Movie plot holes

[Blaze163]

Lali ho!

Out of sheer boredom (and the fact that I can't go game shopping 'cause the store's closed for Easter) I'm watching the Star Wars saga in sequence. And I've got to thinking about the multitude of plot holes in not only Star Wars but movies as a whole. We seem to tolerate a LOT of crap from the movie industry. Here's a good example or two. I admit that the reason behind the ommissions that create these plot holes are due to the backwards nature of the Star Wars saga, but even so. They just don't make sense.

- As I mentioned in a blog recently, C3PO's memory is wiped at the end of Revenge of the Sith, but R2D2's is not. While it is feasible that his memory was wiped at some point in the 18-20 year gap between episodes 3 and 4, this is never shown so we must assume he retains his memories of the clone wars and the events of the entire prequel trilogy. With that in mind, R2 knows that Luke and Leia are related as he was there at the birth, and that Vader is their father. Why does he never mention it? Is it not important enough information to warrant a friendly FYI? Especially when you consider that when Luke is recovering from the Wampa attack in Empire Strike Back, when Han and Leia argue about the incident in the south passage, Leia kisses Luke and R2 is there. Luke understands R2's speech so why the hell didn't R2 just gently mention that he's tonguing his sister?

- Qui Gon Jinn has learned the path to immortality, as stated by Yoda at the end of Revenge of the Sith. He is therefore presumably able to project his 'ghost' the same way as Obi Wan and later Yoda can. Where the hell was he for the entire 'Luke' trilogy? Or indeed any of the other films? You don't think that it might have been helpful to teach all Jedi this trick of yours, Qui Gon? Would've made Order 66 a LOT less effective. Coulda saved a lot of lives there, Qui Gon. Where were you? On a tea break?

It's obviously not just Star Wars that suffers from massive gaping holes in the plot like this. The film industry is filled with crap like this. Full of problems. Cliches (IE: named characters nearly always survive alien invasion flicks), mistakes, little things that tear you out of that suspension of disbelief and sour the experienc just a little. What are the worst movie mistakes you've encountered? What ruined it the most for you? Was it a huge gaping hole in the plot? The camera crew being visible in an important scene? Or simply the fact that Jar Jar Binks existed? What pisses you off about the movie industry? Let's have your examples, I'm curious.

 

[AlanJohn]

Yeah, I noticed that too...
I think it's because George Lucas is an asshole that doesn't give for plot holes.

 

[Rafinesque]

I'm not a fan of the Star Wars universe at all.

The writers of all the Star Trek movies and series have tried very hard to preserve the "canon" of Star Trek, which means no plot holes, and continuity between all the different movies and series. That's only possible because of the vision that Gene Roddenberry had when he first created the series in the 60's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_canon

 

[FAST6191]

"[star wars] in sequence" /opening for discussion as to the "proper" order.

Link for the sake of linking
http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/ (keep a few hours open if you are going to click).

@Rafinesque the guy on the link above does a fair line in picking apart a couple of the star trek films as well.

Well I have forgone films for TV shows these last few years- the extra couple of hours really helps develop things more than the 3 hours max a film might be able to afford. Keeping it on topic though for me the worst offence is taking the time to build up a nice mythos/laws of the given universe and then ignoring it/side lining it although I sense that is related to the time thing from the previous sentence. Failing that lack of generalisation in characters unless it is a plot device.

You have the usual disregard for physics (not necessarily the mythbusters tried it to see or something like the end of total recall or stuff done for the sake of it/for cheesiness) and/or computers but that is a minor quibble.

 

[whoomph]

I wanted the prequels as much as any star wars fan. I anticipated another three films that would double the difficultly of me picking a favourite. Oh dear.
I've watched the prequel trilogy at least 4 times since they were crapped out and I haven't grown to love them at all. In fact, watching those films now (on a much bigger tv than I had 10 years ago) shows me that some of the special effects are as bad as the script. Just awful.

The amount of interest generated by the phantom edit did make me smile. It was an amazing effort (for a fan edit).

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

See, the big problem here is that you count the prequel trilogy as canon. Actually, no - it's that you count them as Star Wars movies at all. If you just pretend they didn't exist (and they shouldn't), most of the problems just disappear.

 

[whoomph]

You may be right.
If I had to face my unquestionable love of a film franchise despite its massive failings, then I'd be screwed. After all, I'm still a Hellraiser fan - even after 5,6,7 & 8 lol

 

[Deleted User]

Yeah, I noticed that too...
I think it's because George Lucas is an asshole that doesn't give for plot holes.

what does he care of making good movies, he's a multi-millionaire anyway

 

[KingdomBlade]

George Lucas is also really bad at writing dialog. He even admitted that himself.

I tend to not pledge loyalty to any movie franchise (since I try to keep an unbiased standpoint when it comes to movies). I can say that Jar Jar Binks is a very dull and unfunny comic relief character that has no business being there.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

George Lucas made the original three Star Wars films (pretty much classics) and made a fuck load of cash from them.

He then realized that his franchise was still not yet dead so he shoehorned in another three films so he could get more money. And they all pretty much sucked. It created more plot holes than it filled and introduced a bunch of worthless characters which, overall, had no impact on the series. Qui Gon was pretty useless overall. It's nice to know where Obi Wan got his training but it wasn't necessary. Jar Jar should have never been there and just disappears. Count Dooku was really useless as well, as he simply provides a stereotypical evil villain that does little but provide you the dumbest fight scene ever (between Yoda and him) and quickly gets killed off. Even the entire group of Separatists and the whole droid army thing is completely useless. I mean, they "explain" how the clone army came to be, but it's not like I watched the original Star Wars and went "WOW THEY NEVER EXPLAIN HOW THEY GOT SO MANY TROOPS". They could've just said they had a fucking draft or they just created a clone army because they wanted a clone army. The first three films are completely useless and it's sad that they're considered official canon.

EDIT: Plus I just find it unfathomably retarded that they'll easily kill off great actors such as Christopher Lee (whose a great villain), Liam Neeson (whose a total bad ass), and Samuel L. Jackson (whose not a great actor but is fucking awesome) and keep giant shitfests like Hayden Christensen and Jake Lloyd. I mean Jake Lloyd as child Anakin was by far the most annoying fucking thing I've seen in a theater. If anything they should've just got Dakota Fanning and put her in dudes clothes.

 

[Deleted User]

George Lucas is also really bad at writing dialog. He even admitted that himself.

its strange how he doesn't TRY TO GET BETTER or HIRE SOMEBODY ELSE TO WRITE THE DIALOGUe FOR HIM

 

[Guild McCommunist]

its strange how he doesn't TRY TO GET BETTER or HIRE SOMEBODY ELSE TO WRITE THE DIALOGUe FOR HIM

There's no need now that he's stinkin' rich.

Odds are there won't be another Star Wars film. Currently he's just cashing in on the whole Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon, which he'll probably drag out as long as he can. Plus he realizes kids like flashy lightsaber fights and things going boom more than actual plots that make sense and character development so why even bother? It'll be completely unmarketable to adults (since there are quite a few adults who enjoy watching cartoons) but who gives a fuck.

 

[Deleted User]

its strange how he doesn't TRY TO GET BETTER or HIRE SOMEBODY ELSE TO WRITE THE DIALOGUe FOR HIM

There's no need now that he's stinkin' rich.

that is precisely my point






let's kill him

 

[KingdomBlade]

To be honest, I actually like Revenge of the Sith. The first two in the prequels were pretty bad though. Not nearly as bad as people make them out to be but still....

 

[Blaze163]

Well, I'm back after watching FAST's link for the last few hours. And I've gotta say, while the whole kidnapping thing going on in those videos freaked me out, I gotta agree with the guy's views on the prequel trilogy. The biggest flaw is that there's just no emotional depth to them because of piss poor dialogue and shitty direction.

Take the notoriously bad scene from Attack of the Clones where the world's worst romance hits its peak on Naboo with Anakin's admission of his love for Padme. A truly terrible scene, I trust you'll agree. But it was dealing with some pretty emotional material. We SHOULD connect with them both here. We've all been in a situation like that at some point, having to choose between our obligations and our desires. We should be feeling their pain, we should feel the tension in every word. But we don't because the script is so bad that upon playing the VHS in my room a few days ago, my chocobo plushy's head exploded during that scene because even he couldn't take it any more.

To be fair to the actors that's not their fault. I get the feeling that if the material had been better it would have been a much better scene, they clearly had the potential for more. But there's a lack of passion in it. The speech is unnatural (honestly Anakin, nobody talks like that, not even me, and I'm about as close to a poetic knight of the realm in terms of speech pattern's you're likely to see) and that precludes the actors from giving a good performance, and the scene is shot in such a way that they just seem disinterested. Who the hell just sits on a couch during a heated debate like that? Show some enthusiasm for fuck sake. Especially if your woman of choice is that fine. You don't just sit there and spout artsy poetic sappy bullcrap, you grab her and SHOW her how you feel. I realise that with it being a 'kids film' he's unlikely to be ripping her clothes off and fucking the shit outta her on the dining room table, but SURELY we can do better than this. Have a little spark for crying out loud.

And all of that is down to Lucas. As I said, I don't blame the actors. It's the material they had to work with. His insistance on having everyone sat down or using the most basic film techniques to limit the ammount of effort he had to put in. The script looks like it wasn't so much written as discovered on a piece of lavatory paper by people in biohazard suits sent in to investigate the aftermath of a particularly vicious curry. Seriously, I'm something of a writer myself (search fanfiction.net for me if you're curious) and the one thing I know is that you don't ever get it right first time. I've rewritten FF7: Requiem about half a dozen times in search of perfection and I'm still not quite there. Lucas seems to have relied heavily on the 'fuck it that'll do' tactic when writing the prequels. He knew the rabid fanboys (like the people dressed as Jedis in the cinema when I went to see Revenge of the Sith who lit up their toy lightsabers and screamed when the opening credits came on) would defend it to the saber hilt and that it'd make him enough money to buy the moon for shits and giggles no matter what he did with it. He could have released a four hour dvd of Jar Jar Binks doing standup and it'll still sell.

And you know the worst part? It's just one example of how the film industry bugs the fuck outta me. Take my second example of cinematic diahhrea, Independance Day. The dictionary definition of the term 'Hollywood predictable'. If you'd never seen Independance Day before, you'd know within the first few minutes that the named characters will survive, except the obviously expendable redneck in his revenge/redemption plot, that things will look bleak until about the last few minutes, then somebody will put off some crazy bullshit stunt (like finding that the alien computers are all compatable with his laptop when the truth of it is that laptops at the time had trouble understanding anything more advanced than a printer) and everything will be fine. Would it kill Hollywood to break the pattern once in a while? I direct your attention to the ultimate example of this pattern breaking, The Empire Strikes Back. Watching this for the first time you couldn't have been expecting Luke to lose that fight with Vader, much less the revelation that follows. You'd be thinking 'it'll be fine, Luke's the good guy so he'll come up with something in the last minute or two' and then BAM! Cool Hand Luke. Or rather No Hand Luke. You keep expecting the rebels to come up with something but they never do. They just survive the film, they don't win anything. I'd like to see an alien invasion movie like that. Where Jeff Goldblum's laptop crashes 'cause it's on Windows Vista and the last stand against the aliens goes horribly wrong as a result. That'd be worth watching.

Bugger me, I've written another novel. Rant over. Carry on.

 

[Veho]

With that in mind, R2 knows that Luke and Leia are related as he was there at the birth, and that Vader is their father. Why does he never mention it?

Because he's in cahoots with Obi-Wan. For some reason, the conspirators felt it best to separate the Skywalker twins and keep the truth about their real parents a secret. You're asking why R2 never mentioned it; why didn't Obi-Wan? You think he might have mentioned something in passing? "Luke... use the Force... and stay away from Leia... unless you want children with twelve toes...," something along those lines.

The real reason, of course, is that Lucas had no idea the first film would become so successful, and that he would ever make the sequels (let alone prequels). The whole "I had the trilogy (let alone sextalogy) planned out ahead" is laughable bullshit. Lucas had no idea Vader would later turn out to be Luke's father when he was making the first movie, and he had no idea he would make Leia Luke's sister when he was making the second one. The first revelation turned out to be awesome and amazing in the long run, but the second one was a lazy ass-pull that served no purpose whatsoever other than to justify her ending up with Han Solo instead of Luke.

 

[Blaze163]

Here's one for you then. When Han Solo is about to be frozen in carbonite, there's something that's been bugging me even more than his legendary vanishing jacket. Chewbacca naturally gets a bit pissy in this scene and starts trying to free Han, at which point Boba Fett raises his blaster rifle to fire at him but Vader very quickly stops him, giving a very strange look towards Leia. What's that all about? They're rebels. What would Vader have to gain from Chewbacca's survival? Why would he stop Fett from firing? What possible reason could he have aside from the necessity of keeping the characters alive for following scenes, in which case why have Fett raise his rifle in the first place, let alone have Vader knock it away? What's going on in that scene? Does Vader sense something familiar in Leia? He knows Luke is his son, did he ever figure out Padme was due twins? He was a Jedi, right? Wouldn't he sense both of them? Did Vader figure it all out before Return of the Jedi?

 

[nasune]

One thing that bugged me in the Underworld trilogy was Victor's daughter.
First of all her appearance (blonde in the flashback in 1 and dark haired in 3 etc.) beyond that there was the matter of her pregnancy (how can she be impregnated by a lycan if the species destroy each other on a cellular level).
And how is it that neither Marcus or William are not hybrids themselves for that matter, I mean William at the very least should have ingested vampire blood at some point and it is unlikely that Marcus did not swallow any by accident during the raids.

 

[thaddius]

I got one: Back to the Future, Part II.

Old Biff takes the DeLorean back to 1955 and gives Young Biff the sports almanac, thus altering the timeline for when Marty and Doc return to 1985. But... if Biff altered the timeline in 1955, when Old Biff returns with the DeLorean to 2015, he should have arrived in the alternate timeline, not the original one.

 

[Blaze163]

I got one: Back to the Future, Part II.

Old Biff takes the DeLorean back to 1955 and gives Young Biff the sports almanac, thus altering the timeline for when Marty and Doc return to 1985. But... if Biff altered the timeline in 1955, when Old Biff returns with the DeLorean to 2015, he should have arrived in the alternate timeline, not the original one.

Good point. A common problem with time travel, there's always something that doesn't make sense. The other major cock-up with movies tends to involve clones. The moment you introduce either things get too complex for a lot of people to follow. Take Metal Gear Solid as an example, even though it's a game you spend comparatively little time actually playing so it counts IMHO. I don't follow the plot at all. Who's a clone of who? Why should I care? Why does it all have to be such a clusterfuck of politics and wierdos? The same applied to the movie industry. The majority of people want to watch movies to kill time. As escapism. If they can't keep up with the plot, they're not enjoying it. Example, the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Whose side is Jack on, exactly? He changes sides like a hyperactive lollypop lady with her pants on fire.

Just out of curiosity, what's everyone's opinion on the Millenium Falcon's appearance in Star Trek First Contact? Nice easter egg, or utter blasphemy?

On the subject of digitally created easter eggs, if you're ever watching the film 'The Core', watch the scene where the pidgeons fly into everything very closely. At the end of the scene, when the birds all slam into the cafe window, the first thing to hit the window is actually a fish, not a bird. The animators put it in there as a joke.