Topic: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

http://blip.tv/confused-matthew/observe … se-6305448

Re: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

There are several things wrong with Minority Report, and certainly that's a major one. However, I personally think that the biggest plot hole in the history of the universe is the fact that the airplanes in danger of running out of fuel in Die Hard 2--the whole threat behind the bad guys' plans--could have just landed at Washington National or Baltimore. No pilot would just circle until he got so low on fuel that he couldn't divert to a nearby airport.

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

Except! The pilots weren't told that the terrorists had taken over the airport and just thought they'd be delayed for a bit, and were probably being relayed assurances from TerrorCentral that everything was good and it wouldn't take much longer. I've spent enough time in stationary planes waiting to take off, when soon becomes an hour, to totally buy that the pilots wouldn't be so worried as to divert. Not that I believe pilots even have that authority outside of an obvious emergency.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

Waiting on the ground is completely different for obvious reasons.

National and Baltimore, as well as Andrews Air Force Base are all less than 5 MINUTES from Dulles by air (Baltimore is basically just where DC stores its excess street crime). You don't even have to know about stuff like reserve fuel times and minimul fuel priority status to know that Die Hard 2 is idiotic. You just have to think about the fact that when there's bad weather and airports get backed up, airplanes don't start falling out of the sky.

The film makers could have chosen a remote airport that the McClanes were visiting on vacation. That would have made a little sense.

Last edited by Zarban (2012-08-15 22:48:01)

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

I haven't watched much of Confused Matthew's stuff, but what I have watched makes me fairly sure I can't stand Confused Matthew.

I don't think this is much of a plot hole. It makes sense to me that Precrime, especially the guy running the "prison," would talk about peoples' thwarted crimes in the past tense ("he drowned her"). In Precrime's view, they did commit the crimes. "The fact that [we] stopped it doesn't change the fact that it was going to happen."

If they talked about it in the conditional perfect tense ("he would have drowned her"), they would have to deal constantly with the cognitive dissonance of knowing they're imprisoning technically innocent people. Remember, Precrime arrests people "for the future murder of [the intended victim]," NOT "for the attempted murder of [the intended victim]." (Which in itself doesn't make sense; when Precrime was set up any sane justice dept would have made the charge attempted rather than actual, since if Precrime intervenes the murder is prevented, but never mind.)

It's once Anne Lively cannot be tracked down that Anderton, at least, comes to the conclusion that she was successfully murdered, and the question becomes how in the blue shit that could ever have possibly happened in a post-Precrime world.

MINORITY REPORT does contain one of the biggest plot holes I've ever seen, but that ain't it. The much bigger issue is: why does the ball drop with Anderton's name? I know it's because he's going to kill the dude he thinks abducted his son -- but the only reason he goes on the wild ride that eventually leads him to that place is because the ball drops. If the ball had never dropped, he would never have gone on the run and never happened to find the hotel room full of pictures. The ball causes itself. We know it wasn't planted by Lamar because Anderton makes a point of saying that the system is closed and a warning ball cannot be forged or tampered with. It was all part of Lamar's plot to eliminate Anderton, but Lamar did nothing in the real world to set Anderton along the path of discovery. So how in the hell did he trigger the ball?

The most frustrating part is that this has a fairly simple fix: just have Anderton receive an anonymous tip with information on his son's disappearance -- all he has to do is come to X location at noon or whatever. It wouldn't be the hotel room, just a step in that direction. Then the ball drops, because he had already been set on the path to the presumptive murder.

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Re: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

The term 'plot hole' seems to be thrown around too much these days. It's almost like it's a buzz word for anything the viewer didn't like.

(Speaking generally here)

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Re: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

Owen Ward wrote:

The term 'plot hole' seems to be thrown around too much these days. It's almost like it's a buzz word for anything the viewer didn't like.

(Speaking generally here)

It's true, many people complain of "plot holes" when they really mean "poor storytelling," which is not the same thing.

If you think of the events of a story like dots on a graph, you can plot the trajectory of the story by connecting the dots. If you reach a point where the dots cannot be connected, you have a hole in the plot.

Characters doing things that make no sense are not necessarily plot holes. As much as I loathed PROMETHEUS, there aren't a lot of plot holes, just stupid choices. The geologist and biologist getting lost even though they made the 3D map and are in constant communication with the captain on the ship? They're all clearly idiots -- but it's not a plot hole.

A too-coincidental occurrence or deus ex machina is also not necessarily a plot hole. If a guy pulls a gun out of his pocket in the climax and uses it to win the day, the fact that he never mentioned that gun before is crappy writing but it's not a plot hole. However, if earlier in the film he went through a metal detector or was strip searched or otherwise clearly did not have a gun, and had no opportunity to get one at any point after, but STILL pulls a convenient gun out of his pocket in the climactic scene -- that's a plot hole.

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Re: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

Dorkman, I've actually been saying that exact thing about Minority Report for years.
The movie fails for me because Lamar supposedly set Tom Cruise up, but he doesn't practically do anything to actually set him up, so the murder is essentially self-generated, which doesn't make sense.

I agree with your fix too, I really wish they'd done exactly that.

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Re: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

I think I understand why Matthew is confused about everything.

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Re: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

Dorkman wrote:

It makes sense to me that Precrime, especially the guy running the "prison," would talk about peoples' thwarted crimes in the past tense ("he drowned her").

Well, the film makers clearly agree with you and not Matthew. PreCrime definitely thought Lively was alive because Anderton's "Where is she now?" indicates that he isn't misled by the phrasing "he drowned her". What baffled me on first viewing was, if Lively was murdered less than a minute after the arrest, how did the cops not think it was weird that she didn't show up for the indictment, trial, and sentencing? I mean, Anderton gets suspicious about Lively after noticing she's missing during a cursory investigation of the containment prison. Spielberg would probably pull a ninja punch in the nuts by saying "Well, everything after Anderton gets put in the containment prison is his revenge fantasy, per the creepy guard, so it doesn't matter."

Dorkman wrote:

The much bigger issue is: why does the ball drop with Anderton's name? ... It was all part of Lamar's plot to eliminate Anderton, but Lamar did nothing in the real world to set Anderton along the path of discovery. So how in the hell did he trigger the ball?

The most frustrating part is that this has a fairly simple fix: just have Anderton receive an anonymous tip with information on his son's disappearance

Well, Burgess hired Crow to portray Anderton's son's killer. I agree that he then needed to clue Anderton in, but he did that because Anderton asked about Lively, which... seems really unnecessary. He could have just said, "I looked into that Lively thing you asked about. She got scared and decided to live off-grid after the crime. [smirk] It took Missing Persons all of about 4 hours to find her." Ha ha, question answered; no need to frame your close friend for murder.

Of course, THEN you have Agatha freak out and clue Anderton in that Lively really is dead, and the minute Anderton looks into it himself, Burgess knows he's screwed. He hires Crow and gives Anderton an envelope with "all you need to know". Anderton gets the ball and does what he does, only opening the envelope LATER when he's on the lam. It just says "Leo Crow killed your son." Since Anderton WOULD have read that eventually, he would have tracked down Crow regardless.

Something I think is funny about Minority Report (aside from the ridiculous bullshit about getting your eyes replaced so you can't be found because you're a fugitive and then REPEATEDLY using them to get thru security because you're a VIP) is the idea that Leo Crow thinks he's going to make bank on his plan. Leo, man, no one has been murdered in DC in SIX YEARS. The cops ALWAYS stop it! Make your deal to get paid based on the dude getting ARRESTED, you PUTZ! Then find a way to dispose of Anderton's son's picture (hint: go digital) and tell the cops it was all a big mistake.

Last edited by Zarban (2012-08-16 01:48:13)

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

Dorkman wrote:

I haven't watched much of Confused Matthew's stuff, but what I have watched makes me fairly sure I can't stand Confused Matthew.

I've seen a lot of his reviews, share his opinion on many of them, and yet I feel much the same way. The way he presents his ideas just riles my nerves, even when I think he's speaking gospel.

Still, even with the silly way they talk about Pre-Crime "victims," I find it hard to believe that Anne Lively's disappearance could so easily be overlooked. A significant chunk of this movie revolves around how difficult it is for Anderton to simply disappear when he goes on the run. I imagine it would be very hard to be a missing person in this kind of Big Brother future. So the disappearance of a woman who was already known as a Pre-Crime murder victim should probably be a big deal.

In fact, instead of ignoring this little detail, it could've played into the audit and Witwer's suspicions about the system. That way Witwer gets to actually do something, because as it is, he's an entirely superfluous character. He's just there to make the exposition dump at the beginning of the film slightly less awkward.

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Re: "The Biggest Plot Hole in the History of the Universe!!!"

bullet3 wrote:

Dorkman, I've actually been saying that exact thing about Minority Report for years.

Ten years and change, now.

This has been today's installment of "Shit, I'm Getting Old."

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