Best movie plot holes of 1987

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The Living Daylights picture

Plot hole: Necros had absolutely no way of knowing that Bond and Saunders had arranged to meet at the café when they did and wouldn't have had anywhere near enough time to track them down and set up his elaborate booby trap. Saunders only suggested the meeting place and time a few hours earlier, and it was kept strictly between him and Bond. The scene in Tangier, where Whittaker tells Necros to kill another British agent, takes place on the same day Bond arrived in Vienna; meaning that Necros got from Tangier to Vienna (a 5-hour plus flight), tracked down Saunders, acquired the materials to booby trap the café doors (or had planned this ahead of time - unlikely), and set the trap up well in advance of him and Bond getting to the fairground. There was nowhere near enough time for all of that to happen without Necros having psychic knowledge of Saunders' movements.

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The Fourth Protocol picture

Plot hole: Explosions are very predicable and leave very clear traces after detonation, and the precise epicentre of a small nuclear explosion could be established within a few meters. Experts from the United States military could show that the nuclear explosion originated outside the airbase, and the evidence they could show (aerial photographs, etc) would be irrefutable. They could even invite their counterparts in the Russian military to see for themselves. The only way Petrofsky's plan could have worked would be if he could somehow get the bomb inside the perimeter of the airbase - not a terribly likely proposition.

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Suggested correction: The plan was to claim that a USAF fighter bomber carrying an unstable nuclear warhead had crashed while on approach to the airbase, causing the explosion.

What plan? This plot twist is not mentioned anywhere in the film or the book. The posting is absolutely correct.

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The Running Man picture

Plot hole: In the unedited video footage of the helicopter incident shown to the crowd, the last shot of Arnie getting knocked out is seen from his perspective and as such could never have been filmed by any camera.

Gavin Jackson

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Beverly Hills Cop II picture

Plot hole: Cain's hitman asks for a match to lit his cigar. Cain gives him the matchbook. When Axel later tests the matchbook for fingerprints, there is only one on it - Cain's. The hitman's fingerprint ought to be on it too.

Jacob La Cour

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Superman IV: The Quest for Peace picture

Plot hole: Superman traps the supervillain (whose power depends on sunlight) inside of an elevator to incapacitate him. Superman then ripped the elevator out of the building. He then plants it on the far side of the moon. Later on, sunlight starts to shine into the elevator through a slit at where the doors meet. The villain of course recharges and comes after Superman again. Now, if light could get through that crack there, then why couldn't it get through when the elevator was ripped out of the building in BROAD DAYLIGHT?

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Wall Street picture

Plot hole: The scene in Central Park where Bud tapes Gekko never would have happened. Gekko's comments imply that he was unaware of Bud's arrest earlier that morning (not just that Gekko was unaware he was being taped). (1) Gekko makes comments that the Feds are pleased with, at least to some extent incriminating himself. (2) Gekko doesn't say something like: "OK, now you've been pinched, here's what you do." BUT - how in the world would Gekko not know of Bud's arrest? Even in the days before the internet, information spread like wildfire on Wall Street. All the brokers in Bud's office would be on the phones saying "they just arrested Gekko's broker!" Everyone on Wall Street, especially someone like Gekko, would find out, and far more quickly than the time it took to schlep Bud up to Central Park and strap a recorder on him.

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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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Masters of the Universe picture

Plot hole: When Gwildor tells Julie and Kevin that he can use the Cosmic Key to take them to any point in time they wish, Kevin asks just for them to go straight home. As Kevin and Julie go through the portal, Julie turns around and shouts to Gwildor to send them back before being dragged through the portal completely. When Julie wakes up in bed, she discovers that Gwildor has sent her back to the day her parents were killed. Julie never said where in time she wanted to go, so there's no way Gwildor could know to send her back to the day her parents died.

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Lethal Weapon picture

Plot hole: One of the children is a witness that saw the man that planted the bomb in Dixie's house. He is said by a policeman to have been playing 'under the porch' and was close enough to make-out the Special Forces tatoo on the bomber's arm. Problem is, Dixie's house had no porch of any kind, and any other home's porch would've placed him too far to see such a small tatoo so confidently. (00:57:40)

johnrosa

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Suggested correction: The rear of Dixie's house is never shown. The house could conceivably have a back porch the kid could have been playing under and the killer could have used the back door.

BaconIsMyBFF

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A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors picture

Plot hole: The TV-watching girl is killed when Freddy shoves her face first into a TV set. (one of the more creative movie deaths.) But the thing is, all the other deaths have been set up to look like suicides if not accidents - this one was obviously foul play, since there's no way she could have launched herself into the glass of a TV screen hard enough to break it. We see that her body is found this way, but they make no inquiry.

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Suggested correction: Not all of the deaths were meant to be suicidal; Phillip and Kirsten were the only exceptions. When Will and Taryn were killed, it was in the dream when they wanted to help Kirsten but nobody was there to witness it and it was much later in the film. Also when Joey was caught by Freddy, he was only passed out but still alive. The one kid that cut his eyelids off was not only never shown but his death happened by his own doings out of fear for Freddy.

It doesn't matter if Jennifer's death wasn't intended to look like a suicide - she is in a locked ward and was the victim of a homicide. Yet there's no investigation.

Why would there be an investigation? Especially when she was the only one in the room - apart from Freddy - or maybe there were cameras there?

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Angel Heart picture

Plot hole: When Angel comes back to the doctor's home with food, he opens the bedroom door and turns on the light in that room. The lights are already on outside this room when we see him turn the doorknob. When Angel leaves, he leaves the light on in the bedroom and heads downstairs. Just before leaving out the front door, he turns off the light switch nearby. The shots changes to show the doc's body and the room going dark- as if Angel is still in the bedroom and turned off that light. (00:23:10)

johnrosa

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The Chipmunk Adventure picture

Plot hole: Although it is explained how the chipmunks were able to get away with the balloon race by tricking Ms. Miller, wouldn't Ms. Miller know that the chipettes were in on the balloon race? Especially considering the fact that she is their guardian? Also, why would she offer to babysit the chipmunks if she has chipettes to look after herself? Despite this, the chipettes were never brought along to Dave's house with Ms. Miller. And what is Ms. Miller still doing in Dave's house if she thinks the chipmunks are with Dave? Unless maybe she's taking care of the house...

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The Hidden picture

Plot hole: When Gallagher is trying to kill the senator at the end, he is fired on by his bodyguards. Yet when they finally catch up with him, they're quite content to stand back and watch him torch the senator. One of them even lowers his gun. They couldn't have known Gallagher and the senator were aliens. (01:27:20)

Daz

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The Monster Squad picture

Plot hole: The army showing up at the end of the movie is wrong on numerous levels. 1) Eugene wrote and sent out the letter that day. I find it hard to believe the mailed letter got to the army in just a few hours time. 2) How did the army know to show up at time square? When Eugene wrote the letter, nowhere did it say where to meet. Plus the boys didn't decide to go to time square until the last minute. 3) since when is the army deployed to battle monsters based on a letter that was written by a child?

SAZOO1975

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Suggested correction: The army's arrival being unrealistic is a very deliberate joke, like the armadillo-rats from earlier in the movie.

I submitted a category change to "Factual Error" to help cover this. It is indeed too deliberate to be a true plothole, but it is nonetheless amusing to point out all the ridiculous ways this humorous scene defies believability.

TonyPH

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The Princess Bride picture

Plot hole: In the scene where Westley is tortured to extremity, he screams, and upon hearing him scream, Inigo is instantly able to identify Westley and that he is in love with someone about to marry. You could say Fezzik told him, but how did Fezzik know? For all they knew, he was just a pirate after a prize.

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Suggested correction: He doesn't instantly identify Westley; he identifies the sound of ultimate suffering. He surmises that it must be Westley because he can't think of anyone else who would have cause for ultimate suffering. By now the news would have spread that Humperdink's men apprehended a pirate claiming to be Buttercup's true love. Inigo was simply putting two and two together.

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Fatal Attraction picture

Plot hole: In the kitchen, when Michael Douglas is preparing the hot water for the tea just before the final bathroom fight, there is a shot of him looking up at the ceiling and noticing the leaking water (obviously from the overflowing bathtub). But, he turns back toward the stove and continues to prepare the tea, instead of having an immediate reaction that something is wrong. It is not until the teapot whistles, and his wife screams, that he realizes something is wrong. He should have run up stairs as soon as he noticed the water leaking from the ceiling.

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G.I. Joe: The Movie picture

Plot hole: After being hit with the spores, Cobra Commander cannot walk or even move very well with any speed at all. The Cobra minions have to drag him to their prison with the Joes and just leave him there on the ground after the Joes make a break for it. The Joes go quite a distance to engage Cobra. Road Block is delayed only a couple seconds behind the other Joes when he is grabbed, but knocks out the minion who grabbed him. Suddenly, Cobra Commander is at his feet telling him to wait because it's a trap. Later, Road Block has to carry Cobra Commander because he still can't move much. There's no way Cobra Commander could have caught up with Road Block to warn him of the trap. (00:52:50)

Quantom X

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Jaws 4 picture

Plot hole: Why does the shark EXPLODE when it gets stabbed by the boat in the end? It had a transmitter of electromagnetic energy designed to shock it rammed down its throat, nothing that would explode like that.

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Robocop picture

Plot hole: When Murphy is in the changeroom at the station, he learns that an officer has just died and that his funeral (according to the captain) would be the next day. There's simply no way a funeral can take place one day after someone's death. All the planning, prep work and getting the body released to the funeral home would take about a week...plus many other things. Simply cannot be done.

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Good Morning, Vietnam picture

Plot hole: It's brought up several times that the kind of music Cronauer is playing is not acceptable. Then why would such records of those songs be at the radio station in the first place?

jbrbbt

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Suggested correction: Vinyls contain many songs, even small 45 rpm can contain 4 tracks; so one song might be forbidden or considered unacceptable, but not the rest.

Sacha

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