9 Plot Holes From Famous Movies and Series We’ve Finally Found an Explanation For

You most likely have watched a movie and suddenly something happened that could change the course of the story, but it had no logic whatsoever. Those are called plot holes, and they can ruin your movie or leave you confused for quite a while.

Here at Bright Side, we have compiled some of them and their explanations. So you can forgive the screenwriters you thought had ruined your movie.

1. Cypher enters the Matrix alone

One of the most talked-about plot holes is from the 1999 movie The Matrix. One of the bad guys was the character Cypher, who betrays his teammates, turns Neo over to Agent Smith.

He, on his own, strikes a deal with the agent in exchange for returning everything to the way it was before. However, as we are told at the beginning of the film, a minimum of 2 people are needed to enter and exit the matrix. One person to operate the access by hacking the code so that the other can enter. How did he manage to operate the system by himself?

The directors, the Wachowski sisters, responded in a chat, that the explanation was that Cypher was an expert programmer and had written a program that automated the process. In the scene where he talks to Neo, that code can be seen on the screen.

2. The door from Titanic

Since more than 20 years ago, when James Cameron’s Titanic was released, audiences have always wondered why Jack didn’t get on the door with Rose if they could both fit perfectly?

The answer to this alleged plot hole is not the size of the door, but the weight of both characters. According to calculations made by the American Physical Society, the door was made of oak, a type of wood that is not very good at floating, if we added the weight of Jack and Rose the door would have sunk in the icy waters of the Atlantic and both would have perished frozen or drowned. So, even though they both could’ve fit, the door was not going to support the weight of both of them.

3. Kevin orders pizza with no phone service

In the first minutes of Home Alone, we see how a tree knocks down a pole in front of the McCallister’s house, leaving them without electricity and telephone service. This causes them to oversleep and in their haste to go to the airport they forget about Kevin. When his mom notices, they try to reach him by phone from Paris, but the line is down. However, later in the film, we see how Kevin receives a pizza that he supposedly ordered by phone. How is this possible if he had no service?

To solve this plot hole, a newspaper contacted Hank Hultquist, vice president of one of the most important telephone companies in the United States, and asked him if it was possible to have no international service but still make local calls. The executive replied that during the time of the film, it was entirely plausible for service to be suspended in that way since the connections, which were through wires, could be fractured at any time for a call from so far away. But for local calls, being another type of connection, they could still work.

4. Marty McFly’s parents don’t recognize him

In 1985’s Back to the Future, Marty McFly travels back in time to 1955 and spends a few days at his mother’s house, ensuring that she falls in love with his father so he can be born. By the end of the film, everything is resolved, but isn’t it strange that neither of his parents recognizes the boy who helped them get together 30 years earlier?

Bob Gale, who co-wrote the film with Robert Zemeckis, answered this plot hole in an interview. Lorraine and George, Marty’s parents, only hung out with him for 8 days when they were 17, and they didn’t see him on a daily basis. So it’s very difficult for anyone to remember people they knew at that age, let alone remember him from memory without the aid of a photograph.

5. The couch in Central Perk on Friends

If you’ve ever watched the hit series Friends, you’ve probably also wondered how Monica, Ross, Chandler, Rachel, Joey, and Phoebe always found the main couch available at “Central Perk”?

And in a city as populated as New York, it would be impossible to find that empty place every time you go to one of those typical coffee shops. But a journalist, after analyzing the whole series very well, came up with the answer: the couch was always reserved. This can be seen in several episodes, even the Central Perk Lego also includes this little sign.

6. Buzz freezes even though he doesn’t believe he is a toy

One of the plot holes in the animated classic Toy Story has to do with the character of Buzz Lightyear, who gets into trouble because he doesn’t think he’s a toy, he believes he’s a real astronaut on a space mission. But when someone enters the room, he freezes just like his fellow toys until they are alone again.

In a recent interview, Pete Docter, Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer, stated that although there were many explanations, in the end it didn’t matter because it wasn’t relevant to the story. But the simplest explanation is that although Buzz doesn’t want to accept that he is a toy, this act of freezing is a reflex action in all toys. Something that comes programmed into his subconscious.

7. Why did Scar let Simba live?

We all know the plot of The Lion King, in which Scar, the evil one, eliminates his brother Mufasa to become the only king of the jungle. But it all would have been over if Mufasa had taken care of Simba when he was little. In the jungle, lions eliminate cubs to avoid further trouble.

However, in the movie things are not that simple, Rob Minkoff and Don Hahn producers of the animated film, revealed that in reality Scar and Mufasa are not brothers. In addition, Scar did try to kill Simba several times, not directly anyway, because most of the time it was through the hyenas that always failed.

8. Why didn’t Frodo travel on the eagles?

In The Lord of the Rings movie, Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring have to travel a long way to destroy the One Ring in the flames of a volcano in Mordor. Since the movie was released, fans have questioned why Gandalf didn’t summon the giant eagle to take Frodo directly to that location?

While many of the answers focus on the size of the eagles and that they would be very visible to Sauron’s eye, the answer is a bit more complex. Giant eagles are a race as old as the dwarves. Like many beings in the story created by Tolkien, they have their own organization, communicate with each other, and obviously also fear the evil Sauron. It is not as easy as ordering them to do something and that’s it. Being conscious, like the race of Ents, they have a will of their own that makes it impossible to force them to do anything.

9. The alien spacecraft without ID4 antivirus

The movie Independence Day was a box office success that grossed over $300 million worldwide in 1996. Roland Emmerich tells us how an alien ship arrives on Earth in order to subjugate humanity. A scientist, David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) and soldier Steven Hiller (Will Smith), gather the courage to fight the seemingly indestructible ships. David intercepts a transmission from the aliens and decides to alter the code to create a virus that will put an end to the alien invasion from within.

For years, how David could have created this code in such a short time has been called into question. Dean Devlin, one of the creators, explained that the language of computers is binary — zeros and ones, and all David did was convert zeros into ones and vice versa, and that was sent back to the mother ship of the alien army.

What other movies or series do you know of that have plot holes like these? List them in the comments.