6 Movie Plot Holes You Never Noticed Thanks to Editing
The magic of movie-making is that directors have the luxury of leaving the boring shit out. One minute Kate Winslet is whistling her heart out in the middle of a corpse-filled ocean; the next, she's a decade too old for a part on The Golden Girls. That's what they call editing, kids!
The thing is, that casual jump from A to B is also used as a writer's crutch to gloss over the stuff they didn't have the time to think through -- little things like "continuity," "logic" and "whether or not our protagonist just did some accidental murder."
For example ...
Note: When people were making the first movies, it took a couple decades for anyone to figure out the concept of "cutting" from one angle to another, and even longer to decide to use "cutting" to indicate the passage of time. And even longer to realize, "Hey, since we can just jump around and hide stuff, our stories don't even have to make sense anymore!" It's truly amazing how far cinematic technology has come. We can only hope that one day, we evolve beyond stories entirely, and then burn what remains of our world and return to the stars. -Cracked
Batman Leaves the Joker With a Room Full of Victims
At one point in The Dark Knight, the Joker decides to go after Harvey Dent at a fundraising party, where (unbeknownst to him) Bruce Wayne/Batman happens to also be in attendance. Bruce takes it upon himself to hide Mr. Dent, then slips out to put on his Batman guyliner and practice his scary voice.
"I eat three packs of cigarettes a day."
So the Joker hops in and starts some shit with Gotham's finest, as supervillains are apt to do. Before you know it, all hell breaks loose, and the Joker throws Batman's girlfriend Maggie Gyllenhaal out the window. Batman, driven by his high regard for both human life and boobs, dives out of the building after her and performs a Bat-abulous mid-fall catch.
After awkwardly landing on a car, the two sigh in relief that everyone is safe. Yep! Everyone made it out of that situation just fine!
"You're safe now." Roll credits.
Cut To:
The party is over, and all of Gotham is trying to figure out what they're going to do with a psychotic clown on the loose. At no point does anyone feel the need to discuss just what the fuck happened when Batman left a room full of Gotham's wealthiest citizens completely alone with the craziest motherfucker in town.
"Sometimes I hear oranges."
Keep in mind that before Batman arrived at the party, the Joker was literally about to cut someone's face open in order to find Harvey Dent. Yet, when Batman jumps out the window to save not-Katie Holmes, he never returns. The Joker is alone with a crowd of unarmed victims. And Batman just bounces?
Eh, they'll be OK. It's not like he's crazy enough to blow up a hospital or something.
OK, sure, Batman is right downstairs, so it's possible that perhaps the Joker got spooked and made a run for it. But even if he did ... well ... Batman is right downstairs. How in the hell did he even escape the situation? He's on the top of a skyscraper and Batman is the doorman. Did Batman get off that car they landed on and go get a burger or something?
Cypher Should Have Been "The One" in
Even if Matrix Revolutions prompted you to undergo a state-of-the-art memory swiping procedure to forget your previous love for the Matrix movies, you probably still remember the rules of the Matrix universe:
- You need someone's help to get you into the Matrix (somebody to plug you in and operate the console to jack you in)
- If you die in the Matrix, you die in real life
- Once in, you need an operator to find an extraction point in order to leave
- Black leather looks bitchin' whipping through the air
This is how we greet visitors at the Cracked offices.
What you probably don't remember was one small but significant moment that changes everything. You probably remember the scene:
It's late at night on the ship that Neo, Morpheus and the rest of the crew work on, and everyone has gone to bed. Everyone, that is, except for two people: the traitor Cypher and the hero Neo. The two sit in front of all those nifty Matrix monitors drinking moonshine while Cypher explains that experienced Matrixeers such as himself are able to see what is happening in the Matrix just by looking at all that green shit dripping down the screens.
Above: The nastiest orgy in Vatican history.
Neo runs off to bed and leaves Cypher, now the only awake crew member and the lone conspirator for his evil plan, to his own devices. The camera pushes slowly into the Matrix code running on the monitors ...
Cut To:
Meat.
Cypher sits in a restaurant inside the Matrix, eating steak, drinking wine and selling out his species. For some unimaginable reason, this guy doesn't want to spend the rest of his life with gray metal surfaces and poorly knitted sportswear, so he has decided to make a deal with the villain Agent Smith in order to be plugged back into the Matrix permanently. All he has to do is betray Morpheus.
True, Cypher is later exposed and destroyed for his mischief-making, but what we want to know is who was Cypher's accomplice? Who plugged him in? And if there wasn't one, how powerful was this guy, really?
Evidently not powerful enough to touch a conscious woman.
Because remember, you couldn't just plug and unplug yourself in and out of the Matrix -- if you could, then literally none of the plot points of the entire trilogy would exist. Every time you were in danger, you could just log out.
No, you need someone to physically put you in and pull you out, which they can only do after finding an exit point. So how the hell did Cypher sneak into, and back out of, the Matrix on his own? He had to have someone else there. And we know what you're thinking -- Agent Smith, right? But if Smith was in there with him, why would he even need anyone's help to get to Morpheus? It sure as hell wouldn't have required an in-Matrix kung-fu ambush.
In other words, either Cypher had an unknown accomplice who the movie never mentions, or Morpheus pegged his "Messiah" pipe dreams on the wrong guy all along.
"I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't need the headset."
District 9 follows Wikus, a government agent who, after getting exposed to some alien goo, slowly turns into an alien himself. This makes him a fugitive, on the run from the evil corporation that wants to dissect him. Along the way, he befriends an alien (named Christopher) and together they have to retrieve a canister of an alien substance that will help make Wikus human again and let the alien go back home.
On his planet, he's totally hot.
The canister, unfortunately, is at the headquarters of the aforementioned evil corporation, located in the heart of Johannesburg. Wikus and Christopher do the only thing they can -- they get some weapons and ...
Cut To:
BOOM!
BAM! SURPRISE ATTACK MOTHERFUCKERS! They just tore the face off their lair!
BRR-ZANG! FLORP!
That's right, Wikus and Mork blast their way into the building and snatch up the goop with almost no major setbacks because, hell, the evil corporate scientists did not see that coming! There's only one problem:
"... Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind ..."
The entire first act of this film is devoted to establishing the fact that these aliens, who are only known by the derogatory term "prawns," are in no way allowed outside of District 9. So just how in the hell did Wikus, a wanted man, and the alien, a 10-foot-tall monster pariah, walk around in a crowded city without anyone noticing?
And it's not like they were slinking over to the botanical gardens on the outskirts of town; their destination was the building of the company monitoring and controlling the aliens. It's like if Osama bin Laden had marched right into CIA headquarters undetected, along with his pet bear.
"Let's roll."
And we know that Wikus and Alf didn't just murder their way across the city, because up until that point Wikus had established a strong "no murder" stance on the humans. And they couldn't bribe their way there because we literally see Wikus get his ass robbed right before this scene. What'd they do, put on disguises and take a cab? They were carrying huge-ass alien guns. Maybe they climbed inside a huge crate and mailed themselves there? Because if so that should totally have been left in the movie.
Magneto Is a Free Man (For No Good Reason)
The first thing you need to know about the X-Men supervillain Magneto is that he's an elderly Holocaust survivor who can control metal (just accept this). The second thing you need to know is that he spent three films trying to kill the universe, only to be thwarted by the X-Men every time. At one point he is successfully imprisoned, but murders his way out using the powers of evil and metal manipulation so he can continue to wreak havoc.
And these weren't just rinky dinky Lex Luthor amateur show schemes, either. By the third movie, the guy is engineering a mutant terrorist army and tearing up the Golden Gate Bridge, because lord knows mutants are anything but subtle.
You could have just mutated yourself a boat, jackoff.
Once again, Magneto and the X-Men go to battle. And during the battle, Mag gets a taste of his own medicine, literally, because he gets injected with some mutant cure, which leaves him powerless. He escapes, the X-Men win, everybody's happy. We even see the Golden Gate Bridge, back to its original spot and being repaired as Angel, a winged mutant, flies above the San Francisco skyline ...
Probably should have just repaired it with concrete and plastic. Just to be safe.
Cut To:
A sullen-looking Magneto sits at a chessboard in the park with a case of the grumps.
Awwww ... he needs a hug. A justice hug.
So, the guy who tried to kill EVERY HUMAN IN THE WORLD is now free to wear a newsy cap and play strategy games in public spaces. Either this is a universe where the scales of justice don't even bother with the unmutated (in which case, hey Hitler, you could have saved that bullet!) or the greatest crimes against humanity are punished with unmitigated freedom and leisurely afternoons in the park.
Then there's the possibility that Magneto just didn't get caught -- that he didn't go through a court system at all, which is even worse. Look at him -- not only is he not disguised, he's IN THE SAME FUCKING CITY THAT HE JUST ATTACKED. Earlier we compared a scene to bin Laden walking into the CIA building, but this is actually worse -- this is bin Laden sitting in the middle of Central Park three months after 9/11, completely undisguised. Either because the authorities are that incompetent, or because he got crippled somehow and society said, "Eh, he can't do terrorism any more. Just let him be."
Never Forget ... Or Forget ... Whatever ...
Indy = Aquaman?
Even with all the supernatural stuff we've come to expect from the Indiana Jones series, from the holy ark to magical stones to aliens, Indy himself is not supernatural. He's just a regular guy who's good with a whip and bad with snakes. Yet, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jones demonstrates that either he's got the blood of Poseidon running through his veins or he's actually a fish in human form. Don't know what we're talking about? We'll refresh your memory.
Indy and Marion have rescued the Ark of the Covenant, and they're just about to sail it to England on a steamer, when who should show up but the Nazis, as usual. The Nazis steal the ark, kidnap Marion and take off on their U-boat. Not one to take stealing-the-Holy-of-Holies-or-his-ex-girlfriend lightly, Jones stows away on the sub. And we mean "on" the sub, not "in" the sub -- he's riding on top of it.
Doing fucking pull-ups.
Cut To:
We are treated to a Nazi U-boat diving montage superimposed with the iconic Indiana Jones-style red line map animation showing the path of the U-boat as it travels from the middle of the Mediterranean and onto an island in the Aegean Sea. The sub is then seen docking on said island, and as the Nazis debark, we finally see our hero once more, soaking wet from the ride over but still as spry and macho as ever -- he even takes out two Nazis right off the bat. Way to go, Jones!
"Surveillance report: clear. Sneak mode: activated."
This is all especially impressive considering that right at that very moment our lively hero hasn't eaten, drank or breathed air in more than two goddamn days. Thanks to its signature map shot, this film just gave us a really clear idea as to what kind of trip this U-boat just took.
The red is the trail of blood Indy is leaving behind as kelp and fish cut into his skin.
See that? Right between Crete, Greece and its mainland. That map is so accurate that you can put it right up against Google Maps:
Bam! See that little legend in the bottom? You can see for yourself that the U-boat traveled roughly 500 miles to get where it was going. Also through the magic of modern technology we can tell you that a German U-boat such as the one in the film goes about 7.5 knots, which for you non-mariners out there is about 10 mph. That's a 50-hour ride, spent on top of the sub. So how did he do it?
The first thought would be that perhaps he somehow entered through a hatch and stowed away -- but considering that we last see him standing right on top of the bridge of the U-boat, any hatch would surely lead him to a room full of angry Germans. Also, good luck prying open a sealed hatch and not getting noticed. We're assuming those things lock pretty tight, you know, as not to let the ocean in.
It's the reason people are able to return home after riding in one.
So what? Did he just hang on? Actually, yes. As a deleted scene explains, Indy fucking latches himself onto the periscope via whip and then just kind of ... enjoys a 50-hour ride that may or may not involve drowning, dehydration or just dying from exposure and exhaustion. And when it's all over there he is, still standing, and ready to fight Nazis with his bare hands.
Here's them filming part of that scene while masking fits of muffled laughter.
Speaking of superheroes ...
The Man Of Steel KILLS AN ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD
Superman fans all remember those awful moments when Superman turned evil in Superman III. And if you don't, you're lucky. They were horrifying.
Two hours of him grabbing your sister's boobs and giving you wedgies is just too much.
But for most of Superman's existence, he's goodness personified ... or is he?
Case in point: the earthquake in the first Superman movie. Lex Luthor launches a missile that triggers an earthquake on the West Coast. So naturally, Superman races the fault line, attempting to save as many lives as he can. The first thing he does is save a school bus from nose-diving off of the Golden Gate Bridge. After that, he prevents a train from derailing by literally standing in for the train track.
The people who make his hair gel should design body armor.
After that, Superman takes the time to jet over to the Hoover Dam, which is near collapse. After saving some workers in the dam, Superman's next move is to rescue the increasingly annoying Jimmy Olsen from falling to his death. As he flies Jimmy to safety, the dam finally ruptures, spilling out an ocean of water heading straight for a neighborhood not too far away.
These future corpses.
Meanwhile, intrepid reporter/Superman boner-causer Lois Lane has run out of gas in the middle of the fault line. Hilarity ensues as Lois's car gets sucked into the ground and engulfed by dirt, burying her alive as she dies gasping for air.
It gets funnier every time we see it.
Unfortunately, at the exact same moment, Superman is busy with the dam disaster -- he's creating a giant rock dam to stop the wall of water that is rushing toward the panicked town below. After exerting all of his strength, he finally creates the barrier needed to save the countless lives.
Only after the town is saved does Superman finally fly to Lois's rescue, only to find out that he is too late. In a fit of rage, Superman flies up into the upper atmosphere.
In a bizarre attempt to fistfight God.
It's now that Superman gets an idea -- fuck time. In what is one of his most iconic moves, the Last Son of Krypton shoots as fast as he can around the planet Earth, somehow reversing the events that have just transpired. The wall of water flows backward into a repairing Hoover Dam, the earthquake destroys in reverse and Lois's car unburies itself in the ground.
Otherwise known as Xenos ex Machina.
Cut to:
Lois Lane sits in her recently broken-down car. Before she can be sucked into the ground, however, this time Superman is right there to help. He coolly flies in, helps her out of the car and engages in a cute conversation while simultaneously eye-fucking the shit out of her.
"Wait, why do you look four minutes older than you should?"
Just before he can make his move, in comes Jimmy Olsen, who thanks Superman for saving him from falling to his death. All is right again, and Superman flies off to go catch Lex Luthor and throw him in jail. YAY! Everyone lived! And by everyone we mean everyone who didn't live in that town that Superman just opted to drown.
It was, after all, the whole freaking point of why Superman couldn't save Lois; he had to choose the greater good over what was going on in his tights. So when Superman goes back in time to try it all again, he shows up right as Lois runs out of gas -- a sequence we previously saw happen just as a giant flood of water is rushing toward the town. It can only be logical that he is choosing to not save the town this time around. After all, he then spends the next few minutes where he is supposed to be straining to contain the flood with rocks chatting it up with Lois instead.
"By the way, there's one hell of a story just over those hills."
For more baffling plot points, check out 6 Plot Threads Famous Movies Forgot to Resolve and 8 Classic Movies That Got Away With Gaping Plot Holes.
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get sexy, sexy jokes sent straight to your news feed.
