Plot holes have a way of sticking in our minds, don’t they? Whether it’s Sarah Connor’s sudden technical savvy in The Terminator or Jack’s infamous sacrifice in Titanic, these moments often leave audiences scratching their heads. But not every supposed inconsistency is as glaring as it seems. Sometimes, a closer look—or even a little behind-the-scenes insight—can clear up the confusion.
Why didn’t the family in A Quiet Place just move to the waterfall? How did Andy Dufresne reattach his poster in The Shawshank Redemption? And, seriously, what’s the deal with Buzz Lightyear freezing when Andy’s around in Toy Story? We’ve got answers.
Here are ten movie plot holes that, with a bit of digging, turn out to make more sense than you thought!
10. Sarah Knows What Button to Press – The Terminator
After being chased through a factory by a murderous robot from the future, Sarah Connor narrowly escapes its grasp by trapping it in a hydraulic press. In a triumphant moment, she grabs control of the machine, activates it, and destroys the titular Android once and for all.
But how did Sarah, a waitress with seemingly no technical background or prior experience in this factory, know how to activate what appeared to be a literal deus ex machina?
Easy—she had already done it just a few minutes earlier. Attempting to hide from the Terminator, she accidentally pressed the button, blowing their cover. In fact, the same button that had doomed her earlier ended up being her salvation in the end.
9. Why Don’t They Teach Astronauts to Drill? – Armageddon
When the time came to save the world, NASA needed to drill a giant hole in an asteroid, drop a nuke, and split the asteroid in half. To do this, they brought in the world’s best deep-core driller. But why not do the opposite and train astronauts to be oil drillers?
This question became so well-known that even star Ben Affleck discussed it, asking Michael Bay about it during the DVD commentary. Affleck recalls, “I asked Michael why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers,” to which Bay gave him a rather abrupt response.
However, there is a more concrete rationale in the film. A character mentions that they already had astronauts trained to use the drill with little success: “We’ve had them training for eight months solid now… eight whole months, well, pretty much.”
In a time crunch, NASA decided to call in drilling experts to manage the drilling, while the astronauts handled all the complicated space stuff.
8. Just Live at the Waterfall – A Quiet Place
When sound-sensitive killer aliens invade Earth, finding a way to avoid being heard is a matter of life and death. One way the family in A Quiet Place does this is by talking near the cacophony of an immense waterfall, which drowns out their conversations.
This naturally raises the question: Why not just live there? On its face, this seems like a great idea. However, surviving at the waterfall wouldn’t be a realistic option.
While they would be safe from the aliens, they would have to give up the food and shelter of the farmhouse they lived in and swap their solar-powered home for some wet rocks. While they might be safe from the aliens if they never moved from the falls, survival there wasn’t feasible in the long run.
7. Buzz Freezes – Toy Story
In Toy Story, we need to differentiate between a plot hole and something noteworthy that isn’t explicitly explained in the film. What is explained in the movie is that toys come to life when we aren’t around, and that Buzz doesn’t believe he’s a toy.
So, if Buzz thinks he’s a real Space Ranger, why does he freeze whenever Andy enters the room or plays with him? The answer might lie in the subconscious actions of all toys, regardless of whether they think they’re toys or not—similar to the fight-or-flight theory.
Though Woody is able to break the freezing rule during the toys’ encounter with Sid, the reason Buzz freezes could be because he’s following the lead of the other toys, or it could be part of his astronaut programming. Either way, as Toy Story 2 points out, when it comes to living toys, we don’t really understand the rules.
6. Cipher Enters the Matrix Alone – The Matrix
In The Matrix, it’s established that humans can only enter and exit the simulated reality with the help of an operator. So naturally, when the traitorous Cipher meets with Agent Smith, fans of the movie cried foul. After all, Cipher couldn’t possibly be sitting down for a digital steak unless he was let in by the very crew he planned to betray.
When asked about this, the Wachowskis clarified the situation by pointing to a scene where Cipher, surprised by Neo, quickly turns off some code he was working on. They confirmed that this code was something Cipher had created to discreetly gain entry into the Matrix.
5. Bruce Gets Back to Gotham – The Dark Knight Rises
After a brutal fight with Bane leaves Batman with a broken back, he’s imprisoned in a large pit halfway around the world. In a dramatic sequence, Bruce escapes the pit and, the next time we see him, he’s back in Gotham.
So how does Bruce Wayne get all the way back to Gotham? The simple answer is: well, he’s Batman. Based on what Fox says about the nuclear bomb going off in 5 days, it’s reasonable to assume that Bruce had about a month to travel back. Despite losing much of his fortune, he still had substantial financial resources at his disposal, thanks to Wayne Enterprises’ international operations. Plus, we’ve already seen Bruce travel across the world in Batman Begins.
4. Marty McFly’s Parents Don’t Recognize Him – Back to the Future
In Back to the Future, teen Marty McFly spends a significant amount of time with past versions of his parents before returning to his own time. When he gets home, despite many changes, they don’t recognize that they had met their son in the past.
Marty, almost forgot, Jennifer Parker called.
Though this experience felt instantaneous to Marty, it’s been 30 years for his parents. They also have no photos of their time with the younger version of Marty. Let me see that photograph again of your brother.
Over the years, as they watched their son grow up, it would be nearly impossible for them to notice the resemblance to the person they briefly knew. The change happens so gradually. And besides, time travel wasn’t something they were used to—or even thought was a feasible option.
3. The Poster – The Shawshank Redemption
Over the course of The Shawshank Redemption, we see the imprisoned Andy Dufresne adorn the wall of his prison cell with rotating posters of a Hollywood starlet. These posters not only help the audience track the passage of time, but they also play a crucial role in the film’s twist ending. At the climax, the warden notices that behind the poster of Raquel Welch is a tunnel dug by Andy as part of his long-planned escape to freedom.
This raises the question: how could Andy have hung the poster back up after escaping? According to Robbins, the answer is simple: Andy only hung it from the top, allowing it to fall back into place as he departed.
2. The Eagles – The Lord of the Rings Franchise
More than once, when the fellowship or any of its members are in trouble, giant eagles swoop in to save the characters. So why do they have to bother walking to Mordor to destroy the ring when they could have just gotten a ride? Or better yet, why not have the eagles drop it into the volcano?
The eagles are powerful beings associated with the gods, and they don’t exist just to do the bidding of other beings. The eagles are coming. Asking them to carry the ring would spoil the one advantage the fellowship had: stealth. As Gandalf and Galadriel demonstrate, it’s better for a seemingly insignificant hobbit to carry the ring rather than a powerful being like them—or the eagles, who could be corrupted by the ring.
1. The Wood – Titanic
The tragic tale of star-crossed lovers aboard the Titanic comes to a heartbreaking end when Jack freezes in the icy Atlantic. Rose narrowly survives the same fate by clinging to a large wooden piece of debris. But that piece of wood was actually pretty big—surely there was enough room for both Jack and Rose.
Some fans just can’t accept this and insist that Jack could have survived if he climbed onto that floating piece of debris with Rose. However, there’s a good reason why Jack stays in the water: the wood wasn’t buoyant enough to support them both. Additionally, the characters likely weren’t equipped with the proper knowledge to keep themselves afloat, and in the panic of the moment, they probably weren’t in the right state of mind to be successful at it.
