Best biography movie plot holes of all time

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The Lost City of Z picture

Plot hole: Searching for the source of the river, the raft is going downstream. Return trip it's also downstream. Generally, no matter where they are going, the rafts keep floating downstream.

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The Imitation Game picture

Plot hole: There is no logical reason to switch off the Bombe at midnight when the codes change. Firstly, Turing's proving the concept of automated code breaking, so even if it only finds the right settings days or weeks later, the experiment is worth doing, then you can work out how to speed it up to be operationally useful. Secondly, even in steady state operation, cracking "yesterday's" settings (and thus intercepted signals) is still going to be pretty useful in most cases. Threatening to smash the Bombe up at midnight is good stuff to add some movie tension but, in reality, it's nonsense.

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Suggested correction: It's not a plot hole, it's how they operated it in reality.

I have a copy of British Intelligence in the Second World War, by F H Hensley (the official historian and ex-GCCS). I quote page 309 as an example - 'the knowledge of the Tracking Rooms was far from perfect on account of delays in breaking the settings...During the first half of 1943, however, while the traffic was read with delays that were sometimes less than 24 hours, days when the settings proven to be unusual stubborn were not uncommon...Between 10 March Andy the end of June the setting standards for an a further 22 days were either not broken at all or broken only after a long delay.'...'A delay of as much a said three days in learning that U-boats had been ordered to move to new position so could thus mean than intelligence was received too late to be of use in diverting convoys'. So pretty clear that they carried on attempting to crack the settings well after the end of a day so they can process intercepts which might still be relevant.

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La Bamba picture

Plot hole: When Ritchie appears at a pizza party sponsored by a local radio station, his manager Bob Keane is handing out copies of Ritchie's first album. In reality, the album had not been released until April 1959, two months after Ritchie's death. As the actual LP includes his biggest hit "Donna", Ritchie had not yet recorded (or even composed) the song in this part of the movie until a few scenes later.

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Iris picture

Plot hole: When John retrieves the mail from the postman, Iris dashes outside. Less than 10 seconds after she closes the door, a car is heard, off-camera, honking a horn. Wouldn't John have found Iris so soon after that noise is heard? She doesn't seem to have enough time to allow for a search for her.

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Braveheart picture

Plot hole: In the scene where William takes Murron for their initial ride, he shows up in pouring rain, yet all further shots show the two of them totally dry. The tone of her mother's voice when they get back suggests they did not spend the night together, and the whole sequence appeared in a couple hours. They could not have gone from soaking-wet to bone-dry that fast.

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The Miracle Worker picture

Plot hole: When Annie Sullivan, as Helen Keller's teacher, gives Helen a doll that makes a sound, when they are alone in the small house, Helen upends the basket that holds all her dolls, but when the doll makes a sound, Helen grabs the doll and makes the sound the doll makes; but Helen is deaf, so how could she have learnt to imitate it?

kh1616

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Right On Track picture

Plot hole: When Erica crashes at the Huston Raceway Park a helicopter from the University of Utah lands to pick her up, it doesn't make much sense to fly a trauma patient over three states; At least not until she is immediately stabilized at a local hospital. We even see a truck from the Huston International Raceway drive up to the accident.

Mad Dog

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The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc picture

Plot hole: Joan of Arc is called to save Orléans from the siege of the English. But if you look In the scene where we see a bird's eye view of the city, you will notice that there are no guards on its walls. A siege is the means enemy soldiers try to cut a city from its supplies and contacts. Those soldiers should be guarding it day and night, and sometimes even shooting arrows or rocks in it, until the city resigns. The siege we see at Orléans is nothing but a lonely catapult which shoots once a week.

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Memoirs of a Geisha picture

Plot hole: When Pumpkin is telling Sayuri about Hatsumomo talking to Dr. Crab, she says that she was waiting outside during the conversation, and while she could hear it, she couldn't see them. However, at one point Pumpkin describes a facial expression of Dr. Crab.

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Spartacus picture

Plot hole: How did Glabrus know about Silesian pirates aiding the slave army's escape? He informed the senate of this and yet was not made aware of it at the time of his capture.

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Riding in Cars with Boys picture

Plot hole: In the scene where Jason has his 5th birthday party, after the party it's night time and Bev is sitting on her front step alone when she is startled by her old friend from high school. They begin to walk and talk. She says to him at one point that she is 22. Now when Jason is born, it is stated by her dad that she is 15, so if it is Jason's 5th birthday that would make Bev 20 years old, not 22.

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