Inconsistencies or plot holes in films

[steverob]

In The Martian the astronaut Mark Watney dig sup the radioactive isotope RTG generator and shoves it in the cab of his buggy thing to keep him warm. He then spends a load of time fannying about and modifying the buggy to extend its range with portable solar panels.

Now, the RTG is an electric generator, so why not just connect the bloody thing to the buggy and use that to power it and thus give it indefinite range with no need to stop to charge?

It is explained a bit better in the book - the RTG is great at producing heat, but not very efficient at converting that to usable electricity; he could get about the same amount of power from the RTG as he would from less than a square metre of solar panelling (and he has access to over 100 sq m of that). He's only using the RTG for the heat it gives off; in fact it gives off too much and he ends up having to remove insulation from the rover so as to not bake himself. However the movie basically assumes you're not going to be asking those sorts of questions and just hand waves it all away.

 

[Cycleops]

Also, if you look closely at the undercarriage of the flying wing you can see the chains that are driving the wheels. Ruined the film for me.

That's odd, I thought being on here you might rather like chain driven things.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Planet of the Apes - how come they're all speaking English?

 

[Beebo]

Planet of the Apes - how come they're all speaking English?

In an opposite inconsistency.
Why can’t R2D2 speak English but can understand spoken English.
It would be a very simple add on to a droid.

 

[Beebo]

The big one from Lord of the Rings.
Why not just get the giant Eagles to carry the ring into the volcano? They would have done a much better job than the Hobbits.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

There doesn't appear to be a toilet on the USS Enterprise ncc - 1701

It’s to the left behind the bar.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

In Happy Feet the penguin who cant sing learns to tap dance, but you cant make a tap sound on the snow and ice surface of Antarctica. The whole premise of the movie is flawed.

There are flat rocks on Antarctica, the penguins use them to build their nests. Couldn’t you tap dance on the flat rocks?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

These scenes in films where they are wet one moment, bone dry the next. 🤔

It’s called a towel

 

[wiggydiggy]

The big one from Lord of the Rings.
Why not just get the giant Eagles to carry the ring into the volcano? They would have done a much better job than the Hobbits.

Another favourite of mine - probably the only bad thing about the story! I found this a few years back, excellent write up of the many ways it could have worked: Could the eagles have flown Frodo into Mordor?

 

[MichaelW2]

There are flat rocks on Antarctica, the penguins use them to build their nests. Couldn’t you tap dance on the flat rocks?

In theory, a penguin could do a tap dance number on a stage of flat stones but i see no evidence to back up your proposition.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

It’s called a towel

My thankyou for your most informative post, who knew?
But what I am talking about are the scenes where you don't get dry that quickly, never mind have access to a towel in the first place!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Dr No, where James Bond comes out the decontamination and the radiation reading is zero. Nah don’t think so.

 

[MichaelW2]

Just been watching Warrior Nun
it basically has pretty much every plot fault in it


main thing that occurs in any "kung-fu" type "thriller" - especially ones where the main character is female - is the one where they see the enemy and charge to take them on using their staff, sword or hands

and the enemy men let them get close in spite of holding guns!

in Warrior Nun at one point this happens - so the enemy men are all defeated and their guns are then left on the ground as the women reform and head off towards the target
at which point it turns out that the all have guns tucked into their belt (and which never dropped out in their acrobatics) which could have been used to shoot the men before and taken less risk of one of them being defeated

still - gotta watch some carp from time to time or you don't appreciate proper films

In many of Luc Bresson style movies, a hot young model/druggy/prostitute is recruited into secret spy service given 6 months of secret spy training and is able to take on a defeat a bar full of henchmen single handed. I wager that the average henchman has been boxing, wrestling or hitting people since he was a boy and has a good 15-20 of tough training under his hench-belt + military service of the harshest kind. I suspect that after the first fight the hot young blonde woman would no longet be pretty.

 

[DRM]

There doesn't appear to be a toilet on the USS Enterprise ncc - 1701

There's only one, it's explained at the start of every programme, To boldly go where no man has gone before, it must only have a ladies loo on the USS Enterprise

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

There's only one, it's explained at the start of every programme, To boldly go where no man has gone before, it must only have a ladies loo on the USS Enterprise

Like I said, they eject it all out the bottom, it's why they have big notices saying not to flush when the ship is at a Space Station!

Unfortunately certain people took this theory a little bit too seriously... 🙄