# Gaping Holes In Film Plots



## Spymaster (Jan 14, 2013)

We watched Unknown with Liam Neeson last night and while I'm often prepared to meet a film halfway in the suspension of disbelief, this took the piss.

It was obvious that they weren't who they said they were as soon as his 'wife' denied knowing him, and why did that hot young girl hang around Neeson for 1 minute longer than she had to? If you get someones friends killed and their apartment trashed 20 minutes after meeting them, normal people would tell you to fuck off, not ally themselves to you and your weird ways. And why did the assassins kill the black fella? He had nothing to do with anything and they wouldn't even have known him. The only reason he died seems to be so Neeson could nick his car keys and have the chase. Then when Neeson kills assassin 1 in the apartment what does he do? Does he pick up his gun to defend against assassin 2? look for ID to find out who's trying to kill him? No, he shakes the corpse by the collar and asks "who sent you?" and we know that never works!

We find out later in the film that Neeson's actually some kind of super-assassin himself, yet along with his memory went his ability to dole out a good kicking to bad guys whilst he thought he was a doctor. Does that happen?  And would a super-dooper highly trained assassin really leave his briefcase containing all his important false ID's and cash on an airport trolley? Why did that Jurgen fellow just accept that he was going to die when assassin 3 turned up? He had plenty of time to fuck off/set a trap/kill him, but instead chose to open the door to his prospective killer and help him out by taking cyanide.

At the end Neeson's non-wife goes back to defuse the bomb in the hotel room. We saw Neeson planting the bomb and it was concealed behind the bathroom mirror. Non-wife takes a massive swing at the mirror with the heavy lid of the bog cistern but it fails to break, necessitating her efforts to access the bomb from the other side and having to smash through the wall, cos as we know it's easier to smash a wall down with your hands than it is to break a mirror with a fuck-off block of porcelain!!! Of course she doesn't make it in time.

What a load of old pony.

So, nonsense film plots ......


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## Reno (Jan 14, 2013)

The Hole



Holes:



The Black Hole:


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## Yetman (Jan 14, 2013)

Prometheus....


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## Nanker Phelge (Jan 14, 2013)

Plots are over-rated.


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## weltweit (Jan 14, 2013)

I don't know about holes or I can't recall any atm.

But bad sound effects certainly.

I know a little about motorbikes, including how one engine or another sounds.

Often the sound people make a vee twin Harley Davidson sound like an inline four. Or a single cylinder two stroke sound like a twin cylinder four stroke.

They get it wrong so often it makes me wonder - what other things, about which I do not know, do they also treat so shabbily. And the only answer I get is that they probably treat every detail with such disdain in the knowledge that most people will not notice!


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## Reno (Jan 14, 2013)

Considered one of the greatests films ever made and my personale favourite film, Hitchcock's Vertigo is full of so called plot holes. It's plot doesn't really add up in logical terms, but it does in emotional ones. Hitchcock used to call people who expected plots to 100% sense and who wanted everything explained in logical terms "the plausibles".


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## TitanSound (Jan 14, 2013)

Spymaster said:


> Why did that Jurgen fellow just accept that he was going to die when assassin 3 turned up? He had plenty of time to fuck off/set a trap/kill him, but instead chose to open the door to his prospective killer and help him out by taking cyanide.


 
Because he was dying from cancer. I imagine he wanted to take his own life.

But yes, a silly film indeed. As soon as he started driving like a stunt pro, I turned to the missus and said "He's a fucking secret agent or some shit"

It was a poor mans Bourne rip off.


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## Spymaster (Jan 14, 2013)

TitanSound said:


> Because he was dying from cancer.


 
Aye, but not that day! Why not take the fucker with him at least, or just be out when he arrives?


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## Firky (Jan 14, 2013)

Children of Men is full of them.


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## Balbi (Jan 14, 2013)

The Big Sleep's a classic one...



> _The Big Sleep_ is known for its convoluted plot. During filming, allegedly neither the director nor the screenwriters knew whether chauffeur Owen Taylor was murdered or had killed himself. They sent a cable to Chandler, who told a friend in a later letter: "They sent me a wire ... asking me, and dammit I didn't know either".[6]


 
 Points to Chandler for honesty.


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## Nanker Phelge (Jan 14, 2013)

Reno said:


> Considered one of the greatests films ever made and my personale favourite film, Hitchcock's Vertigo is full of so called plot holes. It's plot doesn't really add up in logical terms, but it does in emotional ones. Hitchcock used to call people who expected plots to 100% sense and who wanted everything explained in logical terms "the plausibles".


 
Ha ha.....if people question your story telling make them feel inadequate!

Hitchcock would have made a fine urbanite.


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## Sigmund Fraud (Jan 14, 2013)

Star Trek (2009) - Nero destroys Vulcan and heads for earth - a journey which has just taken the Enterprise about 10 minutes. In the wake of this the crew of the Enterprise ponder Vulcans destruction, jettison Kirk, head to regroup with the main fleet in the Laurentian system, have Kirk reboard via some hokey transwarp beaming shit, have a power struggle for command of the Enterprise, re route it towards earth and then decide on a plan of action to zoom back to the rings of Saturn and defeat Nero as he is well on his way to destroying earth like he did Vulcan. What was Nero doing for an hour? Did he stop off at cafe Nero and get himself a posh coffee? He would have tortured Pike, got the codes, headed straight for earth and smashed it to fuck with red matter, in all likelihood well before Kirk had beamed himself back to the Enterprise for a showdown with Spock.


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## Reno (Jan 14, 2013)

Nanker Phelge said:


> Ha ha.....if people question your story telling make them feel inadequate!
> 
> Hitchcock would have made a fine urbanite.


 
...but would he have posted kitten pictures, gotten his cock out and called middle class people "smug" ?


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## Nanker Phelge (Jan 14, 2013)

Reno said:


> ...but would he have posted kitten pictures, gotten his cock out and called middle class people "smug" ?


 
I hope he would have got his cock out. All the very best posters do.

He would have posted pics of murdered kittens in the shower.

He wouldn't call anyone smug, he just would have been,


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## Firky (Jan 14, 2013)

Personally I hate bad continuity more than plot holes. Plot holes I can forgive, it's part of allowing a story be told - a lot of things in life don't make a lot of sense but at least they have continuity.


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## Pickman's model (Jan 14, 2013)

What happened to the list in skyfall that bond was sent to get?


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## Pingu (Jan 14, 2013)

Sigmund Fraud said:


> Star Trek (2009) - Nero destroys Vulcan and heads for earth - a journey which has just taken the Enterprise about 10 minutes. In the wake of this the crew of the Enterprise ponder Vulcans destruction, jettison Kirk, head to regroup with the main fleet in the Laurentian system, have Kirk reboard via some hokey transwarp beaming shit, have a power struggle for command of the Enterprise, re route it towards earth and then decide on a plan of action to zoom back to the rings of Saturn and defeat Nero as he is well on his way to destroying earth like he did Vulcan. What was Nero doing for an hour? Did he stop off at cafe Nero and get himself a posh coffee? He would have tortured Pike, got the codes, headed straight for earth and smashed it to fuck with red matter, in all likelihood well before Kirk had beamed himself back to the Enterprise for a showdown with Spock.


 

spooky. i rewatched this last night and thought the very same thing


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## Pingu (Jan 14, 2013)

dont get me started on glorfindel and bombadil...


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## Nanker Phelge (Jan 14, 2013)

Pickman's model said:


> What happened to the list in skyfall that bond was sent to get?


 
Lost in Tesco?


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## Spymaster (Jan 14, 2013)

firky said:


> Plot holes I can forgive, it's part of allowing a story be told ...


 
I can to a degree but when just about every scene makes you think wtf  it gets annoying.


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## Shirl (Jan 14, 2013)

Spymaster said:


> We watched Unknown with Liam Neeson last night and while I'm often prepared to meet a film halfway in the suspension of disbelief, this took the piss.
> 
> 
> 
> What a load of old pony.


I watched this last night too and agree with everything you said but it did at least pass a couple of hours when there was nothing else to watch.

Jurgen was dying anyway so maybe he just couldn't be bothered running


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## Firky (Jan 14, 2013)

Pickman's model said:


> What happened to the list in skyfall that bond was sent to get?


 
Train continues as though everything is perfectly normal despite being chopped in two by a fucking digger onboard one of it's carriages.

How does he survive being shot off a train that is crossing a viaduct? Or was it just an excuse for the very slick title sequence?

Does Silvia carry a metro train timetable with him and knows to the second when a train is approaching above?

The guy who Bond shoots by cutting a hole in the window - who the fuck is he?


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## Nanker Phelge (Jan 14, 2013)

Did god know Jesus would die. The bastard!


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## bi0boy (Jan 14, 2013)

In The Matrix, Trinity is instructed how to fly a B-212 helicopter whereas the accompanying image on the computer is of a B-260.


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## Nanker Phelge (Jan 14, 2013)

bi0boy said:


> In The Matrix Trinity is instructed how to fly a B-212 helicopter whereas the accompanying image on the computer is of a B-260.


 
OH MY GOD......my sense of reality is shattered!


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## bigbry (Jan 14, 2013)

The ones I hate are where the baddies in the big American 4X4 are chasing the good guys in an upmarket European luxury car (Merc/BMW/Audi/Jaguar) and they easily keep up with them.  There's no way an American 4X4 weighing over three tons and running on a ladder chassis and cart springs will keep up with the aforementioned Euro saloons. Total crap.

And another thing, why do people being chased in movies run into a building and go upstairs - there's only one way to go when you go upstairs and that's back down again.


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## youngian (Jan 14, 2013)

Hope this doesn't degenerate into a John Bishop/Michael McIntyre routine; Where do cowboys go to the toilet?, have you noticed no-one waits for change in the movies?, why doesn't Dr Who hide upstairs from the Daleks?


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## last16 (Jan 14, 2013)

Life of Pi,terrible.


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## Kuso (Jan 14, 2013)

youngian said:


> why doesn't Dr Who hide upstairs from the Daleks?



the new ones fly


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## Lord Camomile (Jan 14, 2013)

youngian said:


> Hope this doesn't degenerate into a John Bishop/Michael McIntyre routine; Where do cowboys go to the toilet?, have you noticed no-one waits for change in the movies?, why doesn't Dr Who hide upstairs from the Daleks?


Who shoots Nice Guy Eddie...?

e2a: that's not really a 'stand-up observation', but it's a very common question about that film. So it kind of worked.

Shut up 



Sigmund Fraud said:


> Star Trek (2009) - Nero destroys Vulcan and heads for earth - a journey which has just taken the Enterprise about 10 minutes. In the wake of this the crew of the Enterprise ponder Vulcans destruction, jettison Kirk, head to regroup with the main fleet in the Laurentian system, have Kirk reboard via some hokey transwarp beaming shit, have a power struggle for command of the Enterprise, re route it towards earth and then decide on a plan of action to zoom back to the rings of Saturn and defeat Nero as he is well on his way to destroying earth like he did Vulcan. What was Nero doing for an hour? Did he stop off at cafe Nero and get himself a posh coffee? He would have tortured Pike, got the codes, headed straight for earth and smashed it to fuck with red matter, in all likelihood well before Kirk had beamed himself back to the Enterprise for a showdown with Spock.


Also:

"Here's the equation for beaming onto moving stuff"
"Where did you get this?"
"You discover it years from now"
"No, you just gave it to me"
"Um..."
"So how did you find out about it?"
"You discov..."
"No, I got it from you. So where did you get it from?"
"...

...

Hey, do you need a watch?"


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## youngian (Jan 14, 2013)

Lord Camomile said:


> e2a: that's not really a 'stand-up observation', but it's a very common question about that film. So it kind of worked.
> Shut up


 
Are you talking about the collecting change quip?
This concerned Warren Beatty in the late 60s and as a consequence Bonnie and Clyde collected their change


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## Left (Jan 14, 2013)

Donnie Darko
Not exactly a plot hole, but deliberately withholds information to make morons think it's deep


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## Mungy (Jan 14, 2013)

hacktuallly, in times of stress and running away from bad things people tend to go through doors and upstairs to put obstacles in the way of the pursuers, to confuse the backtrail, and to be higher up to get a better perspective like climbing trees, but infinitely easier for modern humans


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## Firky (Jan 14, 2013)

last16 said:


> Life of Pi,terrible.


 
I've heard people who's opinion on films I respect say it's great and shite. I'll make my own mind up.

As ever with films I want to see I only watch the trailer the once and it looks (visually) good.



Left said:


> Donnie Darko
> Not exactly a plot hole, but deliberately withholds information to make morons think it's deep


Sometimes you do actually post sense.


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## pogofish (Jan 14, 2013)

Battlefield Earth anyone?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 14, 2013)

firky said:


> Personally I hate bad continuity more than plot holes. Plot holes I can forgive, it's part of allowing a story be told - a lot of things in life don't make a lot of sense but at least they have continuity.


Yeah, me too.

Can anyone explain how exactly the two children were rescued from their evil stepfather in Fanny and Alexander? I am totally mystified by it. You'd have thought Bergman would have sorted that kind of thing out.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 14, 2013)

Balbi said:


> The Big Sleep's a classic one...
> 
> 
> 
> Points to Chandler for honesty.


 I've seen that film three or four times, and I'm buggered if I could explain the story.


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## Balbi (Jan 14, 2013)

It's something to do with Lauren Bacall being really awesome.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 14, 2013)

They shot extra scenes with her in them after she started getting publicity, didn't they? Perhaps that didn't help with the sense of it.

There's an old bloke in a wheelchair surrounded by flowers. I'm pretty sure he's important to the thing, but I couldn't tell you how.


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## billy_bob (Jan 14, 2013)

Plots that don't quite add up I can cope with, but basic continuity errors wind me up.  One of the most common is where they fail to match daylight/night-time to amount of time passed.  Withnail and I is terrible for this - one minute it's lunchtime and in the next, supposedly subsequent, scene it's dark.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 14, 2013)

They break the spell momentarily. I guess that's why they're so annoying. Cigarettes being smoked at differing angles is a common one. Difficult to get right, I suppose.


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 14, 2013)

firky said:


> Does Silvia carry a metro train timetable with him and knows to the second when a train is approaching above?


 
Simillarly, in the Dark Knight how come the joker knows _exactly_ when and where the bus is gonna crash through the wall, to the point of being completely not bothered about the other guy pointing a gun at him?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 14, 2013)

Reno said:


> Considered one of the greatests films ever made and my personale favourite film, Hitchcock's Vertigo is full of so called plot holes. It's plot doesn't really add up in logical terms, but it does in emotional ones. Hitchcock used to call people who expected plots to 100% sense and who wanted everything explained in logical terms "the plausibles".


Isn't that Hitchcock excusing himself, though? I'm sure he _tried_ to make it all hang together.

The Lady Vanishes is another. Why does putting a bandage over a person immediately immobilise them and stop them from crying out? It happens twice.


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 14, 2013)

In The Dark Knight Rises, how can they be so sure _exactly _when the bomb is going to explode? We're told that the device decays without its core, until it explodes. Radioactive decay is completely unpredictable, it can only be quantified in terms of half-life which is an average value and cannot reliably be used to make predictions.

How come Wayne Manor gets the power cut off mere days after Bruce Wayne loses all his money? When I don't pay my bills they send me shitty letters for weeks and weeks before they actually cut me off. Come to think of it, how is it possible for Bruce to lose every single penny he has in the world? How come his company 'lets' him keep his house, which presumably he owns outright anyway? And after an extremely high-profile attack on the stock exchange, wouldn't the goverment put a freeze on all transactions to prevent precisely that kind of massive fraud?

Why, ultimately, did Christopher Nolan decide to phone in the entire script for the movie? And given the fact he was making a film from an obviously phoned-in script, why did he have to make it three hours long?


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## Reno (Jan 14, 2013)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Isn't that Hitchcock excusing himself, though? I'm sure he _tried_ to make it all hang together.


 
No, he didn't. He was never particularly interested in a plot making 100% sense in a realistic way. Hitchcock was the one who popularised the term 'MacGuffin', which is the rational thing that keeps the plot ticking, but which is of no actual interest to him or the essence of the film. Hitchcock made dream films and Vertigo isn't really that far removed from what Lynch did later on with something like Blue Velvet, which also used a conventional, not especially original crime plot to examine the twisted inner states and primal passions of its characters.

Hitchcock made films when people were more willing to suspend their disbelief, because most films were not preoccupied with naturalism and audiences weren't measuring films against real life. They knew it was fantasy and they didn't spend ages on forums picking films that are essentially fantasies, apart for their implausibilities and how these plots would stand up in real life.


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## thriller (Jan 14, 2013)

I really fucking hate film reviews where the reviewer informs us a movie has many plot holes without actually stating what the fuck they were. It's almost fashionable to state it, but not state it.


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## Reno (Jan 14, 2013)

thriller said:


> I really fucking hate film reviews where the reviewer informs us a movie has many plot holes without actually stating what the fuck they were. It's almost fashionable to state it, but not state it.


 
That would probably mean giving away spoilers.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 14, 2013)

Reno said:


> No, he didn't. He was never particularly interested in a plot making 100% sense in a realistic way. Hitchcock was the one who popularised the term 'MacGuffin', which is the rational thing that keeps the plot ticking, but which is of no actual interest to him or the essence of the film. Hitchcock made dream films and Vertigo isn't really that far removed from what Lynch did later on with something like Blue Velvet, which also used a conventional, not especially original crime plot to examine the twisted inner states and primal passions of its characters.
> 
> Hitchcock made films when people were more willing to suspend their disbelief, because most films were not preoccupied with naturalism and audiences weren't measuring films against real life. They knew it was fantasy and they didn't spend ages on forums picking films that are essentially fantasies, apart for their implausibilities and how these plots would stand up in real life.


Yes, fair point, and well put. And you're right that endless exposition is boring, pedestrian and makes films worse. I don't actually mind that they're using magic bandages in The Lady Vanishes.


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## Lord Camomile (Jan 14, 2013)

youngian said:


> Are you talking about the collecting change quip?
> This concerned Warren Beatty in the late 60s and as a consequence Bonnie and Clyde collected their change


Nah, I was referring to my own post about Nice Guy Eddie, which as I said wasn't really along the same lines as your stand-up observations, I just wanted to mention it.

Fuck, and I've just realised that really it should be spoilers


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## Lord Camomile (Jan 14, 2013)

SpookyFrank said:


> Simillarly, in the Dark Knight how come the joker knows _exactly_ when and where the bus is gonna crash through the wall, to the point of being completely not bothered about the other guy pointing a gun at him?


"Crash into the wall at 15:30 exactly. Set your alarm"

Simples 

(It was rather convenient, but that's film timing for ya)


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## T & P (Jan 14, 2013)

Not that it spoils the enjoyment of the film, but in Pulp Fiction I always found it rather odd that Jules and Vincent are so carefree about leaving fingerprints and DNA all over a crime scene (Brett's apartment) and didn't even bother to wear gloves. Specially since Jules was later on so concerned about his blood stained clothes being put in the bin and maybe noticed by someone.


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## Kuso (Jan 14, 2013)

what's the one about Blade?  they're trying to bring back some super vampire or something and it'll turn everyone into vampires.  what will they eat?


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## Lord Camomile (Jan 14, 2013)

I'm pretty sure the plan isn't to turn everyone into vamps, some humans were to be farmed and harvested for their luverly haemoglobin.


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## weltweit (Jan 15, 2013)

T & P said:


> Not that it spoils the enjoyment of the film, but in Pulp Fiction I always found it rather odd that Jules and Vincent are so carefree about leaving fingerprints and DNA all over a crime scene (Brett's apartment) and didn't even bother to wear gloves. Specially since Jules was later on so concerned about his blood stained clothes being put in the bin and maybe noticed by someone.


 
Pulp Fiction is quite hard to notice plot flaws or continuety errors because it is only towards the end that you realise how it all fits together.


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## Kuso (Jan 15, 2013)

Lord Camomile said:


> I'm pretty sure the plan isn't to turn everyone into vamps, some humans were to be farmed and harvested for their luverly haemoglobin.


 


> So vampires need to feed on humans because their blood can't support hemoglobin (the stuff that transports oxygen through your body and is kind of necessary to live), so if Frost summons La Magra, which turns EVERYONE into a vampire, what are vampires supposed to feed on?
> 
> This is explained in a deleted scene where Frost reveals a pilot idea to keep humans in cold storage. This idea was reused in _Blade III_.



from here


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## youngian (Jan 15, 2013)

SpookyFrank said:


> How come Wayne Manor gets the power cut off mere days after Bruce Wayne loses all his money? When I don't pay my bills they send me shitty letters for weeks and weeks before they actually cut me off.


 
And how come Batman gets to Gotham City so quick when he lives in Nottingham?-

http://www.free-city-guides.com/nottingham/wollaton-hall


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 15, 2013)

youngian said:


> And how come Batman gets to Gotham City so quick when he lives in Nottingham?-
> 
> http://www.free-city-guides.com/nottingham/wollaton-hall


 
Yeah, that's about a mile from my house


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## youngian (Jan 15, 2013)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yeah, that's about a mile from my house


 
That's spooky Frank!


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## Orang Utan (Jan 15, 2013)

None of the holes pointed out so far were noticed by me when I watched the films.i am glad of this


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## KristineStays (Jan 15, 2013)

Kuso said:


> what's the one about Blade? they're trying to bring back some super vampire or something and it'll turn everyone into vampires. what will they eat?


Thats quite popular concept in vampire world and so in the films. Last time I saw it it was in Being Human (uk). They will turn everyone - except group of people who will be miked for blood. Blood donation they call it. Or all of them will go vegetarian. 
That reminds me that rather bad movie Daybreakers about the world ruled by vampires. Full of plotholes. Good idea, really bad script.


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## Random (Jan 19, 2013)

youngian said:


> And how come Batman gets to Gotham City so quick when he lives in Nottingham?-
> 
> http://www.free-city-guides.com/nottingham/wollaton-hall


A great place, with herds of wild deer iirc. The owners owned some of England's oldest mines, and in the 1940s the estate's gatehouse had its roof reinforced so that cannon could be mounted on top to defend against revolting locals.


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## Voley (Jan 19, 2013)

In Quadrophenia how does Phil Daniels manage to nick Sting's scooter using his own key, eh?


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## billy_bob (Jan 19, 2013)

NVP said:


> In Quadrophenia how does Phil Daniels manage to nick Sting's scooter using his own key, eh?


 
Christ, don't get started on film characters' behaviour around vehicle security.  The only time anyone's car appears to actually be locked when they arrive at it is if they're being followed by a rapist, a bent cop who they've just uncovered in a corrupt act, or something pale and vaguely Japanese in a horror film.


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