10 Plot Holes That Almost Ruined Great Movies

The Avengers isn’t supposed to be taken seriously; it’s a comic book movie, after all, but one plot hole that sticks out is when Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) detonates a nuclear missile on the other side of a wormhole, what happens? In fact, the shock humanity went through learning we’re not alone in the universe isn’t even explored. Later movies, such as Spider-Man: Homecoming, touch on the ramifications, and Netflix’s Daredevil made reference to it, but if Iron Man made it back through, did any of the nuclear fallout?

Introducing time travel is going to create plot holes, it can’t be helped, and though Christopher Nolan did a fantastic job with how Interstellar handles the concept, there are a lot of lingering questions. Matthew McConaughey goes through a black hole and finds himself in the past as a ghost, and then later, he is able to interact with his now-grown-up daughter. The nature of time travel is never explained, outside of the thought that it was developed in the future to impact the past, but how does that then change the future if it already happened?

Time travel plot holes are the worst.

Again, there are many plot holes to choose from, but in the far future of The Matrix, it becomes clear that machines have taken over the planet and are using humanity as batteries. What makes humans an efficient use of energy over, say, clearing the sky and resorting to solar power or geothermal energy? How is it efficient to run a massive computer simulation to subdue almost every human on the planet for energy use?

In Star Wars: A New Hope, Obi-Wan (Sir Alec Guinness) claims he didn’t own a droid, yet the prequels make it clear that’s not true. Did RD-D2 and Obi-Wan decide to mess with Luke, and create a plot hole by withholding key pieces of information, such as “Vader is your father” and “Whatever you do, don’t kiss Leia, trust me,” since both of them knew everything from the last twenty years? Allegedly, George Lucas already knew the plot of the prequels before he wrote A New Hope, so claiming they were prequels twenty years later isn’t even a good excuse.

The ending of Inception is not a plot hole, it’s ambiguous, there’s a difference, but what is left wide open is the entire structure of the Dream World. How many levels are possible before reaching Limbo, and is there anything past the bottom level Cobb and Mal remained in for years? How is the architect capable of shaping the Dream World, and who’s shaping Limbo?

Beyond that, there’s the smaller plot hole of each Dream World functioning with its own physics. When the hallway is being twisted, why isn’t the level with the van crashing into the river being impacted?

Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban introduced time travel to the Wizarding World, which of course, creates a few plot holes. Namely, why didn’t they end up using a time-turner to go back and prevent Dumbledore from being murdered? Or save Ron’s brother, or Lupin and Nymphadora?

It’s a plot hole by omission since the time turner is used by Harry and Hermoine to save…a griffin…? And potentially Harry, but he was already saved before they used it, so if they didn’t use it, would he cease to exist?

Another movie using time travel, another plot hole, but this one is sort of addressed within Avengers: Endgame when The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) explains to The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) that the timelines they are taking the infinity stones from will need them back. The explanation is that each timeline is separate, so why, when Captain America (Chris Evans) goes back, does he reappear in the main timeline as an old man?

Loki complicates the plot hole further by going into detail about the Sacred Timeline and the offshoots, leading to the question if the Time Variance Authority (TVA) blew up the robbed timelines after the Avengers pulled their heist.

Back to the Future is the greatest time travel film of all time, and for the most part, it does a great job of dealing with potential paradoxes. The biggest problem is, when Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) returns back to the present, why do his parents not recognize him? He had significant interactions with his mom and dad, and if Mary’s actions did change the past, why was he forgotten?

The velociraptors in Jurassic Park are shown to be smart, capable of hunting humans with ease and navigating doors, which is what causes a plot hole. How can the raptors open a door with a rounded knob when they don’t have opposable thumbs? The talons might be able to curl around the handle, but as anyone with a bird will tell you, there are physical limits to what they can manipulate.

The velociraptor plot holes in the Jurassic World trilogy could make up their own list.

The Dark Knight Rises is a great movie, but it has some problems, the largest of which is why Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) recovered from a broken back, crawled out of the giant hole in the ground, and made it back to Gotham in what looks like a few days? The film doesn’t adequately communicate time, undercutting what could have been a powerful moment by making the audience wonder how the police survived underground for that long? Or why Gotham didn’t completely fall apart under the rule of Bane?

When Bane broke the Bat in the comic, Batman (also played in the film by Christian Bale), the story lasted years as Azreal took up the mantle, not what could have been 48 hours as in The Dark Knight Rises.