No matter how solid a storyteller you are, there’s always a chance that certain details will fall through the cracks of your movies. From scenes left on the cutting room floor to a simple failure to think a plot point through, small mistakes can lead to confusion and contradictions that end up haunting hardcore fans.
But all is not lost! As we will demonstrate, plot holes and mysteries can be cleared up even years after the fact.
1. Die Hard (1988) – Why John McClane suspected Hans Gruber
The plot hole: In the classic action movie, Bruce Willis’ John McClane instantly suspects one of the terrorists’ hostages of being a bit suspect. And he’s right – the ‘hostage’ in question is actually the movie’s villain, Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), in disguise.
But it’s not entirely clear what tips him off – other than Rickman’s tendency to play sneering villains, perhaps.
The solution: The explanation for McClane’s preternatural suspicion turns out to be a combination of fancy watches and deleted scenes.
In 2017, screenwriter Steven E de Souza revealed that details regarding the terrorists’ matching Tag Heuer watches was left on the cutting room floor. The film was supposed to show them synchronising their watches before the heist begins, as well as McClane observing: “I think these guys are professionals. Their IDs are too good. There’s no labels on their clothes and they all have the same watch.”
So when he spots a matching watch on Gruber’s wrist, he realises that he is probably another terrorist.
2. Home Alone (1990) – Magical phones
The plot hole: It is established in ’90s family classic Home Alone that a falling tree knocks out the phone lines in Kevin McCallister’s neighbourhood.
So how then is Macaulay Culkin’s loveable scamp able to call up a local pizzeria is the phones were all dead?
The solution: In 2015, a clever reddit user offered their explanation.
“I always assumed the tree actually severed the main trunk line to the whole town, but local calls within the same exchange still worked,” wrote Phire.
And what do you know, telecommunications company AT&T confirmed that it was “absolutely a plausible scenario”, with no need to reinterpret Kevin as a boy wizard.
3. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) – Whose Infinity Gauntlet is it anyway?
The plot hole: Admittedly, Age of Ultron‘s confusing post-credits scene didn’t feel either like a plot hole, or indeed confusing, until Avengers: Infinity War came out three years later. The mystery was regarding the Infinity Gauntlet that Thanos took out at the end of the film, declaring that he would acquire the Infinity Stones himself.
But Infinity War reveals that the gauntlet had been created by Eitri (Peter Dinklage), the king of the dwarves of Nidavellir – part of the Nine Realms. Thor, Groot and Rocket find him in the aftermath of Thanos’ visit, with all his people dead and Eitri’s hands destroyed.
We all made the understandable assumption that the forging of the gauntlet was a recent thing – so how did Thanos have it all the way back during the battle with Ultron?
The solution: Infinity War co-director Joe Russo confirmed in 2018 that the scene in question was set on Nidavellir.
“I think that it would be connected to Eitri,” he said. “I think that clearly he is the one who forged the gauntlet and Thanos had the gauntlet at that point in time. It’s been a while since any of the Asgardians have interacted with Eitri and his people.”
So, it turns out that the Asgardians are horrible neighbours and Thor’s journey across the universe looking for the Infinity Stones after Age of Ultron never involved a visit to the dwarves. And Eitri was stumbling around alone in Nidavellir without his hands for years. It doesn’t even bear thinking about.
4. Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) – Chewbacca, snubbed
The plot hole: George Lucas’ original Star Wars movie famously ends with a ceremony in which Leia hangs medals around Luke’s and Han’s necks in thanks for their bravery during the Battle of Yavin, in which the Death Star nearly blew them all to kingdom come.
But what about Chewbacca? Where’s his medal? Does the Rebellion have a problem with Wookiees? (Well, apart from the human eating…)
The solution: There have been at least two attempts to explain the appalling snub, both in the medium of comics.
The first was in 1980’s ‘The Day after the Death Star!’ story, in which we learn that Leia couldn’t handle the indignity of standing on a chair to reach Chewie’s head, so the big hairy guy just had to wait until there were fewer people watching.
Much more recently, the 2015 comic Chewbacca #5 sees him give away his medal to a little girl called Zarro, telling her (via her translation) that “it would clash with [his] whole warrior vibe”. So we guess A New Hope missed out the moment in which he just slipped it in his pocket rather than accepting it around his neck and messing up his whole look.
5. Back to the Future (1985) – Where was the DeLorean built?
The plot hole: Michael J Fox’s Marty McFly has clearly never seen the DeLorean before when Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) drives it off the back of that lorry.
But it’s also established that Marty – like any normal young man – spent his days hanging out in the Doc’s lab (Back to the Future co-creator Bob Gale has even confirmed that they had been friends since Marty’s early teens). So, how is it that Marty has never seen the DeLorean before?
The solution: Comics to the rescue again!
Gale served as co-writer on a 2016-2017 arc of Back to the Future comic, in which Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer asks the very question that has been plaguing us.
It turns out that Doc Brown had a second lab – a “seriously secret lab” – that Marty never knew about.
6. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) – Stryker or Mystique?
The plot hole: The end of Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past reveals that anti-mutant military man Stryker has been replaced by the shapeshifter Mystique, giving us a flash of her yellow eyes as she oversees the capture of the incapacitated Wolverine.
But come X-Men: Apocalypse, Mystique is committed to rescuing imprisoned mutants, and Logan is a captive (and test subject) of the real Stryker. So did we just dream those eyes?
The solution: Singer gave us not exactly the most satisfying explanation in 2018. It turns out that Stryker’s eyes were changed at the very last minute – the implication being that it might not have been Singer’s idea.
“However I ended up liking it because it showed Mystique’s path of secretly helping mutants,” he wrote on Instagram. “In that case [with] Wolverine, it is a path that continues into X-Men: Apocalypse.”
We’re not sure that it undoes the contradiction, but we know why it came about in the first place, at least.
Source: Read Full Article