Plot hole: To play a practical joke on Dade Murphy and other new students, they are told, "There's a pool on the roof." The victims accordingly go there and are trapped by the roof access door being one-way until – we don't see how or who frees them (Janitor? The least-mean of the prankers?). How do the new guys get onto the roof in the first place? I should think that the aforementioned access door would be locked to prevent it.
dizzyd
30th Oct 2023
Hackers (1995)
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Compared to half the mischief they cause, picking a lock is easy. I, myself, learned how to jimmy my middle school's door locks with my student ID and accordingly let myself in, and even did so in the sight of other students. It's only because I lacked their level of will for mayhem, their imagination for excuses, and, more importantly, their level of powerful parents to perform legal rescue, that I stopped doing so before the teachers got suspicious.
Suggested correction: This is in the form of a question. You can assume they lock the roof door, but they don't have to. Or, the person tricking them has unlocked the door for the prank. Or, they picked the lock. Plenty of possibilities, I'd say.
16th Oct 2023
General questions
I am looking for a documentary about prehistoric sharks. The signoff has the line (against a backdrop of such), "sharks so bizarre/strange, if they had never been, would we have dreamed them?"
16th Oct 2023
General questions
I am looking for a documentary from the '80s or '90s about a stranded baby beluga left by the tide. What is its name and how did it end?
15th Sep 2021
Burn Notice (2007)
Old Friends - S1-E3
Other mistake: This Jan Haseck assassin, who has either multiple allergies or else one allergy to a very common substance (peanuts), could never do any espionage work, as it would make him too vulnerable.
5th Sep 2021
Jurassic Park (1993)
3rd Feb 2021
General questions
The name of a movie about a French girl who runs away from home after she just got out of prison, gets tricked into getting robbed by the guy who drove her to Paris and falls in love with an American soldier? It's set close to WW2.
Answer: If you're looking for a 50's movie, maybe "Act of Love" (1953) with Kirk Douglas and Dany Robin? A French woman (Robin) starts to fall in love with an American soldier (Douglas), who loves her in return. She does go to prison, bust she's an orphan so I don't think she runs away from home when she gets out. He gets transferred out of Paris and ends up missing the chance to marry the woman.
Answer: Possibly "Suite Française" (2015). Sounds pretty close to the description.
It was made somewhere between the 50's and 70's, and was in color (true color, not colorized).
1st Feb 2021
Spies Like Us (1985)
Question: Dan Aykroyd tricks the Russians into revealing themselves by saying something in Russian. What does he say specifically?
31st Jan 2021
Apollo 13 (1995)
Question: Why couldn't the crew put on their spacesuits, then go out and assess the damage?
Answer: That would involve depressurizing the command module and LEM. Given that a substantial percentage of their on-board O2 supply just got vented into space, wasting more at that point to only confirm what they already knew wasn't worth the trouble.
Answer: Even if they could go out and assess the damage, they didn't have the tools, materials, or knowledge to actually be able to fix it.
31st Jan 2021
General questions
I remember a comedy Western about a bandit leader who is tempted into going straight by a rich blond heiress, she gets him caught, he tries to go straight but reverts. There is an attempt to catch him by a retired sheriff who sets letters to catch him on fire, at one point he says "I learned never trust a beautiful woman or a lonely midget'. He finally escapes by wearing the heiress' petticoats?
Answer: That's the TV Movie Evil Roy Slade (1972).
23rd Jan 2021
Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)
Other mistake: The Air People were wiped out by the Fire Nation through Suzon's Comet enhancing them, we even have confirmation of this by the dishevelled exposed skeleton of a VIP of them (presumably any Air Nomad who escaped would have given Monk Giatsu honorable burial), but we never see scorch marks on the Air Nomad buildings or the aforementioned skeleton.
26th Oct 2020
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
Plot hole: It seems that after committing 6-odd counts of aiding and abetting, literally right in front of the strict Police Captain father of one of them, Ted and for that matter Bill, would be lucky to only go to military school, regardless of passing or failing one particular class.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: The threat of Ted having to go to the military academy in Alaska was because he was going to fail. Since they passed and graduated, there's no need to attend the military academy. Some time passes before Rufus brings the babes to Bill and Ted, so we don't know what punishment they were given.
This isn't ordinary misbehavior, it is a felony, what do you think the punishment would be? No TV for a week?
I don't have to speculate what their punishment would be. Certainly neither would be sent to military school (which is a TV and movie trope that wayward children get sent there anyways). Your mistake entry is not a plot hole plain and simple.
21st Sep 2020
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Question: Are there canonically any Jedi with lightsabers that are yellow, orange or just plain white? Mace Windu got a distinguishing purple one at Samuel L Jackson's request, and pink ones I suppose aren't viewed to be intimidating enough.
Answer: Ahsoka Tano uses white lightsabers later in life: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ahsoka_Tano%27s_white_lightsabers, reflecting her choice not to affiliate with the Jedi or Sith. While yet to be confirmed, Rosario Dawson is strongly rumoured to be playing the character in season 2 of The Mandalorian, and we may well see her with white lightsabers in live action then.
Answer: In Clone Wars we see Yellow (also in episode IX), Yellow-Green, Light Blue, Black and White. In the canon videogames you even see Orange, Cyan and Magenta.
10th Sep 2020
Burn Notice (2007)
Plot hole: Someone as careful and controlling as Timo would never force anyone into working for him, for exactly this reason.
5th Sep 2020
The Hobbit
Factual error: The book mentions Bilbo's sword as being originally made as a dagger for an elf. The problem is, proportional to the wearer, that doesn't work, weapons and tools have to be made with the user's exact size always in mind. The blade or handle would be too thick, or something else would be off. I know this from trying to use a figurine sword to open envelopes.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: The origins of Sting are largely unknown. Even though it was made by elves doesn't mean that it was meant for elves. The book doesn't say it was a dagger for elves, just the size was comparable to one. It's only said that it was very small for Elf standards and that means it has a small handle perfect for a Hobbit hand.
1st Sep 2020
Stargate: Atlantis (2004)
Question: The crew happen upon a crashed Wraith vessel from 10,000 years ago, with a hibernating Wraith inside, Problem is, why haven't other Wraith already found it sometime before then? They've been ruling the Galaxy, with a surplus of people and machines, for thousands of years - it's not like it was hidden at the bottom of the ocean like Atlantis, its distress beacon was working.
1st Sep 2020
Dune (1984)
Question: Is there any reason they can't introduce sand worms to other planets in the Duniverse, there to proliferate and produce a greater, more widely distributed quantity of the spice? The newborn worms are called sandtrout, by virtue of being more or less the size of such. Should be easy enough therefore to capture some, surround them with sand in the spaceship to imitate their homeworld, and take them to some other planet the Empire is willing to give up for any other use, then let them grow and produce spice? Much greater abundance, much surer supply (the proverbial eggs in one basket), much closer at hand for any other world in the Universe?
Answer: In the books people were trying this with no success, at least by the end of book 3 which is as far as I got. The implication was there was a complex eco-balance needed which they were failing to achieve. It is a big part of book 3 that the smugglers were capturing the sand trout and selling them to offworlders, since this is how Leto II got them to perform his metamorphosis. Perhaps in later books they succeeded at starting another location.
Isn't it so they only discovered the sandworms were the source for the spice by the time Leto II takes charge and turns into one? After which he turns Arrakis into a paradise with only a small patch for sandworms to produce spice in.
1st Sep 2020
Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)
The Northern Air Temple - S1-E17
Plot hole: They specifically say there is a door no-one but an Airbender can open, but then when it is opened, we learn the Mechanist uses it. How did the Mechanist get in?
1st Sep 2020
Dune (2000)
Question: Is there any reason they can't introduce sand worms to other planets in the Duniverse, there to proliferate and produce a greater, more widely distributed quantity of the spice? The newborn worms are called sandtrout, by virtue of being more or less the size of such. Should be easy enough therefore to capture some, surround them with sand in the spaceship to imitate their homeworld, and take them to some other planet the Empire is willing to give up for any other use, then let them grow and produce spice? Much greater abundance, much surer supply (the proverbial eggs in one basket), much closer at hand for any other world in the Universe?
Answer: There could be a number of reasons: introducing non-native species can be devastating to an environment; the sandworms may only be able to survive in certain conditions that other planets lack; they may be unable to reproduce once introduced to a different environment; moving the number of worms needed to produce an adequate supply may be cost-prohibitive; it may be decades before the worms are old enough to produce the spice, the new environment might change the quality and chemical composition of the spice that is produced; political conflicts, and so on.
Answer: If Spice is even half as useful as the novel says, those are all trivial inconveniences compared to the payoff that would make it worth a try.
Next to the fact the unique conditions of Arrakis is what makes the spice melange (not just the worms, but also the planetary conditions) you have to also understand that having the spice production on one planet makes it much easier to control. Whoever controls the spice controls the universe. It wasn't until much later (hundreds of years after the death of the god emperor) they were able to replicate the spice, but before that they didn't even know how the spice was even made. A large reason for this is they had no AI (forbidden) to help analyze the spice melange.
Fine, I accept the monopoly theory.
17th Mar 2020
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Question: When the main body of the toys and the "false" Buzz, and then also the "real" Buzz are climbing up the elevator shaft to rescue Woody, how do any of them know which specific floor/vent intake to get off at?
25th Sep 2019
Getting Even With Dad (1994)
Factual error: Macaulay Culkin hides the gold coins in the duffel bag of a mall mannequin, Problem is, gold is heavy. It would rip the plastic arm, the duffel bag, or yank the mannequin over (and assumes store people won't change it anyway).
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