.... submerged! (he makes no attempt to look at the electrics beyond flicking the bilge pump switch on and off).  Then later on, the repair gives way in a storm and his boat fills up with water again and this time, sinks.  Now, he's in a liferaft...  does he have an EPIRB ?  (a cheap locator beacon that is detected by satellites and would certainly result in a rescue) - No, of course he fucking doesn't.  Is there an emergency handheld radio in the liferaft ?  Nope.

So.... he spots a ship coming towards him in the daytime.... and tries to attract their attention with a fucking nighttime flare (i.e. it's not an orange smoke type).  Cut to the end....  he's run out of flares and sees another boat in the distance at night.  All he has left is to burn bits of paper - BECAUSE HE HASN'T EVEN GOT A FUCKING TORCH - and.... lo and behold... he manages to set fire to the liferaft, and is unable to put it out in the middle of an ocean.  If only he had access to some water !

No normal human being would set to sea so comically ill-equipped, and those who do deserve to be removed from the gene pool.

Sorry for the rant - I had to get that off my chest !! :-)

Sibelius

''Knock knock''

Keanu Reeves wife goes away for the weekend. He has to stay home to work. He lives in the middle of nowhere ad 2 girls knock, drenched through cause of the rain. He shags them.

Who doesn't carry a brolly with them at all times, these days!?

digitalscream

Prometheus. Leakier than Redford's boat.

PolarityMan

How did the mail get there ahead of Martin Sheen in apocalypse now? Likewise the strippers at the depot.

UnclePsychosis

Dark Knight Rises.

Too many stupid plot holes to count, but Bruce Wayne fixing his broken back by being, erm, punched in the back and hanging off a rope for a few weeks? Aye, OK then.

Adam_MD

It's not just giant holes in the plot but also really bad names that put me off films. Like the need for some films to add necro onto any other fucking word to make them sound evil.

The chronicles of riddick was the fucking King of bad acting, plot holes and stupid fucking names - necromungers (bad guys) with a stupid leader who got some form of super powers from the 'underverse'. Just fucking lazy

randomhandclaps

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - Everyone knows aliens don't exist.

Miracle On 34th Street - Everyone knows Santa doesn't exist.

The Passion Of The Christ - Everyone knows Jesus had blues eyes. 

Heartfeltdawn

Deep Throat - loads of holes in that one. 

randomhandclaps

Actually one minor thing that has really bugged me as a plot hole is in the Toy Story films.  I love Toy Story 1/2/3 etc. but in respect to the toys that don't think they are toys, like Buzz in the first one, why do they freeze like the other toys when humans appear. 

ICBM

Instinct. They don't know why but they do it anyway.

There's an annoying plot hole at the end of TS3 though, when Woody ends up in the box.

randomhandclaps

Another one that puzzles me it the Matrix.  If we are all living in a dream state and the Matrix needs it like that in order to use human energy then why make it a mundane dream which leaves the odd few the time and most importantly technology to question and discover secrets.  Why not either make it an isolated dream world with no technology for hackers to communicate or just some awesome life that no-one would be interested in questioning or leaving and so would sooner take the blue pill.

fretmeister

Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Nothing Indy did had any affect on the ending. If he had been trapped behind the ball rock the nazis would have found the ark eventually and still melted.

All Indy did was get in the way and cause battles that killed people.

xSkarloey

ICBM;812459" said:

Instinct. They don't know why but they do it anyway.

There's an annoying plot hole at the end of TS3 though, when Woody ends up in the box.

Is that a hole? I thought he was scribbling the post it note with Bonnie's address to stick on the box, when Andy's mom surprises him and he has to get in to hide.

ICBM

Yes, but he shouldn't have been there.

A big plot hole for me is in Total Recall - Michael Ironside & co are really trying hard to kill Arnie, but if they'd succeeded then it would have undone the plot they're supposed to be pursuing.

hugbot

The plot against arnie in total recall isn't real. he's getting his 'blue sky on mars' dream he purchased.

randomhandclaps;812461" said:

Another one that puzzles me it the Matrix.  If we are all living in a dream state and the Matrix needs it like that in order to use human energy then why make it a mundane dream which leaves the odd few the time and most importantly technology to question and discover secrets.  Why not either make it an isolated dream world with no technology for hackers to communicate or just some awesome life that no-one would be interested in questioning or leaving and so would sooner take the blue pill.

They address that in the film, they tried to make a paradise but people rejected it.

Also (and this applies to a lot of film plot holes) films are evocative because of the imagery and themes, if the Matrix isn't a dreamworld metaphor for the allegory of the cave or whatever , there's no point to the film.

Like, if skynet seriously wanted to wipe out humanity the solution would be germ warfare and drones, not metal skeletons. But then you don't get the imagery of steel skeletons crushing human skulls.

RaymondLin

The Martian.

There is no atmosphere on Mars, alas, there will be no storm.

ICBM

There is an atmosphere on Mars - very low pressure by comparison with Earth, but it's enough to support planet-wide dust storms.

Myranda

Most modern films - a phone call would sort all the problems in 99% of films, and most people have mobiles.

How many films are there where the goodie or baddie takes someone out in hand to hand combat - but no one calls for help? 

"There's 50 trained killers in the next, room, luckily I managed to silently beat up 5 guys one at a time, each had a radio on their belt and were extremely well trained... luckily none thought to radio their friends, or use their guns... !"

No one in elite special forces groups (if they're baddies) can hit what they aim at till it's dramatically relevant

Various films still rely on none-instant communications faxes, emails, etc in situations where no one emails or faxes these days... 

But none of the above errors really annoy me. Breaking your own rules violations annoy me. "This machine always detects drugs with 100% accuracy" ... unless it is important to progress the plot to forget that fact. Or you demonstrate that a tool cuts through 5' of steel instantly, but when it comes to aluminium foil at a crucial moment it takes 2 minutes... you don't want to contradict yourself? Don't make absolute statements about the workings of the universe 5 minutes in

Myranda

RaymondLin said:

The Martian.

There is no atmosphere on Mars, alas, there will be no storm.

Um... there's not life supporting atmosphere... given that one probe sent to Mars was destroyed entering the atmosphere I suspect that atmosphere is present - especially as the last probe sent had a parachute stage for deployment

Emp_Fab

Bomb timers.   3m22s to go before kaboom...  ten minutes later in the film it's 35 seconds left.... cut away to another shot for two more minutes...23 secs on the bomb...

Philly_Q

randomhandclaps said:

The Passion Of The Christ - Everyone knows Jesus had blues eyes. 

Pedantic bit of trivia - Jim Caviezel actually has blue eyes, but they took the trouble to digitally re-colour them brown in the film.