Fixing the 7 WORST Types of Plot Holes (Writing Advice)

[@mikelewis495]

This probably falls in the category of inconsistent magic, but when movies show bad guys having really strong super powers or magic and/or ruthlessness to do serious damage in act 1, and then they never use those abilities ever again and when they face the main hero, they resort to punching

[@anglach3l]

Or worse than punching: having the hero right where they want them and then instead of using laser eyes or literally just continuing to punch them, throwing them across the room so they have a chance to recover. 🙄

[@quaxolotl6509]

You just described the entirety of Dr strange MOM

[@atishep]

[Kylo Ren enters the chat holding the blaster shots in mid air]

[@harryfuller3881]

I try think punch in the face is the Hollywood default. Hollywood grew up on westerns with fistfights and applied that model to everything. Robots, gods, aliens, military, etc. Conflict is always resolved by face punching.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Selectively Dangerous Villains drive me nuts

[@mrmacross]

"A good question... for another time" I audibly groaned as soon as Maz said that. It told me right away JJ had no good explanation but just wanted to get that nostalgia bait into the film.

[@PhoenixCrown]

I figured it was a setup for another POS short story.

[@tiefejo]

Same with lost man

[@bobross1829]

The entire star wars sequel trilogy is just a dumpster fire. I seen a bit before where a guy literally shows how the entire plot of a force awakens is basically a bunch of plot holes.

[@mattt9278]

Jar jar abrams and his dumbass mystery boxes

[@DonVigaDeFierro]

The Mystery Box was empty all along...

[@MattRose30000]

How to fix the Star Wars sequels plot: Step One: Let one single person write the whole thing and don't shoehorn in stuff just for fanservice, or change everything mid-production...

[@carolineyuen3247]

The fact that a story beloved worldwide got botched by a company with that much money STILL blows my mind. I mean how the hell do you not establish a finished plot and director BEFORE you start making them?! There was a mind boggling amount of ways the plot could have been more logical, even with a thick suspension of disbelief. They fumbled that ending. I remember standing in the jewelry store next to the theater after the Rise of Skywalker just dismayed that it was over. They could no longer fix it up in the next one. And they’d managed to nullify important plot points from long past films. Catastrophic.

[@Eliteplayer1988]

should powerful jedi and sith be able to "force-fly"?

[@zgama6511]

​@@carolineyuen3247I've never liked star wars personally but didn't they literally have the one storm trooper dude set up to be a Jedi and then half way through production they randomly created ray? Which from what I've heard is why she is such a shit character.

[@CasperEgas]

Probably better just to have cancelled the whole thing...

[@ralphD138]

​@carolineyuen3247 yeah this was unforgivable. I was just telling someone about how they didn't know the whole story for a TRILOGY when it began. I remember "looking for clues" in the first movie. They had that scene where Rae had like random flashing Visions and we know now they were just throwing shit against the wall they could maybe pull from later. So bad. At least we saved the ones we love though 😂

[@lauritswrang2423]

I hate when the weaker good character manages to knock out the bad guy with a blunt object or by catching them off guard, and they decide to run away instead of hitting them again or tying them up.

[@Off-Brand_Devin]

Bonus points for when the hero immediately drops the weapon next to the unconscious bad guy.

[@jacindaellison3363]

@falseprofiteer8567 and an additional bonus points if they shoot the bad guy but go next to the body to SEE IF THEY'RE DEAD 🙄

[@EH23831]

Yes!! Drives me nuts- such lazy writing

[@edd542]

@@jacindaellison3363 This, like wouldn't you just put a few extra round in them to make sure? lol but instead they get right next to the bad guy to see if they are still breathing

[@jacindaellison3363]

@@edd542 ROTFL.

[@mysticmamba5133]

A plot hole that’s always bugged me is the existence of veritaserum (a truth-telling potion) in the Harry Potter series, and how there’s so many moments where using it would seem like a good idea, such as in Order of the Phoenix when Harry gets accused of lying about Voldemort returning and when he has to go to court for using a patronus charm to protect his cousin Dudley.

[@tymonsulimastalman1727]

Veritaserum has a serious flaw: it forces a person to tell their truth, not the truth in general. If someone considers a statement (for example that Voldemort is dead) to be true, even though it is generally untrue, veritaserum will not detect this. Similarly with memory modification. As evidence very unreliable (especially in the wizarding world).

[@OratoryJamesIV]

The Harry Potter series has so many plot holes, it's basically impossible to list all of them. And virtually all of them revolve around magical solutions the characters just forget from one story to the next.

[@fragwagon]

But how to solve it? Maybe establish that the potion is useful, but unreliable; like a lie detector test. Perhaps with humorous sside effects.

[@PhoenixCrown]

@@fragwagon Or the potion is very hard to procure, or has a big cost to the consumer. Yea Harry Potter is absurd with plot holes... they frigging travel through time in Azkaban...

[@intergalactic92]

@@PhoenixCrown in the books Snape does say that it is difficult to make and takes a long time. So that is already a thing.

[@angrychickengod3831]

Here's another way Jaime returning to Cersei was intensely out of character: He killed the Mad King because he wanted to use wildfire to commit genocide. Cersei ACTUALLY used wildfire to kill hundreds of people, innocent or otherwise, yet he doesn't even mention it. Maybe he just "kinda forgot" that she killed those people or something.

[@PhoenixCrown]

What a waste. Brandon said maybe they wanted Jaime's story to come full circle, which I think is accurate, but... why? Jaime had such an incredible arc from arrogant evil bastard to we slowly learning his reasons for what he did to him paying for his consequences to him changing his ways. He turned out to be a good man, and his end was a waste.

[@eatmorenachos]

@@PhoenixCrown I agree. A character arc that was flattened and tossed away for no reason.

[@lauritswrang2423]

Him saying that he never cared for the people, innocent or otherwise, made no sense at all

[@stevenrhodes3462]

It would have been great for Jaime to have chosen Brienne as his future, but then confess to her that he still had to confront Cersei about her war crimes with the wildfire. She would have understood and it would have felt natural and earned. He could have even still died with Cersei as a tragic consequence, so long as he was there for closure, justice, or honor; not a stupid relapse in judgment like what we got. Brienne would have been affected more by his death too, instead of by his rejection.

[@TurquoiseStar17]

They basically undid 7 seasons of character development for Jaime with one sentence in season 8 - "To be honest, I never really cared for them - innocent or otherwise". The problem is the showrunners seemed to cherry-pick a lot of the "cool" parts of the books and started to go their own way after they got to the Red Wedding. They used little out of A Dance With Dragons and pretty much nothing from A Feast For Crows, so "running out of books" wasn't really the issue :(

[@JPNox]

I think fixing a plot hole is the easiest part. The actually problematic part is spotting the plot hole

[@velocitor3792]

That's the value of having other people read your drafts.

[@RocketJo86]

@@velocitor3792 Yeah, but than you have to determine: Is this really a plot hole or is the particular reader just being overly nitpicky. Like, ask ten people and get twelve opinions (I'm in exactly that situation now, where one of my beta readers pointed two things out at the start of the novel. Two characters acting kinda dumb in his eyes. But for once, none of those two is established yet, one even dies within the first two chapters - he's a plot device and not more). I don't se any problem with it, nor do I think that MOST people will. So, is it a plot hole worth fixing? That would make the story overly complicated. Or is it a device I can leave alone (which I would prefer, as it is at the very beginning). I mean, people DO make stupid decisions while stressed. It's like the Indiana Jones example. Sure, there is no explaination why Indy suddenly knows this. But it is not unrealistic for him to know it, given he's an archaeologist and somewhat specializes in hunting down reliegious objects. Or maybe I don't see any problem, because I watched The Last Crusade first.

[@velocitor3792]

@@RocketJo86 I get what you're saying. You don't have to do everything your beta readers want you too. Maybe it's just good that they got you to think about it, to be sure you want to keep it that way.

[@gregorwalton]

Finding a beta reader who is willing to give you more than, "Yeah, it was all right," is the trick. Unfortunately, finding good beta readers sometimes feels like a plot hole in reality

[@f_f_f_8142]

@@RocketJo86 Of course you can receive useless advice by some people that think "I didn't like X" is the same as "X is a mistake you should fix". But a perceived plot hole that actually isn't one can still break immersion, so it should still be addressed by the author e.g. by making things clearer.

[@gregbasore2108]

Easy way to fix Jaime's character arc in Game of Thrones without changing much of the events, alter his motivation. Instead of going back to King's Landing because he can't stop loving Cersei, have him go back to kill her, in the hopes of preventing needless bloodshed. We still get Brienne being heart broken, but now it's because Jaime's throwing his life away, which makes her more conflicted. She knows that he's trying to do the right thing, but she still doesn't want to lose him. Cersei and Jaime can still die in the tunnels under King's Landing, but now it has an extra layer of emotion, because it shows Jaime's sacrifice as being ultimate futile and unnecessary, because Cersei would have died anyway, meaning he threw his life away for nothing. That would be more in keeping with the themes of the show, wherein character suffer the consequences of bad decisions and short sighted thinking.

[@WeirdVideoGames]

Half-way through the show it occurred to me that a way the story ends could be for Cersei to win and become the queen and have Jaime realize how destructive she is and then become the kingslayer again, coming full circle.

[@SM_Price]

If only you could have been one of the writers…

[@EvilSnips]

Bro that is beautiful and would've been so easy to write in. Smh...

[@icstatonato]

Your fix to Anakyn's Lightsaber/Lando's introduction was simply genius, extremely elegant and believable. Is just ridiculous that Disney couldn't give a damn and try to write a cohesive story with the sequels

[@tunebeat3809]

Especially since the executives and their allies at Disney want to be spiteful to their actual customers.

[@Nano2020]

Why would Lando give such an important item to Maz, instead of giving it back to Luke (which he personally knows and loves), or Leia (if Luke is exiled) or Han himself? Why would Lando, a hero of the Rebellion as soon as Ep. VI, bargain with such an item with a person such as Maz? This fix raises more questions than it solves.

[@Vesnicie]

I'm pretty sure that a story of a lone individual seeking revenge on a big aquatic creature is something that has been done before and is eminently capable of winning awards.

[@AnotherDuck]

I was thinking of that one too.

[@GrndAdmiralThrawn]

No allegory there. Just a story about a man who hates an animal.

[@edwardo_rojas_]

So simple yet so much potential @@GrndAdmiralThrawn

[@Chigger]

​@@GrndAdmiralThrawnFound you, Ron.

[@melodyhollis4422]

Came to the comments to see if anyone else thought this.

[@DiMono]

Main characters kill hundreds of people getting to the big bad. They they spare him, because "we don't kill people." It's one of the most common and stupid ending tropes in media. I'm glad they subverted it in Deadpool.

[@alanjohnson6792]

This can be done well if the person they spare in the end has shown them a revelation about the world or they have done a service for them prior in the story. Typically their sparing of the big bad makes no sense. Especially if the whole plot is based on killing the big bad.

[@WeirdVideoGames]

For the superheroes who don't kill, they could fix this by just having the heroes be more careful or emotionally invested in keeping their foes alive. In the Nolan Batman movies, Batman refuses to kill but is constantly causing destruction that certainly kills people and doesn't bat an eye.

[@AllanMogensen]

I always wonder too during the Avenger movies how many people die when they fight in and half destroy a city. you don´t really see peope, not to mention bits and pieces of bodies @@WeirdVideoGames

[@Michael-sb8jf]

​@@AllanMogensen Or imagine the chaos when they undue the snap. From what I understand people reappeared the same place they disappeared. How many people plummeted 35000 feet to their death?

[@rlhugh]

To be fair, that's what Prighozhin did, in real life :P

[@ZeroNeedsCoffee]

Dude I just gotta say that your videos have been EXTREMELY helpful to me. After watching your videos I have completely rewrote the script of a comic book series that I've been working on for around a year now. So many problems with the original story have been revealed to me after watching your videos and I'm glad I started over completely as its much better and dosent have any tropes and plot devices that have been overused a million times. Will definitely be purchasing both of your books bro. Pls never stop making these

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Thrilled to hear you were able to improve your script! And thanks for checking out my books. Please leave Amazon reviews-those help a ton

[@benmcfee]

I'll second what the first commenter said, and I've been writing since 1996. It may be the basics, but they're good to revisit, from time to time, and you've made them very accessible. Thanks for doing us all a solid.

[@KunKosh]

I agree, this is an immense help.

[@torytellstales]

What is your comic series called?

[@sko19sko]

In Passengers, there is no device on the space ship to put someone back in hibernation. Somehow, the builders never thought about the super likely possibility that someone wakes up. - Easy fix: explain that a meteor destroyed that device, as a meteor has also caused to wake someone up in the first place.

[@KohuGaly]

The hibernation pods are the device that puts people back to hibernation. The whole point of the Passengers is that the ship is in Titanic scenario - it was designed to survive X amount of damage, but it sustained X+1 amount of damage. The meteor didn't cause someone to wake up. It damaged computers and key systems. By the time the hibernation pods start failing, the ship has run out of redundancies. Presumably, including redundant hibernation pods and CPU power to operate them.

[@axelwulf6220]

That whole movie was a plot hole How can a super high tech cruise ship detect when someone is awake, but cannot differentiate a pod malfunction and from a purpose revival

[@PatMcAnn]

As a lawyer, I see huge plot holes in almost all legal /courtroom dramas. It’s frustrating because most could be fixed by having someone with basic legal knowledge read the script. Probably scientists, doctors, first responders, computer programmers etc feel the same when they see a movie about their area of expertise.

[@jeffparker1617]

Watching a courtroom drama is just me yelling "Objection, leading" over and over. Because trials are very boring.

[@FuzzyFace73]

As a programmer, I get the same reaction when I see characters using technology. Yelling, "that's not how it works!" only relieves my frustration so far.

[@patrickkirby5079]

There actually was a snowstorm in the plot in Die Hard II. However this was another plot hole, as it wouldn't make sense for the terrorists' plan to depend on weather conditions for them to be able to pull it off.

[@mattt9278]

D-Day depended on weather conditions, so weather absolutely makes a difference. The battle of the Bulge as well. The Germans relied on bad weather too keep the Allied air power grounded. So it's not a plot hole. Having the target that is being rescued being transported AND a snow storm is extremely convenient, but not a plot hole imho.

[@tomash9182]

Let's face it, any passenger flight is required to have enough fuel to reach an altrnate destination/s safely. That's by law. That's not something you can fix without rethinking the whole concept of the movie and, basicaly, make it not take place in an airport or involving air travel. The ticking clock element is there and you either accept it and enjoy the movie, or not.

[@thebasketballhistorian3291]

@@mattt9278 But the terrorists don't control when the plane ride occurs and would have to luck out the weather is bad on that day.

[@kmbbmj5857]

The book & move Airport actually handled the alternate airport by setting that up throughout the book. Words snowstorm in years had shut down all the major airports. There were several scenes setting that up, turning a potential plot hole into a feature.

[@patrickkirby5079]

@kmbbmj5857 okay, but it doesn't make sense for the terrorists' plan to hinge on weather. What if the Pananama government decides to delay the flight due to the weather forecast? And why would they fly the deposed leader to a civilian airport anyway? The plot makes no sense, still a great movie though! :-)

[@DarinMcGrew]

Your example of Jaime Lannister reminds me of the series finale of How I Met Your Mother. The creators filmed the kids' dialogue for the ending several years earlier (while they were filming season 2). By the time they got to season 9, a lot of character development had taken place. But they went with the ending they had originally planned years ago. That disappointed a lot of fans, because it seemed to destroy all the character development that had taken place over the course of 9 seasons.

[@SerbAtheist]

I'm sick and tired of people using 'character development' to denote their own projections as to what they want to happen in the show. The character development was just fine in both GOT and HIMYM.

[@DarinMcGrew]

I haven't seen GOT, so I can't comment on it. And I can't speak for other HIMYM fans. But for me the issue with the ending of HIMYM isn't about what I wanted to happen in the show. Part of the fun of the show was the crazy twists and turns the story took over its 9 seasons. Within the story, there were years between Ted finally meeting Tracy and the kids telling him to go find Robin. But for the audience, it was seconds. If that's the journey they wanted Ted to take, then it would have been nice if they'd brought the audience along too.

[@SerbAtheist]

@@DarinMcGrew ' then it would have been nice if they'd brought the audience along too.' They did. You just had to pay attention: -45s speech -'I'd go to see Barney and Robin fighting over the caterer or whatever it was they were fighting over that night.' -the alternative reality where Stella comes to interrupt Ted talking to their kids. -'What mother is gonna miss her daughter's wedding?' -Robin straight up asking Ted to elope with her before the marriage. -Ted 'getting over Robin' by imagining her floating away from him! -Patrice's radio show... ...and last but not least... -Tracy encouraging Ted to move on and not get lost in his own stories.

[@DarinMcGrew]

Sure, maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. Or maybe that's part of the disagreement: super fans who examine and analyze every detail of every episode, and regular fans who just watch the show.

[@toefl.rodrigo]

I completely agree with you. But if I put myself on their shoes, it was also a smart decision back then by then. They didn't know how likeable The Mother would be having just one season to show her, so they prevented that with her death and the come back to Robin. Ironically enough, she was an incredible character and what seemed a great plan became their doom. The end was so absurd, they had to fix Barney by maturing, not with Robin for the whole 9 season, but with a baby with a random chick and making Robin being miserable for being a woman who chose her career above else. You were right my friend, that end sucked. I understand that the decision was a smart one, but they stroke oil with the actress who played The Mother, and should've had the guts to change, like they did in the alternative end.

[@kevingluys3063]

One thing I actually love about Event Horizon because I find it so hilarious is the plot crucial fact that all of the world's top scientists were unable to translate or identify what language that the captain in the distress call was speaking, and then luckily one of the guys on the rescue team is able to identify it at the last minute as *Latin* because he is *Catholic* and Catholics are of course the only member of *Homo Sapiens* who know about Latin.

[@cameoshadowness7757]

>_> wait for real?

[@JohnRandomness105]

Another wallbanger.

[@kevingluys3063]

@@deanjustdean7818 it's hilarious, and it's not even they they don't *know* Latin, they seem to straight up not know *about* it

[@cameoshadowness7757]

@@kevingluys3063 HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?! HHHHOOOOWWWWWW????

[@kevingluys3063]

Event Horizon is a really wild movie because of how all over the place everything about it is. It has plot points like that, while it's got Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne giving haunting dramatic performances. It has amazing sets and practical effects, all alongside CGI straight out of a PS2. It's like the Star Wars Prequels before the Star Wars Prequels and I love it.

[@kmbbmj5857]

What's interesting is I never considered Indy knowing to shut his eyes to be a plot hole. Early in the movie he asks the government men "you guys never been to Sunday School?" One of the bits of trivia I recalled from Sunday School was you weren't supposed to look at the Ark. Only the specific priests from a specific tribe could look at or touch it. Anyone else would die.

[@coreyevans835]

Same, I also didn't see it as something Indy thought would save their lives, but more of a small mercy in a hopeless situation. You're already tied up and know something terrible is going to happen. All you can do is close your eyes. Also, he had no way of knowing the ark would close itself after everyone else died

[@homoduplex]

Yeah, I always accepted that as something he knew because he was an archaeologist and the arch was an important item he probably did some reading about.

[@RobGalo]

This only works if your audience actually paid attention in Sunday School.

[@francoismoco2]

Actually what you say is true for touching (only the priests of the tribe of Levy), but not for looking at. It was paraded several times in front of all the people

[@homoduplex]

Actually there's a whole early scene where they look at an ancient image that depicts yellow rays shooting out from the ark and Indy speculates it might be "lightning or something". That doesn't mean one will be safe with eyes shut, but it's clearly the setup and it's close enough.

[@jhouck1969]

One example of your first type of plot hole is the GEICO Halloween commercial, where the one girl asks "Why can't we just use the running car?" to escape the chainsaw-wielding killer. This was obviously intentional and used to poke fun at the stupid things horror movie victims do, but was the first thing I thought of when you brought it up.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Yep. Good, simple satire of the genre

[@earthling-m6103]

reminds me of that rick and morty episode riffing on the entire "you can run but you can't hide!" concept

[@brandonbuchner1771]

I'm glad i'm not the only one who thought of that.

[@ludovico6890]

About the plot hole in Die Hard 2: they could solve it by saying the other airports are already overbooked and working at full capacity because of a perfect storm of Christmastime, terrorist attack shutting down a major airport and, well, a literal snow storm. I think audiences would have accepted that.

[@christiankalk4668]

Alternatively, have the terrorists threaten to shoot down any plane that attempts to redirect (because Bad Guys). Maybe even take one out with a rocket launcher or similar that they somehow brought with them. No more unrealistic than many other events in those movies.

[@peterg76yt]

Also, some airports have runways too short to accommodate larger planes. Wouldn't matter for small planes, and maybe they'd take the chance with borderline cases, but they could discuss the option in the dialogue, and the terrorists' threat would be just as powerful as long as there was a handful of planes that couldn't be diverted.

[@kmbbmj5857]

Solve a plot hole by creating a bigger plot hole. Sounds like how Kathleen Kennady plots movies

[@ludovico6890]

@kmbbmj5857 How would that create a plot hole? There's a terrorist attack, which ought to disturb air traffic to begin with. Christmastime tends to be chaotic at airports. And then there's the snow storm. Each of these factors could be enough by themselves to create a situation when the plane cannot land in a nearby airport.

[@Maerahn]

1:50 - aha! The origin of CinemaSins infamous phrase "The Prometheus School of Running Away From Things!" 🤣

[@thomasmann4536]

any plothole in the star wars sequel trilogy gets me, because it makes me think how easily they could have been avoided if the people at Disney just stuck to 30 years of fan made stories and picked from the ones that stood the test of time and good writing, like the stories about Thrawn or Revan.

[@Roddy556]

Also people might have overlooked the plot holes in the prequels if the prequels hadn't sucked balls.

[@thomasmann4536]

@@Roddy556 i don't know, I feel like SW fans are a special bunch. They will ignore any plotholes in the OT, any good moments in the prequels, and then either shit on or glorify the sequels for the same reason they loved or hated the prequels ...

[@Roddy556]

@@thomasmann4536 I don't know how other people felt about them but I was a something of a fan in the 90's. I saw fifteen minutes of Phantom Menace and was done with the franchise until I saw Rouge One. I thought it was so-so, no New Hope.

[@thomasmann4536]

@@Roddy556 personally, I don't think any of them were that great. New Hope was a good movie, but I found the pacing weird. Always bugged me when they escape the Death Star and the movie is almost over. Not to mention Han's Deus ex Machina rescue.

[@metallboy25]

I dont even know why people are watching the new Star Wars.

[@Eagle3302PL]

The worst one for me is characters getting knocked out from blunt impacts to the head. It's an extremely lazy and unbelievable way to transition a scene without having to put any effort into character behaviour. Also you'd only go out for a few minutes tops, if someone stays knocked out from a head injury for more than that they're probably having a stroke or some other major brain damage.

[@chrish4274]

This is the oldest Hollywood trope I wish they would drop. There's a reason they observe people for 24 hours after being knocked unconscious with a blunt object - bleeding in the skull, fractured skull, intractable dizziness and vomiting, etc. And I have to laugh every time they do the Karate chop to the back of the neck. Sheesh!

[@Ironica82]

For me, it isn't the knock out that gets to me but them waking up hours later with only a headache and can still think clearly.

[@tomwhite48]

I love how in the show Archer, they make a running gag out of characters commenting on how bad it is for you to be unconscious for more than a few minutes, every time it happens to a character

[@Eagle3302PL]

@@tomwhite48 Archer mocks a lot of action movie tropes, it makes the show charming in a way. They also love mocking shooting in closed spaces or next to someone's head.

[@taneelbrightblade6622]

My favorite example of explaining the off screen solutions is in LotR (book) when they determine they can't give Tom Bombadil the ring because he'd forget and lose it

[@j.munday7913]

Singing about how hot his wife is takes major precedence in his life tbf.

[@lunatic0verlord10]

12:53 Here's a fun fact: Apparently, when asked why the shark returned so hellbent on revenge, the staff said that the shark had been revived through voodoo magic. Though honestly, this just creates MORE plot holes. To the point where some people use the term "Voodoo Shark" to describe times where answers given to address plot holes only end up making more plot holes.

[@jacindaellison3363]

Never seen the movie, but I'm assuming they don't have a scene describing that "Voodoo magic."

[@lunatic0verlord10]

@@jacindaellison3363 No, it was stated by the staff after the fact.

[@jacindaellison3363]

@@lunatic0verlord10 lol, I can't with this!

[@xavierthomas5835]

This is a good reason why I hate supplementary material meant to enhance the story after the fact. Interviews, social media posts, novels, etc. It feels even more cheap than the plot hole, because you could have just said, I forgot. I would respect that. Giving me an entire novel or whatever else to tell me something that either doesn't make sense or doesn't matter to me anymore only makes me care less.

[@bobross1829]

A good common example of #2 that causes people to groan, but it is why they do it, is that cell phones never seem to work in movies and never have service. Movies and shows have struggled with the cell phone issue for over a decade.

[@mrgilbe1]

This was particularly bad in the 80s/90s when cellphones were new but writers still always relied on the climactic scene trope where the hero went into a trap that the other characters (and the audience!) had learned about but couldn't tell them.

[@MrPleers]

Or that car's full of teenagers happen to break down in the middle of nowhere. But close to that creepy house.

[@NinjaFlibble]

unless you're in a sitcom placed in high school. Then EVERYONE has your number and/or email address and you have everyone's number and/or email address. I remember an episode of both Lizzie McGuire and Miraculous having scenes showing that and my thinking "why would you have everyone's email and/or phone number? Even the people who hate you?" Why would they have your's?"

[@Halliwell0Rain]

Urban legend had a good fix for that. The phones worked fine but the Dean had already warned the police to expect prank calls and gave them their names. It fits with the theme of the story and doesn't feel forced or out of place.

[@GuruOfwisdom]

Good point. I just watched a stupid show where the main character is anti-technology and lives way off grid, so when he is fighting a psycho killer he can’t call for help. Such a frustrating plot device. And other stories use a cheap way of getting around it by having the entire story set in the 80s to simply remove the technology. They need to get more creative and invent a way that the plot can work when people are able to communicate.

[@solhelian91]

For an easy plot-hole fix, I think of the recent Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ series where Leah meets and gets acquainted with Obi-Wan as a 9-year old. This is in apparent contradiction with her holographic message in A New Hope, in which the 19-year old Leah sounded like she'd never met Obi-Wan in person. If Obi-Wan had simply hidden his true name from 9-year old Leah and stuck to his alias of "Ben", this continuity error could have been completely avoided.

[@KohuGaly]

I've just rewatched the holographic message in New Hope. She starts the message very formally, but ends rather informally. She never introduces herself nor her father by name and only name-drops Alderan. To me, it seems like she assumes Kenobi knows who she is. It's not a plot hole. The message and its tone is ambiguous enough that it still sounds plausible knowing they met briefly 10 years ago. Even though the initial impression may suggest otherwise when you view New Hope in isolation.

[@GrndAdmiralThrawn]

@@KohuGalyAlso, it explains how she knew exactly where a supposedly elusive fugitive hermit was.

[@FCSchaefer]

You hit the nail on the head with Cerci and Jamie Lassister.

[@matt_valentine]

It's a great day when Brandon uploads. Thank you!

[@Yatukih_001]

I love his videos. I really like him!!

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Thanks!

[@SequentiallyCompact]

One of my top 5 favorite films is Batman Begins, and the plot problem you mentioned, 'why doesn't the toxin affect people who take hot showers, boil water, etc' could be fixed with a simple headline in a newspaper. "Narrows Suffers String of Inexplicable and Spontaneous Attacks" or something to that effect. There are a few scenes where characters are reading newspapers, so something like that could have easily been slipped in, would have established even further the imminent danger of the Narrows, and been something nobody would have noticed was foreshadowing until later.

[@dominiquefrechette8336]

The toxin was not just in the water of the Narrows, it was all over the city already. People taking hot showers or boiling water every single day, would have lead to many people inhaling the toxin and turning batshit (pun-intended) crazy. There doesn't seem to be a good fix for that plothole, even if the movie is otherwise very good.

[@bananaman4589]

The large scale stupidity that absolutely killed the scene for me was the shot of Dany sending the Dathroki riders head long into the army of the dead. Yeah it was a cool shot seeing the lights go out but seriously why would they run straight into an army of skeletons?

[@IAmABoss2]

Then one of the writers saying "what you're essentially seeing is the end of the dothraki" and then next episode or something they say about half are left 😂😂

[@Eagle3302PL]

Any portrayal of combat between armies in that show is laughable.

[@sooneradmirer4382]

​@Eagle3302PL could have been really creative to see accurate battle tactics. Instead of sending in your cavalry to die. Maybe, instead you could have made the battle a seige while a select few fighers searched for the Night King.

[@mattt9278]

This is also the same girl that conveniently "forgot" about the Iron Fleet according to the writers....

[@SerbAtheist]

Didn't complain when equally unrealistic stuff was happening during the Battle of the Bastards.

[@bimpydu]

Haven't seen Jaws 4 myself but, why not just take 10 steps towards land instead of going from one place in the ocean to another

[@wavyarmedman]

An off-screen-solution-that’s-ignored scenario that drives me nuts is when a character (usually the “concerned teen”) doesn’t know how they or their family are going to pay for college as if easy-to-get government-backed student loans don’t exist. Trust me, folks, I know from personal experience that they suck. But it’s the obvious solution to that problem that’s either entirely ignored or waived away in a line of dialogue.

[@anon_y_mousse]

I'd love to see your take on correcting all of the bad writing of the final season of Game of Thrones. Also, while a shark wouldn't normally seek revenge, what if they were a ghost shark? ;)

[@leebridges1674]

Long running series such as the "Star Trek" franchise have a lot of "off-screen solution" plot holes. Often they solve a problem by hacking the transporter, then a similar problem occurs in a later episode, and they've forgotten all about it. They could have built suspense by having the later problem occur when the transporter is offline for maintenance.

[@GoranXII]

Shuttlecraft have independent transporters. Also, shuttlecraft are a thing that exists. Then again, _Trek_ is bloody _rife_ with type 4 plot-holes. Like, every single season features a holodeck malfunction or transporter accident.

[@Neckrollios18]

I was talking with a friend about Star Wars The Last Jedi. He made a very interesting observation that I think fits well in the "obvious solution" example or the "inconsistent tech" example. In the movie, the rebels are outrunning the empire in a spacecraft but they are running out of fuel. They put all of the rebels on escape pods that travel down to a nearby planet. The leader of the ship, Admiral Holdo, stays on the ship, but takes a big U-Turn and uses the remaining fuel to jump the ship to hyper speed and she flies through the enemy ships. There are a few problems with this. In the first Star Wars movie, Han Solo tells Luke Skywalker that hyperspace travel requires careful calculations otherwise they could accidentally fly into a star. That implies that characters would normally not do this, but if they wanted to, they had to carefully map out their route. The other problem is that it makes the movie Rouge One essentially pointless. All the Rebels would have had to do to destroy the Death Star wars to fly a ship into it. It would have required a sacrifice of some kind, but either way it breaks the rules of what was previously established. Honestly, and unfortunately, im not too sure how i would fix it. I'm open to hearing suggestions.

[@damienstadler8919]

In the older Star Wars books, you can't enter hyperspace near gravity wells. If you were tootling along in hysperspace and hit "the edge" of a star's gravity well, it would yank you out, and you would be trapped by the gravity. Military starships would be worth our planet's GDP, so most people wouldn't intentionally crash them together. This sacrifice make a kind of sense in 8, and I can get behind it -- But 7 and 9 clearly establish that gravity wells don't stop hyperspace travel. In fact, 9 has the even more implausible plot point of "microhopping" or whatever they called it, and ALWAYS LANDING ON A PLANET! Matter of any kind amounts to less than a percent of a percent OF A PERCENT of the universe. "Astronomical odds" doesn't even cover that early scene in 9. But this brings me to my point. Real world physics (not that JJ ever cared to begin with) show that a soda can tab, accelerated to something less than lightspeed, could shatter our planet into a new asteroid field. The novel writers, being steeped in actual science (*science* fiction, after all) used the gravity-well excuse to explain why nobody invented a hyperspace missile that did what happened in 8. THE EMPIRE SPENT A BAZILLION DOLLARS TO BUILD AN ENERGY-CONVERSION LASER. They could have strapped a brick to a used hyperdrive for 500 starbucks (imagery, not literal) and exploded the planets for cheap. JJ retroactively made every single Star War in the series pointless, because the Empire or whoever could have just caused a hundred extinction-level events (not planet-cracking) with what I have in my savings account. This isn't just bad writing. This is complete and utter disinterest in making any plot that adheres to its setting. Fixing it requires you to go back in time and get JJ Abrams to write more Star Trek movies, or maybe Lost: The Next Generation.

[@Spacedoggs]

I always thought that the fix for Jaws 4 could have been that the spouse of the original Jaws shark hires a hitman to destroy the Brody family, who are forced to flee west. Eventually, all parties would have had a final climax over a frozen area of Lake Superior. There's a last minute double cross and another climactic explosion, but the plot basically writes itself.

[@enriquecabrera2137]

What if she hires a SHARK hitman😂😂

[@Roddy556]

An even better fix would have been to make a blockbuster hit movie, cash in on *maybe* one decent sequel, and then just stop.

[@intergalactic92]

7:37 she does try to seduce Jon at one point, but he brushes her off. Yes this was before his lineage was revealed but perhaps she had an inkling that his blood had power anyway, she does know it was important to link him up with Dany so maybe she does know something we didn’t at this point…. It’s conceivable that this was to produce a shadow, but in Jon brushing her off she realised he wouldn’t be interested. She only admits to Stannis that this was what would happen after she had already done it once (without telling him), it’s not in character for her to openly explain her powers. Lord knows the later seasons had problems but this isn’t really one of them.

[@msflibble09]

Came down here to say this. I don't recall it in the show, but in the book Melisandre tries to entice Jon into sleeping with her. She makes oblique references to shadows that Jon doesn't understand, but the reader does. Jon doesn't trust her though, and rebuffs her offer.

[@dianamgallagher]

A plot hole that has been driving me crazy is on Fear the Walking Dead. In an early season, Nick and Lucia were walking amongst the Zombies by simply wiping zombie blood on their faces. They did this often and without fear, yet in later episodes, they had to fight their way through hordes of Walkers, like they totally forgot that they could just walk right through them safely. No one else even tried to use this technique. Also Lucia's people sacrificed some of their members (even her brother) to the zombies, for no clearly explained reason.

[@Roddy556]

There is a magic keep zombies away fix and they use it once. The whole series are nothing but plot holes. The characters could have been made sp smart and clever but they aren't.

[@BarefootDani]

Great video as usual! Just a few days ago I noticed a HUGE plothole in my book im currently editing. The good news is that fixing it made the plot even stronger in other areas too, so I'm really happy about it

[@kevingluys3063]

There have been cases of animals seeking revenge, but it's usually in more intelligent ones. I've definitely heard of Crows, Tigers, Chimpanzees, Elephants, and Camels pursuing violence against specific humans who have wronged them. I don't know if sharks have though, and even in mammalian cases it is usually just becomes hostility towards humans in general.

[@5idi]

No, but even if the shark could seek revenge, how would it track a person from beach A to distant beach B unless she swan all the way?

[@hafirenggayuda]

There was this monkey group/ clan(?) in India that killing dogs and puppies because one of their infant was killed. About 250 dogs are killed until they can be stopped. They even attack men/ people who are trying to protect their dogs. It seriously hate crime. They also target weak dogs who can't fight back. They definitely know and aware what they done. Quite scary

[@jesusromanpadro3853]

A good example is the movie Orca

[@Paintedawg]

For Jaws the Revenge there was actually an actual canon reason for the shark seeking revenge. This was supposed to be the off spring from the shark in Jaws(Daddy Shark) and Jaws 2(Mommy Shark). It was born just as Mommy shark was being electrocuted at the end of Jaws 2 and that was supposed to cause it's brain to get screwed up and become smarter and remember who killed it's parents. Pretty stupid but that is the canon xD

[@AnnoyingMoose]

Kudos for coming up with a ridiculous way to fix the plot hole but did you have to put the song "Baby Shark" into my head?!?

[@vojtechtesar5767]

A plot hole that triggered me quite a lot was Dumbledore giving some mysterious hints about the Deathly Hallows to Harry & co. instead of simply telling them what the Deathly Hallows are. I get it, the story was supposed to be mysterious and Dumbledore was kind of a weirdo but this made no sense, especially if the Deatheaters were that dangerous. If Dumbledore simply told Harry and friends, the book will still have a lot of material to explore and nothing would really change.

[@DemonmachinE]

There's a lot of that sort of thing in Harry Potter. You're telling me that hagrid couldn't have figured out that a basilisk was the creature in 2? Or they couldn't have just used the rule that two people from the same school can't both compete in the tournament in goblet?

[@vineetjain528]

But Dumbledore had explained Harry in the end why he made things difficult because he wanted Harry focused on his primary goal of hunting down Horcruxes and not get obsessed with Hallows and he was counting on Hermione's wits to do so, who rightfully keep reminded Harry of what his prime objective are throughout....

[@vineetjain528]

@@DemonmachinE It was not possible for anyone to make a connection to basilisk.... Hermione only manage to make the connection after realising that Harry was a parseltongue and he was coincidentally hearing voices at the times of attack....Also besides the fact that Basilisk is huge with fatal stare, yet nobody died......Hagrid is not the smartest person to make this connection. Infact Dumbledore did suspected that,......Also in Goblet of fire ...Even with the rule that only two people cant compete for same school, it wouldn't change anything as Harry was bound by a magical contract to compete or else face the consequences

[@danyg0000]

@@DemonmachinEthat was the rule but Bart Crouch Jr was able to put Harry under the name of a different school due to him bewitching the Cup and Harry was bound by a magical contract to compete

[@dominiquefrechette8336]

@@vineetjain528 Hagrid knows all about magical creatures, and should have been able to figure out that the creature was a basilisk. This, and the fact that nobody thought about the possibility that Slytherin's monster could be, you know... some kind of snake, maybe?

[@leolightfellow]

Another great video. :) I noticed reading through the comments of the other video that 95% of plot holes are in scifi, fantasy, or superhero stories. I wonder why those 3 genres are so much more prone to plotholes than others.

[@brianedwards7142]

Maybe they aren't. Maybe it's the audiences of those genres being more observant.

[@PhoenixCrown]

@@brianedwards7142 Or if they are, it could be because of the magic, high tech, otherworld nature of the stories. It can be challenging to consider all of the ramifications of changing something about our world as profound as our energy source for example.

[@intergalactic92]

It’s because they are inherently unrealistic. You have to do a lot of legwork in order to make stuff believable, let alone plot hole proof. And sometimes fantasy authors don’t have a good grasp of how science actually works and integrate it incorrectly….. which I can forgive because it’s fantasy, it’s not our world, therefore the science doesn’t have to work the way it does in ours, but lots of people don’t think this way. I do think half the plot holes mentioned in fantasies can be explained away by a "not set in our reality" explanation.

[@Checkerchamp]

With great power comes great responsibility, or so they say. If you grant great power to your characters/devices, you have the responsibility of making sure it doesn’t break the plot

[@corsayr9629]

Hyperspace ramming in Star Wars. This could be fixed by working into the story that the only reason it is possible to do that maneuver at all is because the Empire's ship had a device that activated automatically to track and pursue the Rebel ship. So in this scenario, hyperspeed ramming doesn't happen because you can't track a hyperspace target, but it works in the movie because the Empire invented a Hyperspace targeting device and without thinking of the consequences exposed themselves to the maneuver. Turn a plot hole into a story about how the Empire biffed due to hubris, the Greeks would be proud. 🥰

[@NathaliaCroft]

Brandon, I just want to thank you for your amazing channel. Most writing tips channels out there are full of the same content and tips over and over, but yours is different, they make me think about stuff that never crossed my mind as an author. Thank you!

[@T1544767]

5:00 In regards to the Indiana Jones plot hole. Yes, it doesn't establish that Indy knows to not look when the ark is opened, BUT I would argue that this is something that Indy would know about. I'm a Christian and I've studied the Bible enough to know that God gave Israel SPECIFIC instructions about what to do with the Ark of the Covenant and how to use it. According to the Bible, the Ark was to be used on the Day of Atonement and was to only be in the temple or tabernacle. The High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies where the Ark was kept and atoned for his sins and the sins of the Israelites. The priest sprinkled blood of a sacrificed animal onto the Mercy Seat to appease the wrath and anger of God for past sins committed. This was the only place in the world where this atonement could take place (see Leviticus chapter 16). There were some times when shenanigans involving the Ark occurred in the Bible. One time, the Philistines captured it along with lots of other treasures and took it to their country where it caused diseases and the Philistines sent it back to Israel to get rid of it (1 Samuel 4-8). Another time, the men of Beth Shemesh “they looked into the ark of the Lord” (1 Samuel 6:19 the word "into" used there can also mean "upon") and 70 men died. If I know this, I can assume that Indy would also know this, but you're right, they should have included a line or two setting it up.

[@williamgiesen4910]

Also at one point Sallah says “It’s not meant to be disturbed” which also provided some exposition of why Indy knows not to look at it

[@bdts35]

Exactly right. We have to assume that Indy is a pretty decent Biblical scholar. He’s also listening to the creepy Ark theme tune at this point.

[@samplerInfo]

@T1544767 You're right, but it's not about what Indy knows. It's about what the audience knows, or what the audience knows that Indy knows. Also ofc, it's a waste of opportunity imo. Giving a (distilled) exposition/explanation of the ark mythos like you describe would've anchored the plot and the resolution.

[@bdts35]

@@samplerInfo We can leave the audience to speculate. It’s forgivable if you could make up a reasonable explanation. But in my view Lucas missed an opportunity earlier in the film. There’s a scene where Indy shows a drawing of the Ark causing death and destruction, but the bearers of the Ark aren’t wearing blindfolds. He might have commented on that.

[@T1544767]

@@samplerInfo Yes, I agree. I get annoyed when something happens in a movie that is explained in another movie/book/comic and not quickly recapped in the movie you're watching. This is excluding sequels, of course.

[@annavg7294]

8:30 no but Brandon, this part was way too funny to me. Your consistent tone suddenly bumps into an unexpected joke, it's hilarious.

[@x.em0_k1tty.x]

Lol😂😭

[@tomhools1605]

Could you talk about Deus Ex Machina endings and whether they work or not?

[@LordBaktor]

I only know of one that works (for me) and it's the T-Rex appearing out of nowhere at the end of Jurassic Park to fight the raptors.

[@Conserpov]

@@LordBaktor It works because it is not a Deus Ex Machina - it's just sudden and unexpected, and sound editors kinda cheated a bit with the footsteps. If they'd actually injected audible footsteps into the sequence in a way that the audience would not be able to notice them in the raptor chase commotion, that'd be really cool.

[@brettsteinbook5370]

only time it worked for me was when Han shows up to save Luke in Star Wars. It didn't solve all of Luke's problems. He still had to take out the Death Star himself. Also, it was a satisfying resolution to Han's character arc because it was properly foreshadowed. Otherwise, it's usually bad for something or someone else to solve a character's problems or resolve the climax. If someone else is going to solve the problem then that person should have been the protagonist from the beginning. It's only one of many reasons why the Black Widow movie didn't work for me. If they had done more to establish that Yellena needed to stop the Red Room and Natasha was only interested in Taskmaster then it would have helped and made more sense, who took care of whom. But naming it Black Widow and then someone else taking out who I thought was the big bad of the movie just felt like I was cheated, betrayed or lied to.

[@padawanmage71]

Regarding the plot hole with Indy and the closing of the eyes when the Ark is is opened… THANK YOU! You don’t know how often I bring that scene up in discussions about that movie! Every time I do, I’m told things like ‘well, Indy just knew that! He’s an archaeologist, and must have read the Bible, etc’. When I bring up how it was never a fact or bit of info Indy discovered, I’m told ‘You just want everything spoofed to you.’ No, I just don’t think that plot holes and lazy writing can be be acceptable with lazy thinking. 🙄

[@adamsworld2772]

I think a big example of a Plot Hole that no one points out is that In Disney's Herculese scene where Pain and Panic reduced the protagonist from a god to a mortal, but their intent is to kill the protagonist during his baby years with the potion, and they chose to lie to Hades (the antagonist of the story) and saying that they killed Heraclese But the problem with the "Lying to Hades plan" is that Hades is a lord and also a warden of the underworld both in the myth and in the story... He manages every single individual soul that comes through his domain, therefore if he saw that the soul of Heraclese DID NOT ENTER HIS DOMAIN, therefore it should be obvious that the Hero ISN'T DEAD!!! That's a huge plothole that I didn't see until someone mentioned it!

[@rowan404]

Thanks to this video, I finally understand Cinema Sins’s “Prometheus School of Running Away from Things”.

[@HamptonHampton-v2n]

Wanted to say thanks for the content. I’m a teen who wants to screenwrite and even though your an author, I still find your videos very helpful

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Thrilled to hear the videos are helping. Best of luck with your writing!

[@felixstuber8046]

Pirates of the Caribbean 2 established that Davy Jones and his crew could easily teleport onto the Black Pearl, yet they never use it ever again when it could be useful.

[@BoScotty]

Your channel has been growing so much recently! Makes me happy, your videos have helped my writing so much!

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Thanks so much! And thanks for being a part of the journey from before the major growth boost

[@Specter277]

Hey. I’ve been watching your content for a while now and it’s really helping me out because I’am currently planning to write my first film and novel soon. Thank you again and have a great day.

[@WilliamReginaldLucas]

So glad you mentioned Jaime Lannister's botched story arc in GoT. One of the most well written redemption arcs and it absolutely collapsed on itself (literally). What's even more frustrating is in the next episode he and Cersei are shown under a pile of rubble next to a sizeable clearing, if they'd have just moved a few metres they'd have survived! Also top tip of the day "Don't make your villain a shark". Love it.

[@SpydeyDan]

Jaime's arc works if you think of Cersei as a drug and Jaime as an addict. Addicts do best at staying away from their drug of choice when they have something to occupy their mind, a goal to work toward, but addiction takes over when they are unoccupied, directionless. You see this often when actors relapse after a big shoot wraps. Jaime was loyal to Cersei to a fault, even as her actions defied rationalization. It was only the existential threat of the White Walkers that finally drove him to betray her. However, when that threat was gone, whatever nobility or moral growth Jaime had achieved ultimately could not compete with his addiction to Cersei. This happens all the time in real life. You think your friend has kicked their addiction, and their life seems to finally be on the right track. They're doing so well. Then, one day, they are found dead of an overdose, and no one can understand why they went back to the needle when they'd made such progress. That's Jaime. He's an addict, he relapsed, and it cost him his life. That said, all criticisms of the last season's pacing are entirely valid.

[@WilliamReginaldLucas]

@@SpydeyDan These are good points and tbh I didn't really ship he and Brienne (especially as in the books there is no romance between them), I just think the end of his arc in the show undercuts the iconic Jaime has a bath scene where he justifies his murder of The Mad King, but yeah as you say it was very rushed and the fight between he and Euron felt completely shoehorned in

[@NinjaFlibble]

although that clear area is suspicious when you remember that you can see the entire area collapsing in the previous episode (I am not defending D&D, just pointing out that they have two plot holes there)

[@ssvensic]

If he killed her in the red keep it would be s perfect arc.

[@Iso20227]

My least favorite plot hole is when a villain character has these immense powers that can threaten the world or the universe, all of existence is at stake, and then they undergo character development and join the heroes. And then, when a smaller threat appears, this ex-villain has suddenly become astonishingly weak. “No! My powers don’t affect him” “How is he still standing” “What?! It can’t be”! I hate it.

[@dragonfiremalus]

For Die Hard 2 example, they should acknowledge the other airports, but just say they are too busy with the rest of the diverted traffic for them to land easily. It's not particularly realistic, but it at least acknowledges the issue.

[@eatmorenachos]

Even a failed terrorist attack at other airports would've loused things up.

[@AnnoyingMoose]

The option of the other airports is not a plot hole because when planes first arrive they are told by the control tower that the lack of lights on the runway will be fixed faster than it would take to land elsewhere and the pilots are continually fed lies until when they realize that terrorists have taken over the all the control tower signals and communications they are too low on fuel to be able to get to any other airport in a bad storm at night.

[@mialarsson4972]

I’ve watched your videos on and off for the last couple of days and they’re so great, creative, helpful, educational and concrete, I love it! Just a tiny bit of feedback that you can consider or throw aside all together if you want to: The movie (etc) examples surrounding your how’s and do’s and don’ts when it comes to writing are almost always either sci-fi, high fantasy or action. I suppose it’s because that’s the type of stuff you enjoy watching the most but maybe you can broaden yourself a little and include other genres as well? There are so much to choose from and I think it would make your videos even greater than they already are!

[@alexcaraballo3189]

Establishing an actual magic system in Dr. Strange 2 would greatly impact the quality of that film. Scarlet Witch's powers are all over the map.

[@deomartinez77]

Exactly. I pretty much just wrote the same thing in a separate comment lol. I am glad I am not the only one that see this glaring issue of overpowered hero and villain that cancel each other out because there is no known limit to what each can and can not do to the other.

[@alexcaraballo3189]

@@deomartinez77 Shadoversity has a great video critiquing Dr. Strange 2 and it's magic system. You should check it out if you haven't already

[@heathercampbell6059]

I think that's fine, as long as they don't use it to fix measure parts of the story. I think that sounder since first law... I could be wrong.

[@robbycan]

love your presentation style and content

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Thanks!

[@clobberelladoesntreadcomme9920]

The "revenge seeking shark" plotline is so ridiculous that it works. It basically establishes the shark as magical and makes Jaws 2 into a fantasy /horror story.

[@intergalactic92]

Yeah, it’s not really a plot hole so much as it is an unrealistic premise. And, shockingly, there isn’t anything wrong with this. Films don’t have to be realistic. It does always irk me when a blatantly fantastical premise is judged as if it’s occurring in our world. I’m not saying you have to like these things, but that doesn’t make it objectively bad.

[@LendriMujina]

The problem with it being in the Jaws movies specifically is that it's part of a franchise that *was* established to at least be semi-realistic. People reacted so badly to the supernatural elements because it didn't make sense in the existing setting.

[@keithcarey6312]

Sounds like Sharknado

[@samplerInfo]

@clobberelladoesntreadcomme9920 You mean Jaws: The Revenge (4th movie), right?

[@Sorakeyblademaster37]

The supernatural would explain the freakishly smart shark, but it's scarier without an explanation.

[@rinvcs]

bro the amount of helpful advice you give just determine how good of a writer you are

[@Bombadil-ez9ns]

For #4, I remember in the X-Men movie, Quicksilver saved his friends in the Pentagon in way that shows how usef he can be. And then, knowing he just saved all their lives, those same friends leave him there as they board a plane to Paris to do something much more difficult.

[@Kamenriderneo]

2:05 This is not really a plot hole. It seems obvious to run to the side for someone who is looking at the situation from the outside. But for the characters themselves, keep in mind that they would be very scared if not outright panicking and thus would be unable to think clearly. This is not different than someone who is cooking and suddenly their oil catches on fire and they're trying to douse the flames with water. If you think calmly, water would make thing worst because oil is lighted and would jsut spread when the water is thrown and spreads the fire. But in the heat of the moment, most people don't think of that and that is the reason why there are so many kitchen fires each years.

[@MichaelJPartyka]

Not really a spoiler for "The Last Jedi": The one real plot hole I couldn't understand (assigned from that pesky disappearing light-dagger in the throne room scene) was, "Why didn't Leia simply countermand Poe's order to charge on the Dreadnought? Doesn't she outrank him?" I think the fix for this would be for Leia, once she had finished unsuccessfully arguing with Poe, to mutter something like, "I promoted you to lead us, not lead us into disaster!" That would make her subsequent demotion of Poe more meaningful, plus it would emphasize the often-overlooked story point that Poe's journey through the movie is one of maturation as a leader -- he has to stop chasing after costly success in mere battles and instead find resource-conserving ways to win the war.

[@HypedUpHyre]

The whole hyperdrive part didn't make sense in general. They literally caused a full blown mutiny because they didn't want to communicate basic info to the other rebels. Absolute idiotic.

[@intergalactic92]

She does tell him to stop….. he ignores her. This is why he gets demoted and why Holdo doesn’t trust him.

[@MichaelJPartyka]

@intergalactic92 But she could've countermanded the attack herself. It's not like the rest of the fleet were cut off from her communications.

[@ultraspudd2486]

Poe did the right thing by destroying the dreadnought otherwise it would have blown them up. TLJ has a plethora of issues like the design of the bombers, The resistance is out of fuel why doesn't the first order with limitless resources just hyper-speed ahead and cut them off. Why doesn't higher command have basic communication skills. etc

[@MichaelJPartyka]

@@ultraspudd2486 Poe did the right thing only by accident, really, as it wasn't known until after the battle that the First Order could track the Resistance in hyperspace. Prior to gaining that knowledge, running would've been the obviously better (and much less costly) option.

[@dhruvgeorge]

For the Die Hard scenario, you can make it where the aircraft's fuel is not enough to take them to the alternate locations

[@joaquinescudero957]

Hi Brandon, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions. I've always liked to write short stories (like super short, 1-3 pages) and I would write those in one or two sit downs, nothing serious, so they were never a longish project. However, recently I had the idea to (and the feeling) that one of these had legs to be way longer, thus I started planning the whole book (setting, characters and how the evolve and the role they have in the story, subplots, etc.) and I wanted to ask how "tough" is the transition from writing short storys to attempting a full book and what recommendations do you have? Also, I wanted to add that I have taken plenty of your videos as a guideline and because I am not a native english speaker (thus I am writing in spanish) I wanted to ask if the general tips or guidelines you give change or do not work when switching languages (like your recommendations on how to build up suspense or something like that).

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Hey, thanks for reaching out... I switched from short stories to novels about 10 years ago, and I found that the biggest hurdle was Plot Structure. It was easy to get discouraged because I didn't know what was supposed to happen over the course of a longer story, but once I studied up on Plot Structure and Character Arcs, things got easier for me. I've only written in English, but I believe that most storytelling tips will work regardless of the language the story is written in (that's why mega-popular books get translated into 20+ languages). Different cultures might enjoy/value different types of stories, but the basic principles of storytelling (like suspense) should work in most cases

[@freedomthroughspirit]

I just assumed Indy knew to keep his eyes shut because of his vast archaeological professor knowledge. 🤷 Really appreciate the quality of your videos, thank you! Very clear and helpful.

[@brianedwards7142]

A bucket of gravel and some tar. That's how you fix a pothole.

[@dj1NM3]

#2 could also be pulled from Prometheus, several times over, with perhaps the best one being Fifield getting lost despite having a map of the entire ruins (collected by his swarm of laser-scanning drones) literally strapped to his wrist. All he had to do was press a button and follow the map loaded into his wrist computer back to the ship.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

What plot hole from a movie/TV could be easily fixed? Let us know!

[@videonmode8649]

Not so much a plot hole, but in The Force Awakens I didn't care for how Rey's character was handled. They could've fixed it by having her be a jedi in training on the planet and that she's waiting for her master to return, and when the master doesn't come back it would give her reason to go out and explore while giving us strong plausibility of her abilities as a jedi in training.

[@schwarzerritter5724]

@@videonmode8649 I was thinking a surviving student of Luke, who wiped her own memory, because she did not want to think about Kylo killing everyone anymore.

[@Jenifer_R_]

Harry Potter and the thestrals. They appear to anyone who has 'seen death'. We see death every day. You smack a mosquito, you see death. Harry also saw his mother die as a baby yet didn't see the thestrals until after Cedric died. Changing it to 'understanding death', or being 'haunted by death' would have set the bar for seeing the creatures higher.

[@robbycan]

There's a big plot hole in an otherwise perfect movie... Ocean's Eleven. The fliers in bags get sent up before the SWAT team goes down, so there was no way the ending could have happened as presented. This was not initially noticed by the writing/directing team but they have admitted it was an oversight. It could have been written around surely.

[@leolightfellow]

I thought of one. In Titanic, how there's enough room for Jack and Rose on that piece of the ship after it's crashed and all, but she doesn't let Jack on it or whatever. All they'd have to do is redo that one scene, and make that piece of the ship too small for both of them to stay on top of it. I don't know if I'm describing it well, but I'm sure you know the part I'm talking about. People with more scientific knowledge than myself have covered it in detail.

[@kathyl6677]

I'm writing a novel, and I'm constantly on the look out for plot holes. You're right that sometimes they are so easy to fix with just mentioning something, or taking a different road, or visiting someone else.

[@fragwagon]

Why didn't Lando give Luke the lightsaber? Now you've got me curious, Brandon. 😅

[@DemonmachinE]

Considering he helped Vader for a paycheque, chances are he just sold it for a quick buck.

[@DawnFire05]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this video. I had a pretty strange plot hole in my story that was super awkward. Not only was it a “why didn’t he do this, he could have been saved” sort of plot hole, but it did not establish well the fact that 1) there was a time skip of 3 years following this, and 2) how to briefly work in the events over these 3 years since they’re important to convey, but aren’t a part of the character relationships (it’s a romance story), and 3) one of my characters sees a major character change, change in his behavior, when my MCs are reunited but it felt kind of jarring. All of this lead to more small strange plot holes. Thanks to this video I sat down and completely overhauled the scene, changed when and how I’m going to tell the events of the story, and I think I’ve completely fixed it while also adding so much more thrilling stuff. It’s not awkward at all anymore, it adds so much to my characters, establishes them into their new lives, and explains the hardships experienced by each over these 3 years. I’m so happy with the turn of my story right now, I’m filled with confidence and so eager to start writing again right away (if only it weren’t the middle of the night right now). Love how inspirational your videos are to me!

[@asquirrelplays]

How to easily fix plot holes: Don't let Disney get involved

[@helenakrieger5880]

You are easy to understand. Can you talk about story collections, connecting vs non-connecting, how many stories are too much, ideal word count for each, and just general types?

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Short story collections are usually novel-length (60,000+ words) with about 10-15 stories total. If you can connect them to a common theme, great. If not, try to keep them under a common genre/subgenre/style. Placement of the stories is also important. It's kind of like building a music album. I'll see about doing a video on this. Thanks!

[@helenakrieger5880]

@@WriterBrandonMcNulty my age range is the preteen area, thanks, that'd be cool if you did! Looking forward to more tips on writing from you!

[@tedost9337]

Django Unchained always bugged me with how unnecessarily complicated their plan was to get Django's wife back. Candy was in awe of European classiness. If the dentist character had approached Candy by saying "hey I speak German because I am German and I hear you have a German speaking slave. Let's make a deal." It would have worked out better. I know that's a lame way to tell the story, but what really happened always felt like a lazy way to get to the Tarantino action to me.

[@sntreulfravn2321]

No, this would create several plot holes. Dr. Schultz would have no way of knowing Candy was a Francophile, and mind you he specifically likes French classiness not a catch-all European classiness. Next, Dr. Schultz from Candy's perspective should not know that Candy has a German speaking slave, it would appear very suspicious if they knew that information going in. Next, Candy only became interested in them once they threw out that $12,000 dollar figure, he would not have taken them on a multiple days ride to CandyLand just so they could spend a couple hundred dollars on some random slave, like it was stated earlier in the movie, they'll just get turned down if they offer to buy Brunhilde. The plan wasn't even that complicated it just needed to be performed to perfection to work. It also feels like you're missing the point of any Tarantino movie if you think the point is just to get to the action...the action is the least important part of any Tarantino movie, there's maybe 15 minutes dedicated to action in any of his movies, Tarantino's work is almost completely dialogue centered.

[@tedost9337]

Wasn't the sale of slaves public knowledge? It's not farfetched that a German speaking slave would have created a bunch of whispers in the community. Them knowing Candy had her wouldn't have been odd at all. Also, I never said violence was the most important aspect of a Tarantino movie, just that the way the movie went obviously took them to that violent conclusion. While them just buying her the way I suggested wouldn't have had that conclusion.

[@sntreulfravn2321]

@@tedost9337 I think you're overestimating how much people actually cared about the slaves, she was sold cheap and it would not really be general knowledge that she spoke German. But even if you're correct about that, that was the least important reason why your suggestion would make problems for the story, my other points still stand

[@silas1414]

Love these videos, one ask; Could you please add a list at the beginning showing which references you’re going to use so we have a heads up on potential spoilers. Thanks.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

You’re right, I really should’ve included a spoiler warning with this one like I did with my Bad vs Good Endings video. I’ll make sure to get this right in the future. Thanks!

[@stivanotaliho]

Can you make a video about how to make a story with multiple mc?

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

I'll add it to my list. Thanks! In the meantime, here's a video I did years ago on Dual-protags: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2PPk6OplLN2g6c

[@GrndAdmiralThrawn]

9:28 “But they didn’t have enough time to pull this off convincingly. GOT season 8 summed up in one sentence.

[@kevinlane1219]

Another example, in reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark, was pointed out by an episode of the Bing Bang Theory: Indiana was completely irrelevant to the plot; the Nazis would have acquired the Ark, opened it, and suffered the wrath of God, anyway. Granted, the Nazis would have tortured Marion to get the medallion from her, and, once they acquired it, they may have killed her, anyway. Nonetheless, a good remedy to this plot whole would be to have added a scene, where Indiana is informed they know exactly where the medallion is, so he goes to warn her, only to find he was tricked into leading them to it. That way, having him travel to Nepal would have gotten the proverbial ball rolling.

[@Ruylopez778]

That's not a plot hole. Indy was 'irrelevant'. Without his attack the Ark would have been flown out, instead of taken by submarine and likely many more people would have died. Also your example makes the Nazis stupid, that they wouldn't be able to track down Marion by themselves. Of course, if Ravenwood was being uncooperative, the next logical step would be to find his family members. Why would the Nazis go to the US just to trick Indy?

[@StinkyTheClown1]

Is the Bing Bang Theory the one about Chandler and Monica being related?

[@kevinlane1219]

@@StinkyTheClown1 I don’t know.

[@hanoi_revolver]

I know i'm late, but there is another type of plot hole i hate: Travel time inconsistencies. Think "going from this place to this place by boat takes 5 months" but a character who was on the other side of the globe at the time shows up in a matters of day or weeks

[@blackwheel4743]

In your last video on plot holes you mentioned the Batman Begins Device that vaporises water and you raised the question of Tea Cooking or Showering. A bigger problem for me is the fact that u literally have liquids in your body, so the hallucinogetic gases wont matter to you because you'd be dead by way of boiling bodily fluids

[@Conserpov]

It's way worse than that. Boiling water like that requires a multi-Gigawatt device, which would need multi-Gigawatt power supply and would turn Gotham into Dresden before vaporizing any water.

[@reeceemms1643]

for number two they could have actually acknowledged the other Airports but say that the reason they can't is because since the one airport went down the air traffic had to be diverted to the other Airports and the reason the one Molly is on can't land is because there isn't enough room because of the backlog of air traffic.

[@VNightmoon]

This is another one that falls under "it got explained in a deleted scene," but The Nightmare Before Christmas. When Jack goes to Oogie's lair, the elevator from the treehouse is already down, but Lock, Shock, and Barrel aren't in it or nearby. Earlier, it was shown they have to be inside for it to work, otherwise it's just too convenient for Jack to be level with the window to get to Oogie. Later, the trio return with the Mayor, which raises the question of how they knew Jack was alive to begin with, along with why they'd help him when they work for Oogie. The deleted scene: Lock, Shock, and Barrel couldn't hear what was going on from the pipe they shoved Santa down earlier, so they got snacks and went to the elevator to watch from the window. Plot hole #1 fixed, as it explains why the elevator was where Jack needed it to be. Later, the scene shows Jack arriving at the tree house, seeing the lights off, then hearing the trio's laughter from below. In the final cut, he shushes Zero so *Oogie* won't hear, but in the deleted scene, it's so *Lock, Shock, and Barrel* won't hear him sneaking down. He then terrifies the trio and sends them jumping out to get away. Plot holes #2 and #3 filled, as now the trio have a reason to know Jack's still alive, and to them, he's a bigger threat than Oogie, AND they lied to him earlier, so getting the Mayor would be them wanting to get back into Jack's good graces. The two reasons the above scene got cut: time, and so Lock, Shock, and Barrel stay more on the side of "playful tricksters" vs. "evil little shits." I would prefer if they kept the scene, though.

[@germanwulf40]

I definitely agree with the last one. I study sharks when I can; nothing too deeply, I wouldn't call myself an expert or a go-to person on shark info, but I do love those animals and I learn what I can when I can. And you're right - sharks lack the mental capacity to direct their intentions through something as complex as revenge.

[@DeepFriedLiver]

Jaime has to return to Cersi in the way he does. He has to leave Brienne behind. And he absolutely must admit (as he already has in the books) that he never cared for the people of kings landing. The point of his character arc is that he shows both reprehensible and noble qualities. The plot is not supposed to redeem him. The reader/viewer is meant to decide if he is redeemable. Stannis has a great line that underscores what’s going on. “One good deed does not wash away the bad, nor a bad deed the good.” The bad and the good can exist together. Martin doesn’t want to tell you that Jamie did whatever he needed to be redeemed. He wants to ask you if you think he did! Perhaps you think no amount of rationalization can justify pushing child out a window. If so you agree with Jamie. He ran from Bri the first time anyone truly offered love and redemption. He felt he was despicable and went to meet the only one he knew as terrible as his own self image of himself. Maybe you think he deserves redemption? After all Briene thinks he does. And she is as noble as anyone in the story. Either way the audience decides not the author. That’s the point. Taking this whole thing as a “plot hole” is missing the forest for the trees.

[@ClefairyFairySnowflake]

Thanks for making the video! It was very helpful! Have a great day! Also, as for an unresolved plot hole that I've noticed: it was the GS ball in pokemon.

[@bakasan0000]

Can you do a long form video on fixing the last few seasons of Game of Thrones? A lot of us are still dealing with the trauma. Not even necessarily what they should have done, but a lot of us just knew something was wrong but it's hard to point out specifically what they did wrong.

[@Conserpov]

You mean, a series of long form videos...

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

"A lot of us are still dealing with the trauma." That made my day hahaha! I'll keep that idea in mind for future videos. There's a lot of KZbin content that covers where GoT when wrong in the final seasons, so I'll have to see if I can take a fresh angle at it

[@ZiptoZapto]

I've had a story I've been working on for years now, and I remember when I first came up with the idea, it was so barebones that there were a bunch of plot holes and lacking motivation on all sides of the characters. I knew they were there, but had no idea how to fix them. About 3 years later I decided to combine a story premise that I had nothing to do with, and it fixed SO many plot holes to where the story would actually work, and saved those two ideas from being scrapped. Even to this day, it is the one story idea I have that has been the most developed, I just actually need to figure out all my characters and the inbetweens of the major events.

[@tomhools1605]

5:08 knowing not to look at the ark is not so mysterious since there is a familiar story in the bible where god killed 50 thousand people for going in the tent and looking into the ark.

[@clobberelladoesntreadcomme9920]

yes i assumed Indy just read the Bible at some point.

[@taragnor]

Yeah that's fair enough if there's a story about it in the Bible, as an expert we would expect Indy to know this stuff.

[@T1544767]

I made a similar comment. There's references in the Bible about what happens when various people interact with the Ark. I would assume that while Indy didn't believe, he'd at least know about those interactions.

[@JonasCardiac]

I thought it was fair that he did not look at it, kind of showed he was humbled/respectful of it while the Nazis were not and paid the price.

[@thecornerkid402]

In the novelization for Jaws the revenge, again it’s not winning any awards, the Brodys we’re on vacation and offended a witch doctor who put a curse on them and the shark was the agent of that curse. Still insane, but at least it’s a reason.

[@JonasCardiac]

The Marauders map from harry potter plot hole always bothered me, fix it by having Sirius leave it for Harry to reveal the secret of Peter Pettrigrew, helping to clear his name.

[@angrychickengod3831]

the thing that bothered me about that was 1: how the hell did fred and george obtain it? and 2: how the actual hell did they figure out how to use it?? Did they just sit around for hours saying magic phrases until something happened? Is there a spell that can reveal a magic items secrets? If so, that's okay, except Snape tried it and it didn't work, so...

[@thiguyagain]

I like to think that the Marauders Map doesn't show people when they transform into animals. It would fill all the plot holes related to the map.

[@daredevil6145]

@@thiguyagain nah, it would just create a CRATER of a plot hole like that Map was used for 1 Great scene in the movie -- showing Peter coming around the corrider (as a mouse which neither we nor Harry knows) and THAT very scene is opposite of what you're offering

[@mrsharpie7899]

​​​@@angrychickengod3831 That one could EASILY be addressed: It's specifically designed not to reveal its secrets to Snape

[@Eagle3302PL]

@@angrychickengod3831 They explain they nicked it from Filch's office in their 1st year. I imagine it has some magic that lets it judge a person's character and intentions.

[@damanOts]

The fact that people needed a video for this explains alot of the books ive read

[@TheMusicscotty]

Maz isn't necessarily a plot hole. I might say not everything needs to be explained. They didn't dwell on it so long that it raised important issues. They also didn't use much of Maz later, so it didn't upset me. Kind of like 3PO having a red limb. I loved that until they explained it. Characters living a long time have things happen to them. It made him intriguing. In Avengers Hawkeye and Widow talk about Budapest without a ton of detail. It's a quick way of saying yeah there's history with these characters. They're not just tent poles or one dimensional. If Maz had explained it in a half-baked way it might have been lame or not enough info. In a Star wars movie the pacing was more important. Though I simply cannot forget nor forgive anything else about the travesty that was 7-9.

[@ianunderwood1678]

I think it's more that Maz basically directly tells the audience that this is an important plot point that'll come up later, and then it just doesn't happen. It's poor writing and that's what Brandon is trying to educate on how to avoid.

[@ultraspudd2486]

The difference is that C3PO's arm isn't relevant to the plot.

[@BrooklynAvenue]

7:20 it does raise the question. Well done. It does not “beg the question”

[@robbycan]

I think the Raiders example I have to disagree with. I understand it fitting the plot hole definition there, but Indy's character has already been shown to have an intense intuitive understanding of how artifacts and ancient dangers function. The fact that there is a deleted scene to explain it shows that they did indeed account for it, but Spielberg felt the story was told better without it. If you can imagine that we had seen that scene where he learns about it, it would lesson the final scene where he just can feel something's wrong. We'd just be saying oh yeah, that's right he learned that and they didn't, the dummies. We already had that from the map room. If anything, you could have had something similar that he had experienced or researched that had nothing to do with the Arc, but would justify his gut reaction a bit better.

[@thedadamer]

Bro. I love how you put 1000% more effort into thinking out the sequel trilogy than the people who were in charge.