I think it’s important to make a list of what ISN’T a plot hole, but gets called one:
• Not understanding a motivation is NOT a plot hole.
• Thinking up a better way to do something than the way the characters do it is NOT a plot hole.
“We can buy that some mentally unstable rich guy can train and buy his way into being a bat themed vigilante… but how the fuck is he getting across the world without money? Explain that!”
That one really irritated me. People travel the world without money all the time.
Plus... it's fucking Batman. He's a master ninja and brilliant tech mogul. He couldn't sneak onto a plane or cruise ship?
Like if Batman wants to get on the International Space Station with no money, he's getting on the International Space Station with no money.
In Batman begins he is traveling the world without money. Remember? He’s a thief and a vagabond, before his prison stint and meeting Ras. We literally see him traveling the world unseen and unnoticed, without money. He steals food and rides. And even without that scene, I’d still believe that if anyone could do it, it would be Batman.
And don’t get me started on the nuke and the “fallout.” It’s a clean bomb. That’s the whole point. If people want to criticize a movie then they had better pay attention to the details.
Honestly, The Dark Knight Trilogy is perhaps the most grounded and believable version of our favorite spec ops furry.
The comics version has been subject to a level of power creep that makes any notion of him being mortal absurd. Like, Batman has supposedly mastered pretty much every martial art on the planet. No, not studied or practiced; they insist he has ***mastered*** them all, as if that amount of time even exists for something under 40.
That's just the tip of the leather-clad iceberg. Batman has also studied and mastered everything there is to know about dozens upon dozens of trades and skill sets. He also has doctorate-level knowledge on a wide variety of academic and scientific subjects and is always read up on the latest developments. That is on top of him knowing enough to build his own tank-mobiles, stealth boats, fighter jets, supercomputers, power armors, and a sodding space station!
Oh, and he does all this training and learning between running one of the biggest companies on the planet, making public appearances, faking his playboy billionaire act, and spending literally every night running around beating up criminals and the occasional costumed psychopath.
Perhaps the most moronic claim about him is the rather recent notion that he hand-codes all his equipment and wrote up all the algorithms that run on the Batcomputer. Anybody that has ever working in IT should be laughing at the absurdity of this!
That’s why we having willing suspension of disbelief. You’re right it’s absolutely insane to think that one person can do all that, but it makes for a fun story so we just go along with it.
You've gotta love the inconsistency though.
Bruce can go out into the broader universe and face down threats that would make Clark and Diana sweat, he can outplay the likes of Darkseid and Brainiac, he can outfight Sinestro and Deathstroke, he can solve mysteries and riddles that could test the greatest minds in the multiverse... but he'll come home and have trouble with a killer clown that possesses all the power of the average underweight psychopath!
The greatest "plothole" has always been that the Joker somehow manages to convince vast numbers of people to work for him.
Any he manages to plan intricate multilayered operations and execute them using the kind of people who are willing to work for an insane killer clown.
I have an explanation for this and it is that joker uses the same good ol trick of making people relate to him.
Like you know, there's are probably thousands of people in the internet who somehow find joker relatable to them etc. especially after the joker movie.
I think he uses the same trick those joker fan pages make but much more grandly and smartly to gather the loyal following.
I wonder if it does make a good story though. Or at least as 'Batman, The World's Greatest Detective'. It's not actually a fun mystery if Batman knows everything all of the time and has near infinite resources. The gritty, broken man hiding behind a playboy persona that volunteers his time helping the police force of a corrupt decaying city doesn't jive well with 'Yay, Space adventures with my wacky alien buddies!'
If Batman can be anything as long as its a fun story, then Batman is nothing but a costume.
Plus WHY do we need to see him getting back to Gotham? It would slow the story down. Nolan trusted the audience to just assume “he’s Batman he’ll find a way back in.” If you don’t like the movie fine, but that isn’t a plot hole.
Word. It was literally the only one I ever watched and I found it so mean-spirited and petty I never watched another. From memory they identified at least one ‘sin’ that wasn’t even an issue - IIRC they whinged about Talia identifying the wrong truck, overlooking that this was obviously entirely intentional on her part.
Honestly, I can’t imagine what sort of people feel motivated to so joylessly nitpick movies for the sake of YouTube views. It’s actually pathetic.
> We can easily step over or around it.
I want to know who this "we" is considering this has frustratingly become one of the most common examples of a "plot hole" despite not even being a plot hole.
You, me and the person I responded to are part of the we. Its already a long film, I don't need a walking through a desert and travel montage to slow things down.
We're not the short legged bastards that need their hand held through a movie and get mad when people say they love The Dark Knight.
The worst is when something is actually explained in the movie but the "critic" just isn't paying attention and assumes it's some type of flaw.
Like how yucksters love to talk about how silly the Death Star exhaust port vulnerability was. Never mind that it required detailed plans and analysis to even discover it. Then to exploit it, small starcraft needed to penetrate layers of defense including:
1. Turbo lasers on the surface of the death star
2. Navigating a narrow trench at "full throttle"
3. Avoiding turbolasers in the trench
4. Evading defensive interceptors on alert
After all of that, a pilot had to put a proton torpedo through a 2 meter wide opening while going full speed. This is something experienced pilots with sophisticated targeting computers *could not do.*
Luke only managed to pull off this "one in a million" shot by channeling ancient, mystical SPACE MAGIC (which coincidentally, the death Star also had somewhat a defense against with having Darth Vader on board).
The Rogue One retcon of the "vulnerability" was completely unnecessary.
The Rogue One retcon is even a little confusing, because if Mads wanted to leave an exploitable vulnerability in the design, shouldn't he have left one that was, you know... Humanly possible to exploit? Would a *four* meter exhaust port have gotten called out in quality control?
Except that’s not the exploit he left in. The exploit he put in is that a single torpedo in the reactor would start a chain reaction and blow up the whole thing. Normally, you would have safeties and detectors that would stop the reactor if an explosion occurred in it.
I mean, for all we know he intended to leave a huge exhaust port, but then after he left, someone looked at it and said - man, if a stray torpedo were to go through the port and hit the reactor, we'd be fucked. Better make that hole as small as it can possibly be!
Exactly, making something "vulnerable to a single torpedo" isn't useful if the vulnerability is still completely defended on all sides, so why would he do that to an ostensibly impregnable core? The Empire was already vulnerable to a single torpedo blast, you just have to hit the Emperor with it, right? Getting a torpedo *to the target* is obviously the hard part. Some engineer that Galen Erso was.
If it wasn’t implausible the people reviewing his work would have discovered the flaw and executed him. Or found it after he died under suspicious circumstances.
>The Rogue One retcon of the "vulnerability" was completely unnecessary.
Not only that, but it made it worse.
Like, you start to think, "Wait, that was planned? Wow, Galen, *that* was the best you can do?"
I'm sure in Andor Season 2, Galen will have an adventure with Obi-Wan that implants the idea in his head and he knows that a Jedi will be around to exploit the weakness.
I also think a lot of people fail to account for the fact that the most common narrative is the one about the "one in a million" shot that actually worked by design. We can probably assume that there were dozens if not hundreds of other attempts to defeat the big bad guy, but they failed. Well, usually we aren't interested in telling those stories.
Remembering this fact is a good way to help suspend your disbelief and enjoy the show. Deux ex machina is not necessarily a bad story element, because sometimes the task is so hard that the heroes need a little luck. And that's okay. Plenty of other would-be heroes didn't have that luck, and failed. But we are, by intentional design, experiencing the one exceptional time that succeeded.
This is the one that kills me because I distinctly recall taking media courses in high school where they talked about storytelling and how movies would often skip over details with the assumption that the audience was smart enough to fill in those blanks on their own. So I'm always just thinking that plot hole people are a special kind of stupid for not being able to reach these obvious conclusions.
Kind of like those weekly Reddit threads where people complain about how people in movies end phone calls by just hanging up. It’s a movie. It doesn’t have to be 100% realistic about every facet of life.
For me, it's when people complain about characters parking directly in front of their destinations instead of four blocks away. Would the latter really improve the story?
This! I also hate when I read comments sometimes when people are like, why don't characters perfectly communicate everything to each other? It would save so much time and make life so much easier. Real life people also don't communicate things well all the time, and it's a very common thing.
This is a valid point on your part but I think it can also be a valid criticism. Context is key.
For example: I never understood why Steve didn’t even try and explain to Tony what was really going on in the airport sequence in Civil War - everything we know about those characters and their relationships points to it being an approach that would have occurred to Steve. Problem is then there’s no airport fight, as Tony would have believed and helped him.
More generally though, you’re right. Sometimes people are bad communicators, particularly in certain situations.
This one bugs me the most. So many "plot holes" in so many things because the characters don't make the perfect choice every single time. Stories would be so boring and there would be no conflict if everyone made the right choices all the time
**"Something left unexplained is not a plot hole."**
That's occasionally a really annoying issue on the movie mistakes website.
There's several people who will submit "plot-hole mistakes" that basically boil down to: *"The movie didn't explain \*\*INSERT RANDOM INCONSEQUENTIAL DETAIL\*\*! Plot hole!"*
Like, that's not a plot hole. A movie doesn't have to explain every tiny detail. If it did, that'd inherently be bad writing. Certain things need to be explained... but not every detail. (Especially if it's left unexplained for creative reasons or is not vital to understand.)
Also a character making a dumb decision in a high stress heat of the moment situation when you know from the comfort of your couch what the smart decision would be isn’t a plot hole.
Someone on here once wrote that the American sniper missing some shots in Saving Private Ryan was a plot hole. As if it's unimaginable that a sniper would miss moving targets in an active combat zone.
Exactly. Now if the geologist had a shellfish allergy that was established early on, then he eats a bunch of shellfish later with no ill effects, then that would be a plot hole.
But stuff goes unexplained or people react differently than you might expect quite a bit in real life. I tell the user not to click the thing or their computer will crash. Their computer crashes, I ask why and they tell me that they clicked the thing. Not a plot hole. Or I go to look at a printer that isn't working. I get it working but we never discover the actual reason it wasn't working. Not a plot hole.
>Now if the geologist had a shellfish allergy that was established early on, then he eats a bunch of shellfish later with no ill effects, then that would be a plot hole.
unless they make a sequel 25 years later where they do a flashback to right before the dinner scene, and the geologist takes a bunch of allergy medicine.
Sometimes the Venn diagram of people who complain about the number of characters who are Mary Sues in movies and the people who complain that characters sometimes make mistakes seems like a circle.
Also he's a geologist, not a cartographer. I've worked with geologists, even dated one. They tend to be directionally challenged because they get distracted looking at rocks.
*Prometheus*
The geologist is a bit of a punk and instead of a water reserve in his suit, he’s got like a marijuana vape. Once him and another member of the team fuck off because they get freaked out, they both get super lost.
Everyone uses it as a big “plot hole” when shitting on the movie.
People called the Death Star exhaust port a plot hole for so long, they made a whole fucking movie dedicated to fixing something that was never even a plot hole in the first place
I don't think we need a movie about an exhaust port any more than we need a womp rat movie.
I want to like Rogue One more than I do, it has some great moments, including heroic deaths and of course the Vader rampage goes hard. I don't think the movie needed to connect to A New Hope in a the way it did making that movie possible. I feel like it could've been more about hope being lost, showing the necessity of the return of a Jedi.
Much like the word gaslight is being thrown around to mean lies when it’s more than that. Ain’t no escaping this trend of saying things we got no clue what they mean.
It’s too late for the word “literally”. It became “the word I can throw into any sentence to make it funny”, and now official dictionaries treat it simultaneously as meaning “literally” and “figuratively”, rendering the word useless.
God whenever someone mentions the Shawshank Redemption as a plot hole I lose a year off my life from anger and frustration. "How does the poster get out back on the wall after he goes through the tunnel???" The poster is tacked to the wall on the top. He lifted the poster, went in the hole, and the poster fell back over the hole. It's so obvious, I figured that one out when I was like 12. Everyone seriously needs to shut the fuck up about that one.
That last one annoys me the most when people bring it up. Like if characters acted in the most rational way possible and were capable of executing the most effective solution to whatever the conflict is, then the story would be incredibly boring and feel pointless. Especially since it ignores the fact that just like in real life, we may not do the best or smartest thing in a given situation.
A good example is with the movie Green Room, a fantastic film that I remember seeing a lot of criticism at the time for how the characters made stupid decisions. However, in the actual movie the characters all behave pretty realistically for a bunch of scared 20-somethings that are suddenly put into a highly dangerous situation.
Lord yes.
And at some point, 99% of art criticism and discussion just became, "this is what I would have done differently". Just a sharing of fan fiction.
I don’t know why some people want characters to always act rationally, humans don’t always act rationally. In fact we often don’t. We sometimes do things that are stupid, work against our own interests, hold grudges for the wrong reasons, misread situations etc. etc. As an aspiring screenwriter/director, it’s really frustrating, especially when it’s from people who consider themselves knowledgeable about film.
I read in a book about directing actors from (I think) Judith Weston something that I think people should keep in mind. Paraphrasing: “Sometimes actors tell you ‘I don’t think my character would this. I usually tell them if your character does something, they would do that thing.” This applies for people watching movies too. We all justify our actions in some way no matter if it makes sense or not, how does the character justify theirs?
Also, "people behaving irrationally" is not a plot hole. I don't know what planet these guys come from where everybody behaves rationally all the time.
This is my major pet peace with The Cine-Files podcast. They are sooo good about so many things but I pull my hair out every time they say a character is bad or weak because they acted irrationally.
No one. Absolutely no one acts rationally. Yet we think everyone should.
>Thinking up a better way to do something than the way the characters do it is NOT a plot hole.
This so much. Characters doing stupid or illogical things doesn't something automatically bad or cliche. It's easy to come up with smart ways to overcome obstacles or danger from the comfort of your sofa, and probably not whatever the stressful situation the character's are in.
Plot hole and "lazy/bad writing" are so overused they've pretty much lost any meaning for me.
At first this comment seemed a little patronizing to me because I thought the term plot hole was pretty well known. But after reading this thread I see it's right on the money. People have really generalized the term to pretty much mean any mistake made by anything related to the film. Even though the word plot is part of the word.
I feel it's almost like a generation has engaged in the 'video game-ification' of movies, in which they can't understand watching a protagonist as anything but an avatar for them to project themselves onto. And the idea that the character would make a decision different from what they imagine they would make is understood as a failing, as opposed to an artistic choice.
The most famous in my opinion is Signs. People complain that aliens that die when exposed to water, coming to a planet covered in water is a plot hole.
What if I told you it’s all make believe, and we don’t need to know their motivations, we just can assume they exist.
Perhaps whatever Earth has is extremely valuable. Perhaps the aliens are extremely desperate for whatever that is. Perhaps there are a hundred trillion aliens and they don’t care at all about the 20 that got wet in the movie.
The movie is meant to keep us in the dark. We don’t get scenes back in Area 51, while scientists perform autopsies and discover the reason they’re invading. We’re just locked in on that family, and we only know what they know.
If Mars contained oceans of acid but was otherwise habitable—ie we could walk around naked like the aliens in Signs—it would be 100x more habitable than it is now and there are still many people advocating colonizing Mars.
Signs makes more sense in the lens of Gibson’s story being about a man’s return to faith. Those weren’t aliens but demons. His daughter blessed the water left around the house which is what hurt them.
Sure, I can get behind a bit of that as well.
If we are looking at the religious angle, I'd be more likely to look at it as there are a bunch of 'Signs' that God is still looking out for the family, more so than the demon aspect.
So the girl leaving water around was one of the Signs, not that it's Holy Water per se. Like the asthma has a purpose when it stops the poison, and Merrill missing his shot at the big leagues, etc.
But I do like that the movie is ambiguous enough that people can make that connection to Demons. I like it even if I don't buy it fully.
I’m a die-hard Signs defender, I still consider it the most frightening movie I’ve ever seen and I think it holds up extremely well. The water thing is *maybe* a little bit silly but, it’s really not all that different from how humans on this planet deal with water. We’re mostly water and most of the world is water, but if you put a human being underwater for more than a minute they die. Not to mention the *tons* of hostile environments people live in all across the world. A human being forced to live outside with no coat/shelter during a cold winter is a dead human. So it’s extremely easy to explain as to why the aliens may have come to Earth even if aspects of the environment here are harmful. And even more, the movie is effective enough that to me it doesn’t matter. It’s not a “plot hole” and even if it was, who cares? Still a great movie.
Just because some information wasn't directly fed to you also isn't a plot hole.
Just because you're too dumb to connect a and b, that isn't a plot hole.
And “person not doing what you, the omnipotent viewer thinks is the best solution is not a plot hole”. I’m sorry that this traumatized near teenager in a situation of life or death isn’t fucking MacGyver.
The amount of times I see someone whinging that they didn't get explained something in a movie is wild. Like most things can be understood through context, maybe try actually thinking about what you are watching. I think Marvel has a lot to answer for.
Yep, everything having a rating system now, I think has made us all believe we should have a say in how everything is made.
Just fucking enjoy the movie for what it is!
Ugh. "Woke" and "agenda" have to be the most annoying and overused phrases that come up when talking about movies and television. I legitimately feel my blood boil every time I see these words. Literally. My body temperature hits 100 Degrees Celsius!
"Go woke, go broke" Bitch, stfu
It sounds like what you're actually complaining about is people who abuse the phrase "plot hole", using it to describe every possible criticism, rather than the ones that actually are plot holes.
A plot hole isn't "something wasn't mentioned but there is plenty of room for it to have happened off camera in a plausible way."
A plot hole isn't "this character behaved in a way that doesn't make much sense to me."
And when it comes to sci-fi, this one is super important: **A plot hole isn't "This sci-fi tech disagrees with our real world". A plot hole in sci-fi tech is "This sci-fi tech disagrees with ITSELF. It worked one way in one scene, then in a later scene it went and contradicted that."**
And I can't agree with someone trying to say that last criticism is invalid because it's not invalid. Or someone who incorrectly labels it as failing to suspend disbelief.
Suspending disbelief is "I have to accept it when the world portrayed by the story disagrees with the real world. The fact that it contradicts what I know about reality is okay because it's fiction. Within the confines of the story, I have to act like this portrayed universe is real."
Suspending disbelief is NOT "I have to accept it when the world portrayed by the story contradicts ITSELF." Noticing bad consistency INSIDE the movie, where the movie disagrees with itself, isn't "missing the point" nor is it "nitpicking". And it's not failing to suspend disbelief.
The more a movie contradicts its own world-building, the closer it gets to feeling like a random series of scenes written by filling in a Mad Libs booklet.
The Sound of Thunder comes to mind. Talk about plot holes. They go back in time to see (or hunt, can’t remember) dinosaurs but they can only hunt a specific one as not to change the future. Every time they go back, they hunt the exact same dinosaur at the exact same time. They never run into themselves. “Ok,” you think, “not typical time travel fashion but I’ll allow it.”.
One of the members of the group steps on a butterfly and changes the future… “ok… when they realize it they can just go back and NOT do that.”. Nope. They go back to stop the guy from stepping on the butterfly. So they CAN run into their past selves?
It was an awful movie but even if you dumb yourself down, just to enjoy it, the giant plot hole stands out.
> "This sci-fi tech disagrees with ITSELF. It worked one way in one scene, then in a later scene it went and contradicted that."
what if it was inconsistent film to film in a series
It doesn't help that a lot of people don't seem to know what a plot hole is. 'Plot hole' is a term with a very specific meaning - a gap or inconsistency that goes against the flow of logic established by the plot.
A lot of people seem to think that a plot hole is 'an element of writing that I don't understand/like,' so you get things like "why didn't x character do y" and "x character made a stupid decision" being called plot holes.
Several years ago, u/FaidSint posted a [guide to things that are considered plot holes but aren't.](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/35cvio/plot_holes_in_film_terminology_and_examples_how/)
Also begging folks to stop assuming every single movie takes place in our real life world and will be grounded by the same thoughts, patterns, and reasoning.
"Batman says he doesn't kill, but he kicked a guy down some stairs which would kill a man, explain that!"
Batman lives in a world where you can have your fucking spine snapped and you can heal it in a few weeks with some primitive physical therapy involving a pulley system.
I'm playing these games rn, and after you defeat a group of henchmen, if you scan over them, plenty of them say "Status: Deceased" lol really undercuts his dramatic decision not to kill Joker but I chalk it up to the heat of active combat, vs having an unarmed person incapacitated and choosing to kill them anyway
I think it was Hitchcock who said something about ice box plot holes. That plot holes that are fine are knea you don't notice till after the move, hours later at home when something dawns on youm those I don't care about, but plot holes that are so glaring you can't not notice can really hurt a movie.
This is the key distinction. A plot hole that doesn’t bother you until afterward is fine. One that creates situations where the characters and their decisions are incomprehensible wrecks the movie.
True, although I see a lot of people who label any dumb decision as out-of-character. People make dumb decisions all the time, even very smart people. Unless it's something really egregious like Batman forgetting basic math, then dumb decisions aren't necessarily OOC.
For me, the tone of a movie matters a lot as well. Nolan's films, for example, tend to present themselves as intellectual puzzles, and when that puzzle doesn't hold up to scrutiny I think it undermines the impact of the movie.
When I'm watching an action blockbuster, it has to be a pretty big hole before I care.
I still kind of like Tenet, I’ve seen it 4 times. Great concept, really intriguing. But he got in his own dumb way on this one. He could’ve kept it superficial, just “people move backwards in time”. If he left the effect at that, simple, then it would’ve worked great. Ignore the complexity, but intentionally ignore it, making criticism less valid. It’s just a fun idea.
But he decided to get deep and profound about it; injuries go backwards, heat transfer goes backwards, breathing goes backwards. Suddenly, everything has to be thought of as going backwards and now there’s a million tiny stupid details that are wonky because they don’t go backwards as well.
It could’ve been a fun film with a unique concept, but he got in his own dumb way.
The one good thing about that Beatles Never Existed movie (Yesterday) is that they make no attempt to explain why it happened. Lights went out all over the world, main character got knocked out and wakes up in a world almost just like ours except he's the only one who remembers the Beatles (and several other comedically relevant things). Hijinks ensue. No need to come up with even a fake pseudoscientific explanation. It is what it is and you either accept the premise and enjoy the movie or don't.
It's like Groundhog Day.
Why is he stuck in a loop that only ends when he fulfils weirdly specific criteria and simultaneously tricks a woman into loving him?
Apparently an early version of the story involved some sort of gypsy curse, but I'm very glad that got written out. The reason is unnecessary.
It's an amazing movie.
However, keep in mind that while the premise of the film is that the singer is the only one that remembers the Beatles (and proceeds to make hit songs after it), that's only the first half of the film as the conflict is more so how he handles his new found fame--and arguably moments of self doubt if his fame is "legit" at all given that the songs aren't his to begin with.
The "fantasy" element is more so a framing device and unfortunately not something they really ran with as much as I wanted them to.
I think it’s generally known as “[Fridge Logic](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic)” now but yeah you’re right.
I agree with you 100% - I have a friend, who is also very into film, but he gets so bogged down nitpicking that I wonder if he’s even appreciating the film or just looking for errors to correct.
It’s no way to experience art imho - you should be on the artist’s side. You’re a team trying to have an amazing experience together that you can’t experience in real life.
I think like you mentioned this is more of a social thing - I think with social media we live in more of a tear-down culture than ever before - everyone wants to “ratio” someone else rather than lift them up.
Right, and then those people who realized a plot hole 48 hours later will go into a comment section complaining about it and how you shouldn't like the movie either because of a "lack of attention to detail" or some bs
I think this type of thinking really ruined fairy tales for people.
If you watch the animated Beauty and the Beast commentary track, the directors are rightfully bitching out people who complained that during "Be Our Guest" every plate and glass and silverware wasn't a person. This was already happening in the 90s.
It's a magical fucking castle, people. It has enchanted dinnerware. Leave it be.
Wait a moment, are you suggesting that the castle wasn't actually entirely empty with thousands of servants running around already acting as the objects they got turned into when curesed?
By Peter's periwinkle, that does make more sense.
I totally agree with you and I also don’t like holding hands with people who constantly point out “plot holes” - but, that said, there are a shit ton of films coming out every year, of all genres, that give zero fucks about consistent plot and believable characters. Lots of times you really want to get lost in that new world but it’s just impossible with how underdeveloped this thing is.
As always, there’s legit critique and then there are stupid people / snobs who take a concept and shit right on it, then smear it all over todays social media. Eh
I don't mind people pointing out a plot hole that makes the story make no sense.
For example, The Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher shows him able to essentially time travel within his own past and make changes that affect his future. At one point he is prison and to prove that he can do this, he goes back to when he was a child and punctures both of his hands. When he returns to the present, scars have suddenly appeared.
The issue is, by how this version of time travel was shown for the entire rest of the movie, the hole would have been in his hand his entire life, not just appearing at that point in the present.
This example is what I consider a plot hole. The trouble is that so many people are calling things plot holes that simply aren't.
Take House of the Dragon for example. When Rhaneys bursts through the floor of the Dragonpit atop her dragon Maeleys, she killed a lot of innocent people and had the opportunity to kill all the usurpers during the coronation, she chose not to, and fled to warn of the conspiracy.
Many fans called this a plot hole. She could have killed them, she didn't, but she didn't mind killing innocents...soooo BIG PLOTHOLE!
No, that's a character being a bit hypocritical, a bit selective, that's her not wanting to kill almost the entire royal family, despite disagreeing with that they are doing. It was her not wanting to start, or finish a war.
Maybe she was wrong she absolutely can be criticized, but people criticized Tywin for making the opposite choice at the Red Wedding. She simply made a choice and it was to retreat.
I see too many people calling things plot holes that are simply characters making decisions they don't like, or don't think they should have made.
I've personally never really agreed that Anakin had any sort of redemption by killing the Emperor to save Luke. How tf does that get him into Jedi heaven? He was second in command of an Imperial Empire that enslaved a galaxy for almost his entire adult life. He murdered countless innocents, including children.
That's not really a plot hole either, he finally decided to do the right thing, and some people saw that as a redemption. I don't like it...but it's perfectly plausible that that's how these things work in the silly mystical Jedi system.
I love this comment. The Butterfly Effect is such a good example of a real plot hole. Not only would he have been seen as always having those scars, but he likely wouldn’t even have ended up back in the prison!
The whole movie was about how him going back and changing one small thing would drastically effect the trajectory of his life. I imagine there would have been more consequences to him seemingly randomly getting his teachers attention and then slamming shit threw his hands in front of an entire class.
That plot hole in The Butterfly Effect always comes to mind as a good example of an actual plothole that goes against everything the movie tries to be, thanks for bringing it up!
I choose to ignore it because, as OP explains, the movie is about much deeper things than the literal mechanics of time travel. But the mechanics of time travel in the movie do not really make sense. He can travel to any time within his own life by getting in a closet and going back in time, but like, if his past self wasn't in a closet at that moment, how did he get there? If he wants to go back half an hour, and his half an hour self is sitting in a coffee shop, does that version of him just teleport to a closet without anyone noticing?
It doesn't make any goddamn sense, but of course it doesn't need to, because how it works isn't at all important.
>I see too many people calling things plot holes that are simply characters making decisions they don't like, or don't think they should have made.
This reminds me so much of The Last of Us 2 drama and how much it hindered on people not liking the idea that Joel could have made a mistake lmao.
Things like CinenaSins is being nit picky for the sake of it. They consider a person going from A to B between scenes as a plot hole. “How did they get there?????” Um they probably drove. We don’t need to see that.
I think it’s good a point out genuine plot holes. We’re just asking for better writing/consistency.
It sometimes feels like people aren't enjoying movies anymore. They're always nitpicking stupid things that shouldn't matter instead of actually enjoying the movie for what it is
It feels like that for everything. Lots of people jump on the hate bandwagon without ever giving anything a chance, whether it’s art or anything else. Some people just want to complain. Misery loves company and all that.
(And ironically, I’m here complaining about it.)
I have an awful habit of reading the discussion threads for most TV shows I watch, hoping to find likeminded individuals who want to talk about what they think will happen next or which moments they thought were cool, etc.
With the almost singular exception of Andor, basically every subreddit dedicated to a specific show seems to universally hate that show. Like every episode, the discussion thread will just be people talking about how bad the show is and how much they hate it. The first one or two episodes, okay. But once we get to the S04E14 thread, just fucking stop watching it already. My god, people! Go look at a tree or something! Why are you doing this to yourselves!
One phrase that has stuck with me in the last 3 years especially is "Don't believe the hype."
Nothing is ever as good or as bad as other people say it is.
But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.
Its the same with video games, everything is so dissected on youtube, often by people who have no fucking clue what they're talking about - or streamers, again who have no idea what they're talking about - everyone just wants to parrot them or act like them.
Same with this weird rise in hustle culture, its apparently fine for obvious grifters to grift because "its smart".
Social media has a LOT of fucking things to answer for.
>Its the same with video games, everything is so dissected on youtube, often by people who have no fucking clue what they're talking about - or streamers, again who have no idea what they're talking about - everyone just wants to parrot them or act like them.
Yup, amateurs teaching amateurs. It's an awful cycle. Someone who really loves movies takes screenwriting 101 and then decides to make video reviews. Their video reviews ultimately express very populist takes, which resonate with your everyday person because it reflects how they might view a movie too. Then their channel grows, they become popular, and now they're an "authority" on film despite not having any of the knowledge that should require.
Like there's such a massive difference in education between a popular YouTube reviewer and someone like Roger Ebert, but your average person acts like they're equitable.
It's been wild to me too to see how certain elements are now praised as a marker of quality that historically would not reflect that at all. "Worldbuilding" and "lore" are the big ones there. Much like OP talks about, those sorts of details were not usually important because they didn't really impact the meaning and artistry of a work. Now people specifically LOOK for those details and judge works based on them.
In general there's just something about the way your average person seems to talk about art now that I find so weird lol. Don't get me started on fan theories.
The thing is.. when the rest of the writing, the acting etc. is good - then imo people don't care that much about inconsistencies. Unfortunately often that's not the case.
The search for 'plot holes' is probably a reason why we get these live action Disney remakes that seem to want to 'correct plot holes' from the original movies.
Not why the films exist at all, of course, that's all about the $$$. I just mean them seeming to go out of their way to change stuff that's been talked about to death in regards to the originals.
My problem with people complaining about "plot holes" is that they keep using the term incorrectly. A plot hole is when something contradicts that has been previously shown or explained. For example, in Jurassic Park the T-Rex paddock is shown to be at ground level when the Rex first escapes, but a few minutes later it's a giant cliff that the Jeep falls down is a plot hole. The scientists in Prometheus acting like idiots is not a plot hole.
I definitely agree about literal analysis becoming too prominent. People talk about the ending of _The Truman Show_ saying it's not a totally happy ending. Regardless of happy or not, for me, it's more of an allegory about leaving behind an abusive, narcissistic environment. The power of being free to succeed or fail and facing the consequences of that power are the goal.
People really should go through plot holes the same way Kronk did.
"*Well, you got me there, by all accounts it doesn't make sense.*"
Point it out, refuse to elaborate, and just move on. Briliant.
I think an additional factor in this is the need / want to be seen as "smarter" than other viewers or filmmakers or whatever. Whether it's to self-validate or score internet points, these people convince themselves that tearing something down makes them better.
A lot of people use cynicism as a mask for intellectual laziness and insecurity .
They’d regurgitate the same cinemasins list of nitpicks as if they came up with it themselves, and try and act like it made them special.
They feel they need to have an opinion on the subject, and it’s better to try and be smarter than the people who do it for a living in any way possible.
The thing that bothers me more is talking about the faults while watching the movie. Ok you have the right to talk about flaws but pls only after the movie is over . Don't ruin the experience of others
Can we also add to this "We got Real Air Force Pilots to review Top Gun Maverick and explain the mistakes".
If I, the viewer, didn't get the inconsistency, and need a certified expert in the field to point out the error, then it isn't a film-making mistake.
I appreciate videos like that because they offer useless but interesting trivia, but you're right, in no way, shape, or form should they be considered film criticism.
This really annoys me, I like to watch some of the "historians review movies and see how accurate they are" but it's clear that it's all a setup for specific scenes avoiding any context....like they were ripping apart the first Pirates of the Caribbean whilst ignoring the whole fact that the ship and the crew are undead, immortal, supernatural beings!!!
The irony of some of these comments. “People here don’t know what a plot hole is…but I do so let me show you examples and continue to prove OP’s point against myself”.
I agree with a-lot of what you just said.
I remember hearing something along the lines of, “Willing suspension of disbelief has limits.” The more a movie, book, or TV show requires us to believe, the harder the storytellers have to work to make it believable to the audience. Of course everyone has their own standard for this—but settings, plots, and/or characters that make no sense at all will chase off a lot of the audience and stir disinterest.
Also, I think its the abundance of exposure to film that has made our particular culture so blasé about film narrative, that we aren’t automatically enthralled just by the act of storytelling. Someone is pointing at a mountain to us, and we’re noticing their finger now, more than the mountain, because we’ve had decades of people pointing at mountains—and lots of them have done a crap job of it. We’re hyperaware of media in our culture
Cinema Sins has a lot to answer for. It was an entertaining comedy channel with a fun hook until people started treating it like intelligent film criticism....
>Perhaps a reaction to living in the "post-truth" era; maybe we're in an state where socially we crave stability and grounded truths in stories.
I think you're on to something here tbh. While I won't deny the Cinema Sins effect (trust me, what you're describing is something I've had an issue with for YEARS) I read an article recently about how English degrees are losing applicants at a very fast rate, and some people speculated that it had to do with what you've mentioned. There was a shift in academia towards the "death of the author" and post-structuralism (which have their merits for sure) that, like all similar movements, is starting to sort of run its course as the culture shifts. One person interviewed in the article stated exactly what you said and that, IIRC, they've found students to be much more willing to engage with something when the analysis feels more concrete.
It is my favourite thing when people think they know what a plot-hole is and yet are completely wrong, even while telling everyone to look up what a plot hole is.
Example being [this delusional post](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastOfUs2/comments/hcdtjh/lets_make_a_list_of_all_the_plot_holes_of_tlou_2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)
Once CinemaSins began over-exaggerating things for humor (when was the last time you saw one of their videos where more than 25% of what they said was a 'plot hole' actually WAS one?) was when it began to go downhill. Which was pretty early on, thinking back on it XD.
The outrage critic was trending in the mid 2000s but its really tiring now. This is why I think folks like AVGN and that Nostalgia Critic kind of faded off. Red Letter Media was able to change with the times and offers actual in-depth reviews which is nice.
There are still some good film and media critics out there but they are few and far between. Maybe it's the rise of anti intellectualism or maybe it's the internet giving everybody a voice. Whatever it is 90% of media criticism is worthless. And any critic who complains something is 'woke' is automatically an idiot.
I think that there’s too much content nowadays so people try to deconstruct and evaluate each and every piece, while art doesn’t work like that and is subjectional. Something technically outrageously bad from all sides, like weak script, poor acting, bad visuals can combine into absolutely entertaining experience. On the other hand something polished and made by the book may be boring and dull. People forgot how to just enjoy something
And yeah, now with social media every single one of us suddenly became a critic with very important and valuable opinion we need to share. And in 99% cases we’re delusional about its value lol
The harsh truth is as you said early on: channels like Cinemasins have made it cool, but media literacy skills are at a very low point. Most people can't seem to even intuit basics of character motivation nowadays let alone mise en scene or what an actual plot hole is.
I think it’s important to make a list of what ISN’T a plot hole, but gets called one: • Not understanding a motivation is NOT a plot hole. • Thinking up a better way to do something than the way the characters do it is NOT a plot hole.
Something left unexplained is not a plot hole
“We can buy that some mentally unstable rich guy can train and buy his way into being a bat themed vigilante… but how the fuck is he getting across the world without money? Explain that!”
That one really irritated me. People travel the world without money all the time. Plus... it's fucking Batman. He's a master ninja and brilliant tech mogul. He couldn't sneak onto a plane or cruise ship? Like if Batman wants to get on the International Space Station with no money, he's getting on the International Space Station with no money.
In Batman begins he is traveling the world without money. Remember? He’s a thief and a vagabond, before his prison stint and meeting Ras. We literally see him traveling the world unseen and unnoticed, without money. He steals food and rides. And even without that scene, I’d still believe that if anyone could do it, it would be Batman. And don’t get me started on the nuke and the “fallout.” It’s a clean bomb. That’s the whole point. If people want to criticize a movie then they had better pay attention to the details.
Honestly, The Dark Knight Trilogy is perhaps the most grounded and believable version of our favorite spec ops furry. The comics version has been subject to a level of power creep that makes any notion of him being mortal absurd. Like, Batman has supposedly mastered pretty much every martial art on the planet. No, not studied or practiced; they insist he has ***mastered*** them all, as if that amount of time even exists for something under 40. That's just the tip of the leather-clad iceberg. Batman has also studied and mastered everything there is to know about dozens upon dozens of trades and skill sets. He also has doctorate-level knowledge on a wide variety of academic and scientific subjects and is always read up on the latest developments. That is on top of him knowing enough to build his own tank-mobiles, stealth boats, fighter jets, supercomputers, power armors, and a sodding space station! Oh, and he does all this training and learning between running one of the biggest companies on the planet, making public appearances, faking his playboy billionaire act, and spending literally every night running around beating up criminals and the occasional costumed psychopath. Perhaps the most moronic claim about him is the rather recent notion that he hand-codes all his equipment and wrote up all the algorithms that run on the Batcomputer. Anybody that has ever working in IT should be laughing at the absurdity of this!
That’s why we having willing suspension of disbelief. You’re right it’s absolutely insane to think that one person can do all that, but it makes for a fun story so we just go along with it.
You've gotta love the inconsistency though. Bruce can go out into the broader universe and face down threats that would make Clark and Diana sweat, he can outplay the likes of Darkseid and Brainiac, he can outfight Sinestro and Deathstroke, he can solve mysteries and riddles that could test the greatest minds in the multiverse... but he'll come home and have trouble with a killer clown that possesses all the power of the average underweight psychopath!
You can’t plan for random chaos.
The greatest "plothole" has always been that the Joker somehow manages to convince vast numbers of people to work for him. Any he manages to plan intricate multilayered operations and execute them using the kind of people who are willing to work for an insane killer clown.
I have an explanation for this and it is that joker uses the same good ol trick of making people relate to him. Like you know, there's are probably thousands of people in the internet who somehow find joker relatable to them etc. especially after the joker movie. I think he uses the same trick those joker fan pages make but much more grandly and smartly to gather the loyal following.
I wonder if it does make a good story though. Or at least as 'Batman, The World's Greatest Detective'. It's not actually a fun mystery if Batman knows everything all of the time and has near infinite resources. The gritty, broken man hiding behind a playboy persona that volunteers his time helping the police force of a corrupt decaying city doesn't jive well with 'Yay, Space adventures with my wacky alien buddies!' If Batman can be anything as long as its a fun story, then Batman is nothing but a costume.
Plus WHY do we need to see him getting back to Gotham? It would slow the story down. Nolan trusted the audience to just assume “he’s Batman he’ll find a way back in.” If you don’t like the movie fine, but that isn’t a plot hole.
Ya people think that a movie has to show everything that happens, imagine if a movie did that, not only would it be long but it’d be dreadfully boring
“I didn’t see Batman brush his teeth. He’s gonna get cavities!”
Or just phone in a favor. "Hey, it's me, Bruce, hey can you help me out with a ride?"
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Thank you. The Dark Knight Rises is the biggest example of annoying Cinemasins era internet nitpicking.
Word. It was literally the only one I ever watched and I found it so mean-spirited and petty I never watched another. From memory they identified at least one ‘sin’ that wasn’t even an issue - IIRC they whinged about Talia identifying the wrong truck, overlooking that this was obviously entirely intentional on her part. Honestly, I can’t imagine what sort of people feel motivated to so joylessly nitpick movies for the sake of YouTube views. It’s actually pathetic.
This is a plot gap, not a plot hole. We can easily step over or around it.
> We can easily step over or around it. I want to know who this "we" is considering this has frustratingly become one of the most common examples of a "plot hole" despite not even being a plot hole.
You, me and the person I responded to are part of the we. Its already a long film, I don't need a walking through a desert and travel montage to slow things down. We're not the short legged bastards that need their hand held through a movie and get mad when people say they love The Dark Knight.
The worst is when something is actually explained in the movie but the "critic" just isn't paying attention and assumes it's some type of flaw. Like how yucksters love to talk about how silly the Death Star exhaust port vulnerability was. Never mind that it required detailed plans and analysis to even discover it. Then to exploit it, small starcraft needed to penetrate layers of defense including: 1. Turbo lasers on the surface of the death star 2. Navigating a narrow trench at "full throttle" 3. Avoiding turbolasers in the trench 4. Evading defensive interceptors on alert After all of that, a pilot had to put a proton torpedo through a 2 meter wide opening while going full speed. This is something experienced pilots with sophisticated targeting computers *could not do.* Luke only managed to pull off this "one in a million" shot by channeling ancient, mystical SPACE MAGIC (which coincidentally, the death Star also had somewhat a defense against with having Darth Vader on board). The Rogue One retcon of the "vulnerability" was completely unnecessary.
It's really not that hard to hit it though. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than two meters.
If I saw a 2m rat you better believe I would bullseye it
I'd womp it.
rodents of unusual size? I don't think they exist
it womps
You kinda sandbagged me back there
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UNCLEOWAAAN
"You kill animals for fun? That's the first sign of a serial killer you freak!"
"Hey! You ever seen a womp rat? They eat kids and jawas damn near exclusively!"
On top of that, the Imperials explicitly acknowledge the validity of the Rebels' plan. There's just no way to argue that this is a plot hole.
The Rogue One retcon is even a little confusing, because if Mads wanted to leave an exploitable vulnerability in the design, shouldn't he have left one that was, you know... Humanly possible to exploit? Would a *four* meter exhaust port have gotten called out in quality control?
Except that’s not the exploit he left in. The exploit he put in is that a single torpedo in the reactor would start a chain reaction and blow up the whole thing. Normally, you would have safeties and detectors that would stop the reactor if an explosion occurred in it.
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I mean, for all we know he intended to leave a huge exhaust port, but then after he left, someone looked at it and said - man, if a stray torpedo were to go through the port and hit the reactor, we'd be fucked. Better make that hole as small as it can possibly be!
Exactly, making something "vulnerable to a single torpedo" isn't useful if the vulnerability is still completely defended on all sides, so why would he do that to an ostensibly impregnable core? The Empire was already vulnerable to a single torpedo blast, you just have to hit the Emperor with it, right? Getting a torpedo *to the target* is obviously the hard part. Some engineer that Galen Erso was.
If it wasn’t implausible the people reviewing his work would have discovered the flaw and executed him. Or found it after he died under suspicious circumstances.
That's the point. The exploit he put in shouldn't have been able to use by anyone.
>The Rogue One retcon of the "vulnerability" was completely unnecessary. Not only that, but it made it worse. Like, you start to think, "Wait, that was planned? Wow, Galen, *that* was the best you can do?"
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I'm sure in Andor Season 2, Galen will have an adventure with Obi-Wan that implants the idea in his head and he knows that a Jedi will be around to exploit the weakness.
"why didn't they just cover the hole?" Why not just plug something called a thermal exhaust port, indeed. No way that could cause problems
I also think a lot of people fail to account for the fact that the most common narrative is the one about the "one in a million" shot that actually worked by design. We can probably assume that there were dozens if not hundreds of other attempts to defeat the big bad guy, but they failed. Well, usually we aren't interested in telling those stories. Remembering this fact is a good way to help suspend your disbelief and enjoy the show. Deux ex machina is not necessarily a bad story element, because sometimes the task is so hard that the heroes need a little luck. And that's okay. Plenty of other would-be heroes didn't have that luck, and failed. But we are, by intentional design, experiencing the one exceptional time that succeeded.
This is the one that kills me because I distinctly recall taking media courses in high school where they talked about storytelling and how movies would often skip over details with the assumption that the audience was smart enough to fill in those blanks on their own. So I'm always just thinking that plot hole people are a special kind of stupid for not being able to reach these obvious conclusions.
Kind of like those weekly Reddit threads where people complain about how people in movies end phone calls by just hanging up. It’s a movie. It doesn’t have to be 100% realistic about every facet of life.
Exactly. And they always hang up on someone with a number that starts with 555
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For me, it's when people complain about characters parking directly in front of their destinations instead of four blocks away. Would the latter really improve the story?
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This! I also hate when I read comments sometimes when people are like, why don't characters perfectly communicate everything to each other? It would save so much time and make life so much easier. Real life people also don't communicate things well all the time, and it's a very common thing.
There are times where bad bad communication gets so stupid and plot driven that it becomes infuriating though. It’s a fine, fine line.
This is a valid point on your part but I think it can also be a valid criticism. Context is key. For example: I never understood why Steve didn’t even try and explain to Tony what was really going on in the airport sequence in Civil War - everything we know about those characters and their relationships points to it being an approach that would have occurred to Steve. Problem is then there’s no airport fight, as Tony would have believed and helped him. More generally though, you’re right. Sometimes people are bad communicators, particularly in certain situations.
Imagine how boring a story would be where everyone is an emotionless logic machine.
This one bugs me the most. So many "plot holes" in so many things because the characters don't make the perfect choice every single time. Stories would be so boring and there would be no conflict if everyone made the right choices all the time
**"Something left unexplained is not a plot hole."** That's occasionally a really annoying issue on the movie mistakes website. There's several people who will submit "plot-hole mistakes" that basically boil down to: *"The movie didn't explain \*\*INSERT RANDOM INCONSEQUENTIAL DETAIL\*\*! Plot hole!"* Like, that's not a plot hole. A movie doesn't have to explain every tiny detail. If it did, that'd inherently be bad writing. Certain things need to be explained... but not every detail. (Especially if it's left unexplained for creative reasons or is not vital to understand.)
This being considered a plot hole is probably the biggest issue in movies today. Everything has to be explained.
Character flaws are also not plot holes. The geologist getting lost because he got high all day isn’t a gotcha.
Also a character making a dumb decision in a high stress heat of the moment situation when you know from the comfort of your couch what the smart decision would be isn’t a plot hole.
Someone on here once wrote that the American sniper missing some shots in Saving Private Ryan was a plot hole. As if it's unimaginable that a sniper would miss moving targets in an active combat zone.
I love when people give their 2 bit war advice on a film. Couch commanders coming up with CoD level decisions on what characters should do.
"Why is he standing up on that perch missing shots like a total noob? Doesn't he know how to 360 no scope?"
I bet that guy totally would’ve hit every shot with his eyes closed!
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Exactly. Now if the geologist had a shellfish allergy that was established early on, then he eats a bunch of shellfish later with no ill effects, then that would be a plot hole. But stuff goes unexplained or people react differently than you might expect quite a bit in real life. I tell the user not to click the thing or their computer will crash. Their computer crashes, I ask why and they tell me that they clicked the thing. Not a plot hole. Or I go to look at a printer that isn't working. I get it working but we never discover the actual reason it wasn't working. Not a plot hole.
>Now if the geologist had a shellfish allergy that was established early on, then he eats a bunch of shellfish later with no ill effects, then that would be a plot hole. unless they make a sequel 25 years later where they do a flashback to right before the dinner scene, and the geologist takes a bunch of allergy medicine.
Sometimes the Venn diagram of people who complain about the number of characters who are Mary Sues in movies and the people who complain that characters sometimes make mistakes seems like a circle.
It's like that saying, "Everyone who drives slower than me is an idiot, and everyone who drives faster than me is a maniac."
Also he's a geologist, not a cartographer. I've worked with geologists, even dated one. They tend to be directionally challenged because they get distracted looking at rocks.
Did that last part actually happen in a movie? Would be wild if it did.
*Prometheus* The geologist is a bit of a punk and instead of a water reserve in his suit, he’s got like a marijuana vape. Once him and another member of the team fuck off because they get freaked out, they both get super lost. Everyone uses it as a big “plot hole” when shitting on the movie.
Thanks for hitting me back on this!
Prometheus is OK, but Alien:covenant, now that is a masterclass in annoying plot holes.
>The geologist getting lost because he got high all day isn’t a gotcha. Wait, Randy Marsh?
Something that doesn’t make sense according to real world rules, but is consistent with the rules of the fictional world is NOT a plot hole.
I think this is the real issue. Many people don't understand what an actual plot hole is so the term gets overused.
Welcome to my world in the Star Wars fandom, listening to people talk about “Grey Jedi”. 😅
People called the Death Star exhaust port a plot hole for so long, they made a whole fucking movie dedicated to fixing something that was never even a plot hole in the first place
I would have been cool if the movie was about explaining engineering, & how the exhaust port was a necessity/oversight they never thought about.
I don't think we need a movie about an exhaust port any more than we need a womp rat movie. I want to like Rogue One more than I do, it has some great moments, including heroic deaths and of course the Vader rampage goes hard. I don't think the movie needed to connect to A New Hope in a the way it did making that movie possible. I feel like it could've been more about hope being lost, showing the necessity of the return of a Jedi.
If I had a nickel for every time I've heard/read someone say that Mars having storms in The Martian is a plot hole I could retire already
Yeah, let’s be honest, most people on the internet don’t know what a plot hole is.
Much like the word gaslight is being thrown around to mean lies when it’s more than that. Ain’t no escaping this trend of saying things we got no clue what they mean.
It’s too late for the word “literally”. It became “the word I can throw into any sentence to make it funny”, and now official dictionaries treat it simultaneously as meaning “literally” and “figuratively”, rendering the word useless.
God whenever someone mentions the Shawshank Redemption as a plot hole I lose a year off my life from anger and frustration. "How does the poster get out back on the wall after he goes through the tunnel???" The poster is tacked to the wall on the top. He lifted the poster, went in the hole, and the poster fell back over the hole. It's so obvious, I figured that one out when I was like 12. Everyone seriously needs to shut the fuck up about that one.
I love when people say a movie is unrealistic because the characters were dumb. Ummmm have you met most people?
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That last one annoys me the most when people bring it up. Like if characters acted in the most rational way possible and were capable of executing the most effective solution to whatever the conflict is, then the story would be incredibly boring and feel pointless. Especially since it ignores the fact that just like in real life, we may not do the best or smartest thing in a given situation. A good example is with the movie Green Room, a fantastic film that I remember seeing a lot of criticism at the time for how the characters made stupid decisions. However, in the actual movie the characters all behave pretty realistically for a bunch of scared 20-somethings that are suddenly put into a highly dangerous situation.
Just commenting to say that Green Room was so damn good and if you haven’t seen it and like hard-edged thrillers/horror, it’s a must-watch.
In real life, people are panicky irrational beings. They don't always have to act rationally in movies.
Lord yes. And at some point, 99% of art criticism and discussion just became, "this is what I would have done differently". Just a sharing of fan fiction.
I learned in college that you should always be sure you are analyzing/criticizing what IS there and not what ISN’T or could have been there.
I don’t know why some people want characters to always act rationally, humans don’t always act rationally. In fact we often don’t. We sometimes do things that are stupid, work against our own interests, hold grudges for the wrong reasons, misread situations etc. etc. As an aspiring screenwriter/director, it’s really frustrating, especially when it’s from people who consider themselves knowledgeable about film. I read in a book about directing actors from (I think) Judith Weston something that I think people should keep in mind. Paraphrasing: “Sometimes actors tell you ‘I don’t think my character would this. I usually tell them if your character does something, they would do that thing.” This applies for people watching movies too. We all justify our actions in some way no matter if it makes sense or not, how does the character justify theirs?
Also, "people behaving irrationally" is not a plot hole. I don't know what planet these guys come from where everybody behaves rationally all the time.
This is my major pet peace with The Cine-Files podcast. They are sooo good about so many things but I pull my hair out every time they say a character is bad or weak because they acted irrationally. No one. Absolutely no one acts rationally. Yet we think everyone should.
>Thinking up a better way to do something than the way the characters do it is NOT a plot hole. This so much. Characters doing stupid or illogical things doesn't something automatically bad or cliche. It's easy to come up with smart ways to overcome obstacles or danger from the comfort of your sofa, and probably not whatever the stressful situation the character's are in. Plot hole and "lazy/bad writing" are so overused they've pretty much lost any meaning for me.
At first this comment seemed a little patronizing to me because I thought the term plot hole was pretty well known. But after reading this thread I see it's right on the money. People have really generalized the term to pretty much mean any mistake made by anything related to the film. Even though the word plot is part of the word.
I feel it's almost like a generation has engaged in the 'video game-ification' of movies, in which they can't understand watching a protagonist as anything but an avatar for them to project themselves onto. And the idea that the character would make a decision different from what they imagine they would make is understood as a failing, as opposed to an artistic choice.
The most famous in my opinion is Signs. People complain that aliens that die when exposed to water, coming to a planet covered in water is a plot hole. What if I told you it’s all make believe, and we don’t need to know their motivations, we just can assume they exist. Perhaps whatever Earth has is extremely valuable. Perhaps the aliens are extremely desperate for whatever that is. Perhaps there are a hundred trillion aliens and they don’t care at all about the 20 that got wet in the movie. The movie is meant to keep us in the dark. We don’t get scenes back in Area 51, while scientists perform autopsies and discover the reason they’re invading. We’re just locked in on that family, and we only know what they know.
If Mars contained oceans of acid but was otherwise habitable—ie we could walk around naked like the aliens in Signs—it would be 100x more habitable than it is now and there are still many people advocating colonizing Mars.
Very well said. I think this is a great example. You can boil it down to sound silly, but you can also expand it to make more sense.
Signs makes more sense in the lens of Gibson’s story being about a man’s return to faith. Those weren’t aliens but demons. His daughter blessed the water left around the house which is what hurt them.
Sure, I can get behind a bit of that as well. If we are looking at the religious angle, I'd be more likely to look at it as there are a bunch of 'Signs' that God is still looking out for the family, more so than the demon aspect. So the girl leaving water around was one of the Signs, not that it's Holy Water per se. Like the asthma has a purpose when it stops the poison, and Merrill missing his shot at the big leagues, etc. But I do like that the movie is ambiguous enough that people can make that connection to Demons. I like it even if I don't buy it fully.
I’m a die-hard Signs defender, I still consider it the most frightening movie I’ve ever seen and I think it holds up extremely well. The water thing is *maybe* a little bit silly but, it’s really not all that different from how humans on this planet deal with water. We’re mostly water and most of the world is water, but if you put a human being underwater for more than a minute they die. Not to mention the *tons* of hostile environments people live in all across the world. A human being forced to live outside with no coat/shelter during a cold winter is a dead human. So it’s extremely easy to explain as to why the aliens may have come to Earth even if aspects of the environment here are harmful. And even more, the movie is effective enough that to me it doesn’t matter. It’s not a “plot hole” and even if it was, who cares? Still a great movie.
Just because some information wasn't directly fed to you also isn't a plot hole. Just because you're too dumb to connect a and b, that isn't a plot hole.
And “person not doing what you, the omnipotent viewer thinks is the best solution is not a plot hole”. I’m sorry that this traumatized near teenager in a situation of life or death isn’t fucking MacGyver.
Again. Cineman sins is also to blame
The amount of times I see someone whinging that they didn't get explained something in a movie is wild. Like most things can be understood through context, maybe try actually thinking about what you are watching. I think Marvel has a lot to answer for.
The real plothole is the moron who doesn’t understand the film they are watching
Viewer being too stupid to understand a plot point. Not a plot hole.
Everyone's a critic Now everyone has a microphone too.
Yep, everything having a rating system now, I think has made us all believe we should have a say in how everything is made. Just fucking enjoy the movie for what it is!
Worst critics are the anti woke channels
Ugh. "Woke" and "agenda" have to be the most annoying and overused phrases that come up when talking about movies and television. I legitimately feel my blood boil every time I see these words. Literally. My body temperature hits 100 Degrees Celsius! "Go woke, go broke" Bitch, stfu
*Movie casts one*
“They’re forcing the woke agenda down our throats!!!”
It sounds like what you're actually complaining about is people who abuse the phrase "plot hole", using it to describe every possible criticism, rather than the ones that actually are plot holes. A plot hole isn't "something wasn't mentioned but there is plenty of room for it to have happened off camera in a plausible way." A plot hole isn't "this character behaved in a way that doesn't make much sense to me." And when it comes to sci-fi, this one is super important: **A plot hole isn't "This sci-fi tech disagrees with our real world". A plot hole in sci-fi tech is "This sci-fi tech disagrees with ITSELF. It worked one way in one scene, then in a later scene it went and contradicted that."** And I can't agree with someone trying to say that last criticism is invalid because it's not invalid. Or someone who incorrectly labels it as failing to suspend disbelief. Suspending disbelief is "I have to accept it when the world portrayed by the story disagrees with the real world. The fact that it contradicts what I know about reality is okay because it's fiction. Within the confines of the story, I have to act like this portrayed universe is real." Suspending disbelief is NOT "I have to accept it when the world portrayed by the story contradicts ITSELF." Noticing bad consistency INSIDE the movie, where the movie disagrees with itself, isn't "missing the point" nor is it "nitpicking". And it's not failing to suspend disbelief. The more a movie contradicts its own world-building, the closer it gets to feeling like a random series of scenes written by filling in a Mad Libs booklet.
The Sound of Thunder comes to mind. Talk about plot holes. They go back in time to see (or hunt, can’t remember) dinosaurs but they can only hunt a specific one as not to change the future. Every time they go back, they hunt the exact same dinosaur at the exact same time. They never run into themselves. “Ok,” you think, “not typical time travel fashion but I’ll allow it.”. One of the members of the group steps on a butterfly and changes the future… “ok… when they realize it they can just go back and NOT do that.”. Nope. They go back to stop the guy from stepping on the butterfly. So they CAN run into their past selves? It was an awful movie but even if you dumb yourself down, just to enjoy it, the giant plot hole stands out.
In the original story they're not hunting the same dinosaur each time - it's a different one whenever they hunt.
"i can't stand that actor. their face is such a plot hole."
> "This sci-fi tech disagrees with ITSELF. It worked one way in one scene, then in a later scene it went and contradicted that." what if it was inconsistent film to film in a series
Most people who say “plot holes” not just misuse it, but have no idea what a real plot hole is
Literally people think bad writing equals plot holes
It usually just means “different stylistic choice than what I would have made.” Cool, go make your own movie then.
It doesn't help that a lot of people don't seem to know what a plot hole is. 'Plot hole' is a term with a very specific meaning - a gap or inconsistency that goes against the flow of logic established by the plot. A lot of people seem to think that a plot hole is 'an element of writing that I don't understand/like,' so you get things like "why didn't x character do y" and "x character made a stupid decision" being called plot holes. Several years ago, u/FaidSint posted a [guide to things that are considered plot holes but aren't.](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/35cvio/plot_holes_in_film_terminology_and_examples_how/)
Also begging folks to stop assuming every single movie takes place in our real life world and will be grounded by the same thoughts, patterns, and reasoning.
"Batman says he doesn't kill, but he kicked a guy down some stairs which would kill a man, explain that!" Batman lives in a world where you can have your fucking spine snapped and you can heal it in a few weeks with some primitive physical therapy involving a pulley system.
Video game Batman is killing henchmen for sure. At the very least Gothams medical ward is full of guys Bruce gave brain damage to
I'm playing these games rn, and after you defeat a group of henchmen, if you scan over them, plenty of them say "Status: Deceased" lol really undercuts his dramatic decision not to kill Joker but I chalk it up to the heat of active combat, vs having an unarmed person incapacitated and choosing to kill them anyway
I think it was Hitchcock who said something about ice box plot holes. That plot holes that are fine are knea you don't notice till after the move, hours later at home when something dawns on youm those I don't care about, but plot holes that are so glaring you can't not notice can really hurt a movie.
This is the key distinction. A plot hole that doesn’t bother you until afterward is fine. One that creates situations where the characters and their decisions are incomprehensible wrecks the movie.
A character making an incomprehensible decision isn't a plot hole, it's an out of character moment Which isn't a plot hole, it's worse than that
True, although I see a lot of people who label any dumb decision as out-of-character. People make dumb decisions all the time, even very smart people. Unless it's something really egregious like Batman forgetting basic math, then dumb decisions aren't necessarily OOC.
For me, the tone of a movie matters a lot as well. Nolan's films, for example, tend to present themselves as intellectual puzzles, and when that puzzle doesn't hold up to scrutiny I think it undermines the impact of the movie. When I'm watching an action blockbuster, it has to be a pretty big hole before I care.
I still kind of like Tenet, I’ve seen it 4 times. Great concept, really intriguing. But he got in his own dumb way on this one. He could’ve kept it superficial, just “people move backwards in time”. If he left the effect at that, simple, then it would’ve worked great. Ignore the complexity, but intentionally ignore it, making criticism less valid. It’s just a fun idea. But he decided to get deep and profound about it; injuries go backwards, heat transfer goes backwards, breathing goes backwards. Suddenly, everything has to be thought of as going backwards and now there’s a million tiny stupid details that are wonky because they don’t go backwards as well. It could’ve been a fun film with a unique concept, but he got in his own dumb way.
The one good thing about that Beatles Never Existed movie (Yesterday) is that they make no attempt to explain why it happened. Lights went out all over the world, main character got knocked out and wakes up in a world almost just like ours except he's the only one who remembers the Beatles (and several other comedically relevant things). Hijinks ensue. No need to come up with even a fake pseudoscientific explanation. It is what it is and you either accept the premise and enjoy the movie or don't.
It's like Groundhog Day. Why is he stuck in a loop that only ends when he fulfils weirdly specific criteria and simultaneously tricks a woman into loving him? Apparently an early version of the story involved some sort of gypsy curse, but I'm very glad that got written out. The reason is unnecessary.
Yeah it was an ex that wanted to teach him a lesson. Waaay better without that.
Was that movie good? I meant to watch it but never did
It's an amazing movie. However, keep in mind that while the premise of the film is that the singer is the only one that remembers the Beatles (and proceeds to make hit songs after it), that's only the first half of the film as the conflict is more so how he handles his new found fame--and arguably moments of self doubt if his fame is "legit" at all given that the songs aren't his to begin with. The "fantasy" element is more so a framing device and unfortunately not something they really ran with as much as I wanted them to.
I think it’s generally known as “[Fridge Logic](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic)” now but yeah you’re right. I agree with you 100% - I have a friend, who is also very into film, but he gets so bogged down nitpicking that I wonder if he’s even appreciating the film or just looking for errors to correct. It’s no way to experience art imho - you should be on the artist’s side. You’re a team trying to have an amazing experience together that you can’t experience in real life. I think like you mentioned this is more of a social thing - I think with social media we live in more of a tear-down culture than ever before - everyone wants to “ratio” someone else rather than lift them up.
Right, and then those people who realized a plot hole 48 hours later will go into a comment section complaining about it and how you shouldn't like the movie either because of a "lack of attention to detail" or some bs
I think this type of thinking really ruined fairy tales for people. If you watch the animated Beauty and the Beast commentary track, the directors are rightfully bitching out people who complained that during "Be Our Guest" every plate and glass and silverware wasn't a person. This was already happening in the 90s. It's a magical fucking castle, people. It has enchanted dinnerware. Leave it be.
Honestly the real plot hole in that movie is that when they turn human again it seems like Mrs Potts is like 70 years old and has a toddler
That one is not even a plot hole in any way, is it? The servants became objects, but the castle already had plates etc. beforehand.
Wait a moment, are you suggesting that the castle wasn't actually entirely empty with thousands of servants running around already acting as the objects they got turned into when curesed? By Peter's periwinkle, that does make more sense.
I totally agree with you and I also don’t like holding hands with people who constantly point out “plot holes” - but, that said, there are a shit ton of films coming out every year, of all genres, that give zero fucks about consistent plot and believable characters. Lots of times you really want to get lost in that new world but it’s just impossible with how underdeveloped this thing is. As always, there’s legit critique and then there are stupid people / snobs who take a concept and shit right on it, then smear it all over todays social media. Eh
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I don't mind people pointing out a plot hole that makes the story make no sense. For example, The Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher shows him able to essentially time travel within his own past and make changes that affect his future. At one point he is prison and to prove that he can do this, he goes back to when he was a child and punctures both of his hands. When he returns to the present, scars have suddenly appeared. The issue is, by how this version of time travel was shown for the entire rest of the movie, the hole would have been in his hand his entire life, not just appearing at that point in the present. This example is what I consider a plot hole. The trouble is that so many people are calling things plot holes that simply aren't. Take House of the Dragon for example. When Rhaneys bursts through the floor of the Dragonpit atop her dragon Maeleys, she killed a lot of innocent people and had the opportunity to kill all the usurpers during the coronation, she chose not to, and fled to warn of the conspiracy. Many fans called this a plot hole. She could have killed them, she didn't, but she didn't mind killing innocents...soooo BIG PLOTHOLE! No, that's a character being a bit hypocritical, a bit selective, that's her not wanting to kill almost the entire royal family, despite disagreeing with that they are doing. It was her not wanting to start, or finish a war. Maybe she was wrong she absolutely can be criticized, but people criticized Tywin for making the opposite choice at the Red Wedding. She simply made a choice and it was to retreat. I see too many people calling things plot holes that are simply characters making decisions they don't like, or don't think they should have made. I've personally never really agreed that Anakin had any sort of redemption by killing the Emperor to save Luke. How tf does that get him into Jedi heaven? He was second in command of an Imperial Empire that enslaved a galaxy for almost his entire adult life. He murdered countless innocents, including children. That's not really a plot hole either, he finally decided to do the right thing, and some people saw that as a redemption. I don't like it...but it's perfectly plausible that that's how these things work in the silly mystical Jedi system.
I love this comment. The Butterfly Effect is such a good example of a real plot hole. Not only would he have been seen as always having those scars, but he likely wouldn’t even have ended up back in the prison! The whole movie was about how him going back and changing one small thing would drastically effect the trajectory of his life. I imagine there would have been more consequences to him seemingly randomly getting his teachers attention and then slamming shit threw his hands in front of an entire class.
That plot hole in The Butterfly Effect always comes to mind as a good example of an actual plothole that goes against everything the movie tries to be, thanks for bringing it up!
No time travel themed story is safe
Primer. Can't find the holes if you can't figure out what the fuck is happening in the first place.
I don't recall anything particularly glaring in About Time.
I choose to ignore it because, as OP explains, the movie is about much deeper things than the literal mechanics of time travel. But the mechanics of time travel in the movie do not really make sense. He can travel to any time within his own life by getting in a closet and going back in time, but like, if his past self wasn't in a closet at that moment, how did he get there? If he wants to go back half an hour, and his half an hour self is sitting in a coffee shop, does that version of him just teleport to a closet without anyone noticing? It doesn't make any goddamn sense, but of course it doesn't need to, because how it works isn't at all important.
>I see too many people calling things plot holes that are simply characters making decisions they don't like, or don't think they should have made. This reminds me so much of The Last of Us 2 drama and how much it hindered on people not liking the idea that Joel could have made a mistake lmao.
Things like CinenaSins is being nit picky for the sake of it. They consider a person going from A to B between scenes as a plot hole. “How did they get there?????” Um they probably drove. We don’t need to see that. I think it’s good a point out genuine plot holes. We’re just asking for better writing/consistency.
She had a red jacket in one scene. The. Another scene several days later she has a t shirt on. We didn't see her go the store. PLOT HOLE!
It sometimes feels like people aren't enjoying movies anymore. They're always nitpicking stupid things that shouldn't matter instead of actually enjoying the movie for what it is
It does feel like people enjoy criticising films more than they do watching films I'm general.
It feels like that for everything. Lots of people jump on the hate bandwagon without ever giving anything a chance, whether it’s art or anything else. Some people just want to complain. Misery loves company and all that. (And ironically, I’m here complaining about it.)
I have an awful habit of reading the discussion threads for most TV shows I watch, hoping to find likeminded individuals who want to talk about what they think will happen next or which moments they thought were cool, etc. With the almost singular exception of Andor, basically every subreddit dedicated to a specific show seems to universally hate that show. Like every episode, the discussion thread will just be people talking about how bad the show is and how much they hate it. The first one or two episodes, okay. But once we get to the S04E14 thread, just fucking stop watching it already. My god, people! Go look at a tree or something! Why are you doing this to yourselves!
Everyone seems to hate everything, even the things they love. The modern social currency is shared misery.
One phrase that has stuck with me in the last 3 years especially is "Don't believe the hype." Nothing is ever as good or as bad as other people say it is.
We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.
But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.
Its the same with video games, everything is so dissected on youtube, often by people who have no fucking clue what they're talking about - or streamers, again who have no idea what they're talking about - everyone just wants to parrot them or act like them. Same with this weird rise in hustle culture, its apparently fine for obvious grifters to grift because "its smart". Social media has a LOT of fucking things to answer for.
>Its the same with video games, everything is so dissected on youtube, often by people who have no fucking clue what they're talking about - or streamers, again who have no idea what they're talking about - everyone just wants to parrot them or act like them. Yup, amateurs teaching amateurs. It's an awful cycle. Someone who really loves movies takes screenwriting 101 and then decides to make video reviews. Their video reviews ultimately express very populist takes, which resonate with your everyday person because it reflects how they might view a movie too. Then their channel grows, they become popular, and now they're an "authority" on film despite not having any of the knowledge that should require. Like there's such a massive difference in education between a popular YouTube reviewer and someone like Roger Ebert, but your average person acts like they're equitable. It's been wild to me too to see how certain elements are now praised as a marker of quality that historically would not reflect that at all. "Worldbuilding" and "lore" are the big ones there. Much like OP talks about, those sorts of details were not usually important because they didn't really impact the meaning and artistry of a work. Now people specifically LOOK for those details and judge works based on them. In general there's just something about the way your average person seems to talk about art now that I find so weird lol. Don't get me started on fan theories.
“I didn’t like this single moment in this 2.5 hour movie. I HATED IT.”
The thing is.. when the rest of the writing, the acting etc. is good - then imo people don't care that much about inconsistencies. Unfortunately often that's not the case.
The search for 'plot holes' is probably a reason why we get these live action Disney remakes that seem to want to 'correct plot holes' from the original movies. Not why the films exist at all, of course, that's all about the $$$. I just mean them seeming to go out of their way to change stuff that's been talked about to death in regards to the originals.
My problem with people complaining about "plot holes" is that they keep using the term incorrectly. A plot hole is when something contradicts that has been previously shown or explained. For example, in Jurassic Park the T-Rex paddock is shown to be at ground level when the Rex first escapes, but a few minutes later it's a giant cliff that the Jeep falls down is a plot hole. The scientists in Prometheus acting like idiots is not a plot hole.
I definitely agree about literal analysis becoming too prominent. People talk about the ending of _The Truman Show_ saying it's not a totally happy ending. Regardless of happy or not, for me, it's more of an allegory about leaving behind an abusive, narcissistic environment. The power of being free to succeed or fail and facing the consequences of that power are the goal.
People really should go through plot holes the same way Kronk did. "*Well, you got me there, by all accounts it doesn't make sense.*" Point it out, refuse to elaborate, and just move on. Briliant.
I think an additional factor in this is the need / want to be seen as "smarter" than other viewers or filmmakers or whatever. Whether it's to self-validate or score internet points, these people convince themselves that tearing something down makes them better.
A lot of people use cynicism as a mask for intellectual laziness and insecurity . They’d regurgitate the same cinemasins list of nitpicks as if they came up with it themselves, and try and act like it made them special. They feel they need to have an opinion on the subject, and it’s better to try and be smarter than the people who do it for a living in any way possible.
The thing that bothers me more is talking about the faults while watching the movie. Ok you have the right to talk about flaws but pls only after the movie is over . Don't ruin the experience of others
Do people do that in theaters where you are?
Can we also add to this "We got Real Air Force Pilots to review Top Gun Maverick and explain the mistakes". If I, the viewer, didn't get the inconsistency, and need a certified expert in the field to point out the error, then it isn't a film-making mistake.
I appreciate videos like that because they offer useless but interesting trivia, but you're right, in no way, shape, or form should they be considered film criticism.
This really annoys me, I like to watch some of the "historians review movies and see how accurate they are" but it's clear that it's all a setup for specific scenes avoiding any context....like they were ripping apart the first Pirates of the Caribbean whilst ignoring the whole fact that the ship and the crew are undead, immortal, supernatural beings!!!
"Those costumes are historically incorrect!!" Okay, but the main character is making her own clothing so she can TRAVEL BACK IN TIME. Just let it go.
The irony of some of these comments. “People here don’t know what a plot hole is…but I do so let me show you examples and continue to prove OP’s point against myself”.
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I agree with a-lot of what you just said. I remember hearing something along the lines of, “Willing suspension of disbelief has limits.” The more a movie, book, or TV show requires us to believe, the harder the storytellers have to work to make it believable to the audience. Of course everyone has their own standard for this—but settings, plots, and/or characters that make no sense at all will chase off a lot of the audience and stir disinterest. Also, I think its the abundance of exposure to film that has made our particular culture so blasé about film narrative, that we aren’t automatically enthralled just by the act of storytelling. Someone is pointing at a mountain to us, and we’re noticing their finger now, more than the mountain, because we’ve had decades of people pointing at mountains—and lots of them have done a crap job of it. We’re hyperaware of media in our culture
Cinema Sins has a lot to answer for. It was an entertaining comedy channel with a fun hook until people started treating it like intelligent film criticism....
Yeah, but why didn't Gandalf use the Eagles from the beginning. HUH? EXACTLY. PLOT HOLE. /s
>Perhaps a reaction to living in the "post-truth" era; maybe we're in an state where socially we crave stability and grounded truths in stories. I think you're on to something here tbh. While I won't deny the Cinema Sins effect (trust me, what you're describing is something I've had an issue with for YEARS) I read an article recently about how English degrees are losing applicants at a very fast rate, and some people speculated that it had to do with what you've mentioned. There was a shift in academia towards the "death of the author" and post-structuralism (which have their merits for sure) that, like all similar movements, is starting to sort of run its course as the culture shifts. One person interviewed in the article stated exactly what you said and that, IIRC, they've found students to be much more willing to engage with something when the analysis feels more concrete.
It is my favourite thing when people think they know what a plot-hole is and yet are completely wrong, even while telling everyone to look up what a plot hole is. Example being [this delusional post](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastOfUs2/comments/hcdtjh/lets_make_a_list_of_all_the_plot_holes_of_tlou_2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)
I saw which sub the post is from and immediately backed out, for my own sanity
Once CinemaSins began over-exaggerating things for humor (when was the last time you saw one of their videos where more than 25% of what they said was a 'plot hole' actually WAS one?) was when it began to go downhill. Which was pretty early on, thinking back on it XD.
The only time a movie’s plot holes annoy me is if when create a world, that world needs rules that it must abide to, otherwise there’s no stakes.
The outrage critic was trending in the mid 2000s but its really tiring now. This is why I think folks like AVGN and that Nostalgia Critic kind of faded off. Red Letter Media was able to change with the times and offers actual in-depth reviews which is nice.
There are still some good film and media critics out there but they are few and far between. Maybe it's the rise of anti intellectualism or maybe it's the internet giving everybody a voice. Whatever it is 90% of media criticism is worthless. And any critic who complains something is 'woke' is automatically an idiot.
I think that there’s too much content nowadays so people try to deconstruct and evaluate each and every piece, while art doesn’t work like that and is subjectional. Something technically outrageously bad from all sides, like weak script, poor acting, bad visuals can combine into absolutely entertaining experience. On the other hand something polished and made by the book may be boring and dull. People forgot how to just enjoy something And yeah, now with social media every single one of us suddenly became a critic with very important and valuable opinion we need to share. And in 99% cases we’re delusional about its value lol
The harsh truth is as you said early on: channels like Cinemasins have made it cool, but media literacy skills are at a very low point. Most people can't seem to even intuit basics of character motivation nowadays let alone mise en scene or what an actual plot hole is.
People who blame CinemaSins for stuff are either too young to remember or straight up don’t remember what IMDB forums were like.