Best animated movie plot holes of all time

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Ferdinand picture

Plot hole: How does the little girl Nina know Ferdinand's name if only the animals can communicate with each other? They're all calling him Ferdinand before she "names" him that.

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Bolt picture

Plot hole: At the start of the movie, a great deal is made of the boom mic that enters the shot. This is ridiculous, because Bolt's view would not be restricted to what was onscreen, he'd have a perfect view of the person holding the boom mic (as evidenced by it not being stable). There's no possibility of him not seeing the person holding the mic either. As Bolt completely and utterly believes the world he lives in, and thinks the situations he finds himself in (saving Penny) are real, someone holding a boom mic would break the illusion for him. In all instances in the movie where an outside force (i.e. a dog handler) interacts with him, Bolt never gets to see the person handling him (handler approaches from behind), the boom mic operator however is literally right in front of him.

GalahadFairlight

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Suggested correction: He wasn't paying attention and considering that his focus was only on the "action", how the hell would he notice a boom mic when he's trying to protect Penny? His "reality" is never broken even AFTER he's in his trailer.

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Shrek Forever After picture

Plot hole: In the second Shrek movie, we find out that Fairy Godmother and the King had a deal that Prince Charming would save Princess Fiona from the keep, hence becoming her true love and breaking the curse. In the fourth movie, we start with Rumple monologuing about how he almost had the Kingdom by signing a deal with the King. Why would the King be so desperate to try and reverse the curse by signing a deal when he knows he has a prior attempt through Prince Charming, assuming it would take the same time for the messenger to return with news about Charming and Fiona either way?

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Suggested correction: It is stated in the intro that when "days turned into years" of waiting for a Prince to rescue Princess Fiona, the king and queen resorted to more desperate measures - enter Rumpelstiltskin.

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The Princess and the Frog picture

Plot hole: When Charlotte kissed Naveen at the end, she should've turned into a frog as well because she was no longer a princess.

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Suggested correction: When ordinary people kiss a frog, they don't transform into anything. (Perhaps they die from infection after a few days.) Charlotte was just an ordinary person. Tiana was chosen. She wished upon the star. Naveen and the consequences of kissing Naveen were a result of Tiana's wish.

FleetCommand

Suggested correction: How? She was no longer a princess.

Tiana turned into a frog because she kissed Naveen without being a princess, so Charlotte should have, too.

Anson Gordon-Creed

Tiana broke the talisman that the voodoo man had, thus breaking any more frog-turning spell. I know Mama Odie said that Naveen and Tiana broke the spell when they got married, but Dr. Facilier was still responsible for the spell in the first place, and he died, so there's that.

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Despicable Me 3 picture

Plot hole: Bratt's bubble gum is strong enough to withstand projectiles like bullets, lasers, and even strong enough to carry a tanker into the sky but can't withstand Gru's body weight when he crashes into it before "happy birthday Dan".

jbrbbt

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Brave picture

Plot hole: During the scene where Merida gives her speech on "breaking tradition", her mother, as a bear, moves silently behind the majority of the crowd, so they don't see her. Fair enough. However, Merida and her father's clan are all looking in the same general direction (towards the crowd) while she's speaking - how does no one from Merida's clan see a bear moving at the back of the room?

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Ice Age picture

Plot hole: In the Ice Tunnel scene, Manny, Sid, and Diego come to a stop on the vertical block of ice. It breaks, and they slide through a 'field' of icicles sticking out of the ground. Their 'sled' is shaved down to nothing, indicating that the icicles are sharp. After going through the same tunnel as the baby, how did the baby make it through that field? (00:46:53)

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Suggested correction: A possible reason for the sled slowing down is not due to the ice tunnel but the sheer several tons of weight the sled had on it while it was sliding through the tunnel.

Good point. Without the weight, the icicles would had slowed down the sled instead. And since the baby hardly weighs anything at all, it wouldn't have been able to slide through the field, it would've just collided with the front icicles and stayed there. But it still leads back to question of how the baby got through the field.

Rassdyt

Not true, their "sled" is destroyed by the icicles.

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Inside Out picture

Plot hole: Joy and Sadness are stuck outside of the control center. They are trying to figure out how to get back, and encounter maintenance workers who are discarding old memories. The maintenance workers show that they have the power to send memories back up to the control center to be played. Why couldn't they send the core memories that Joy had back up the same way? Better yet, why not use that method to send Joy and Sadness back up to the control center? The director of the film is even aware of the plot hole, and said "Yeah, well then we wouldn't have a third act," before explaining how the idea of recalling memories was added in later, "box[ing] [the screenwriters] in a corner a little bit."

manthabeat

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How to Train Your Dragon picture

Plot hole: When Astrid gets on Toothless for the first time, Toothless takes off uncontrollably and tries to scare her. Hiccup seems to have no control over him at this time. How is that so if with the new tail fin, Toothless cannot fly without Hiccup's precise control of the tail fin? That whole sequence would have fallen apart. This mistake was even admitted to on the DVD commentary. (00:53:35)

Quantom X

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The Lion King picture

Plot hole: Scar tells the pack he didn't make it to the gorge in time to help Mufasa. However Zazu was with them at at the gorge. He could have easily told Sarabi or any of the other lions on the numerous times he spoke with them, exposing Scar.

Ssiscool

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Suggested correction: Actually, Zazu wouldn't honestly say that Scar was lying; he left Scar at the gorge, but for all he knows, when Scar talks about not getting to the gorge in time, Scar could just mean that he couldn't find a safe path into the gorge to help Mufasa and Simba escape.

Joey221995

So Scar would say he couldn't get to Mufasa in time. Not the gorge.

Ssiscool

Suggested correction: Zazu wasn't with them when Scar said so. He was with Rafiki. He couldn't have heard what Scar was saying.

Suggested correction: But it wouldn't have confirmed that he killed Mufasa.

It would prove that Scar (who had the most to gain from Mufasa and Simba's deaths) was lying about the circumstances surrounding their deaths. But no-one brings it up.

It would prove Scar is lying about the events of Mufasa's (and Simba's presumed) death, and given Scar gained the most from it, the other animals should be extremely suspicious of him.

Anson Gordon-Creed

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The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn picture

Plot hole: In Bagghar, Allan knocks out Haddock by hitting him on the head from behind. Later, Haddock tells Tintin it was Allan who knocked him out - how would he have seen him?

LadyArcher

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Sing 2 picture

Plot hole: Johnny's dad jumps in his truck and gets to Johnny in moments. That same journey was shown to be an overnight bus journey for everyone else.

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Toy Story picture

Plot hole: The spaces in the lattice used as hand holds in the blue plastic crate in which Woody is trapped are easily large enough for him to squeeze through. He could have escaped without too much trouble.

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Free Birds picture

Plot hole: When Jake first meets Reggie, he tells Reggie that the Great Turkey told him everything about him. Later in the movie, when Reggie goes back in time and introduces himself as the Great Turkey to a young Jake, he only tells Jake to find the "Pardoned Turkey" but never said that the pardoned turkey's name was Reggie, so there's no way the adult Jake would know Reggie's name when they first meet.

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Moana picture

Plot hole: When Moana first meets Muai, she opens her necklace to tell him he will restore the heart. Muai sees the heart but doesn't get scared until he sees it again on the boat. He should have been scared the first time.

Jeremy Buerkle

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South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut picture

Plot hole: The kids dig a hole and a spotlight goes over it. Wouldn't the operator notice the hole in the ground? (00:56:30)

Ssiscool

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Despicable Me 2 picture

Plot hole: We see the purple form of the minions be able to devour any kind of metal easily, so how it's possible that El Macho is able to confine them in a metallic cage?

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The Care Bears Movie picture

Plot hole: What was the point of Jason holding onto the key to the evil spirit's book when Secret Heart Bear can simply create a key herself?

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Hotel Transylvania 2 picture

Plot hole: In the beginning, vampires are shown to be invisible in photos but then they seem to appear in videos like security footage and social media posts.

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Brother Bear 2 picture

Plot hole: The whole plot of the first "Brother Bear" was that Kenai had to go to that mountain to become human. But at the end of this movie, the spirits were about to change Kenai back into a human in the middle of a cliff, which makes the entire first movie completely pointless.

Brad

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