Movie Plot Holes That Weren't Plot Holes After All

Nothing's quite as entertaining as watching a movie...although picking it apart with your friends and fellow film lovers after the credits roll can sometimes come close.

These days, fans argue endlessly online about what certain moments mean, why they don't work, and how director so-and-so forgot about something crucial in the first act that throws everything else into disarray, ruining an otherwise perfect movie forever.

Director David Fincher discussed this level of scrutiny in his commentary track for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, saying he's sad for those who "go through movies and look for inconsistencies and continuity errors." With those thoughts in mind, we've rounded up some alleged movie plot holes that have been thoroughly debunked thanks to internet sleuthing and endless re-watching.

Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park is widely considered one of the greatest and most effective kids' adventure/monster movies of all time. But even Spielberg isn't infallible and, over the years, fans have scratched their heads about the movie's ending, which sees the star attraction Tyrannosaurus rex come to the rescue of the humans in peril.

Although the T-rex—the hero of the film, according to Spielberg himself—turning up and saving the day is a real cheer-able moment, the question remains; just how did it manage to get into the building? The answer, it would seem, is right in front of our eyes, as eagle-eyed fans have noted there's a large hole visible in the background of the shot where the dino presumably made its way into the still-under-construction area right in the nick of time.

The popular '90s slasher Urban Legend—starring Jared Leto in his floppy-haired pre-Oscar, pre-Joker, My So-Called Life era—took more than its share of liberties. It's proven to have serious staying power alongside fellow lesser Scream ripoffs like I Know What You Did Last Summer, but that hasn't stopped picky genre fans from pulling it apart. The main issue comes with its ending, which sees Natalie and Paul escape the clutches of Rebecca Gayheart's parka-sporting psycho, Brenda (worst serial killer name ever?). After she falls out a window, presumably to her death, the two leg it to safety—neglecting to notice that her body is missing in the process.

There are two explanations for this so-called plot hole: either the director, Jamie Blanks (who went on to helm the similarly cheesy, but fun, slasher Valentine) was paying homage to Halloween's infamous ending, which saw Michael vanish into thin air, or he intended for the teens to be too preoccupied with escape to notice while assuming the audience would. Otherwise, the "gotcha!" twist, which sees Gayheart alive and well and on the cusp of causing havoc elsewhere, wouldn't hit nearly as hard.

Orson Welles' epic Citizen Kane is almost universally regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made, but that doesn't mean people haven't found fault with it. One popular nitpick: it looks like no one was around to hear Kane say "rosebud"—meaning there was no catalyst for the plot.

It's been noted, however, that Kane's butler was actually the one to hear him utter that immortal word. Although Kane is said to have died alone, it's later revealed via an interview with his erstwhile employee that Raymond was with him in his final moments. Either that or the acoustics were just really good in that big ol' house.

It was the twist that launched a career—and one that M. Night Shyamalan, try as he might, hasn't managed to equal in the intervening years (sorry, Split fans). Although it still packs a considerable wallop even today, The Sixth Sense's whole "he was dead the whole time" thing left certain viewers scratching their heads. Doesn't the protagonist's inability to guess he's a ghost make him look a bit...dumb?

The idea of poor Malcolm not realizing he's dead until the very last moment is actually sewn into the film's narrative, however: we're told that ghosts often don't come to terms with their fate immediately, even creating their own version of reality so they can continue on "living" as normal. By that logic, he wouldn't have had his Eureka moment until exactly when the movie gives it to him (and us).

If there's one thing movies have taught us about computers over the years, it's that Apple is king. And also men. This has never been more evident than it was during '90s sci-fi blockbuster Independence Day, a pivotal moment in which we see Jeff Goldblum's plucky scientist uploading a virus to the all-powerful alien mothership using a Mac Powerbook.

Considering the movie exists in a world in which Roswell was very much a real incident, which led to super-fast technological developments thanks to otherworldly creatures and their equipment, there's an understanding that our future technology was derived from that of the aliens'. That idea is explored further in a deleted scene from the film, which sees Goldblum's character prepping the computer while aboard the alien vessel and making a reference to the similar coding between the two, which could go some way towards explaining the leap in logic. If only it had appeared in the finished film. As it stands, it kind of looks like a giant Apple advertisement.

Apologies to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade fans, but Raiders of the Lost Ark is hands down Indy's greatest outing. It's got everything, from Nazis to giant boulders and a never-better Harrison Ford. If only his Dr. Jones had actually been given something to do outside of getting in the way and making everything worse for everybody. Long a bugbear for super-fans, Raiders sees Indy essentially helping the Nazis on their quest to find the storied Ark, while their face-melting fate was sealed whether he was involved or not.

Why, when Indy is so ineffective, do we still think of this as his greatest outing? Well, let's not forget that Dr. Jones's job, first and foremost, is to recover the Ark and return it to its rightful home. If he wasn't there at the end, it would have remained in German hands, leading to a future even more horrific than the one we glimpsed in 2008's uninspired Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

From Indy to Andy, as another Greatest of All Time contender falls victim to eagle-eyed nitpickers: when Andy escaped at the end of The Shawshank Redemption by slipping through the hole he'd painstakingly tunneled through his cell wall, how the heck was he able to cover his tracks by hanging his Rita Hayworth poster over the hole? This is really one of those looking-for-something-to-complain-about entries, because the whole idea of the plot hole here could be attributed to suspension of disbelief—something we accept in most movies as a rule.

The argument that Andy wouldn't possibly have been able to reattach the poster makes sense according to strict poster-hanging logic. However, this also disregards the fact that we only see it hanging there—not necessarily tacked up exactly the way it was before. Also, it doesn't really distract the guards for too long anyway, so it's hardly a plot hole per se.

It's the ultimate make-life-easier tool (although Hermione mostly used it to do even more work, bless her) so it seemed to make zero sense that, as the Harry Potter series wore on and the lives of its principal characters grew increasingly complicated, the miraculous Time Turner never showed up again after The Prisoner Of Azkaban. Harry Potter lore dictates that per the Ministry of Magic, the object could only be used to travel back in time a maximum of five hours, so it could be that there was just no use for it beyond saving Buckbeak and Sirius. As much as fans of the series are loath to admit, it couldn't have been used to stop Voldemort from ever coming to power.

The Turner, it would seem, obeys Novikov Self-Consistency Principle, a theory of time travel that essentially means whoever is using it can only produce the same set of circumstances noted before traveling. Therefore, nothing significant can really be changed without invoking dire consequences (Hermione warns Harry about "meddling with time"). This also jibes with author J.K. Rowling's use of self-fulfilling prophecy, along with further exemplifying how intrinsic and strict certain elements of the Wizarding World can be.

The 2002 video game adaptation Resident Evil has spawned so many sequels it's very nearly on a par with Fast and Furious—and with only slightly sillier carnage. The original remains a fan favorite, not least for the brutal laser hallway sequence that serves as the shocking centerpiece of the whole film. However, depending on whether you're a casual fan or a diehard, the lack of body parts left over after the incident (something that's pointed out by one of the characters, then never mentioned again) might disturb you more than the minimal gore.

As hardcore fans are aware, however, this is actually a callback to the games that inspired the movie. In the very first edition, bodies frequently disappear when the player returns to an area. The use of this trope in the movie was a nod to gamers and fans of the series; it might have gone over casual moviegoers' heads, but it isn't a plot hole, in spite of what its own characters would lead us to believe.

This cinematic beef is so famous that an entire Mythbusters episode was devoted to debunking it. What's the deal? Was Rose just a big, selfish lump who wouldn't move over so her beloved could share the makeshift life raft with her? Did Jack not really want to get up there and figured a lifetime spent at the bottom of the ocean would be better than wasting his every waking moment with his privileged mademoiselle?

The truth is far simpler: the two of them don't fit on it. Right when they're first launched into the sea, Rose and Jack try to finagle their way onto the door together, only for it to keep knocking one or both of them off. There isn't enough buoyancy for two people to occupy that piece of wood. End of story. And so Jack sacrifices himself, leading to generations of diehard adoration for Leonardo DiCaprio, and a decade of "why is Rose so horrible?" questions for Kate Winslet.

For decades, horror fanatics have been bothered by one moment in John Carpenter's seminal slasher Halloween, and it's not the way his silent killer seems to be able to teleport. No, the movie's major plot hole arises when Michael Myers makes his initial escape, stealing a car and speeding off into the rainy night towards Haddonfield. It begs the question: how did somebody who'd spent most of his life holed up in an insane asylum know how to operate a car?

A recently leaked "deleted scene" from the movie, shared by indie filmmaker Adam Green, offers some tongue-in-cheek answers. The video shows Michael getting lessons from an overly talkative instructor, making sense of Loomis' "maybe someone around here gave him lessons" comment from earlier in the film. As for the teleportation, well, we can only assume Mikey is a more malevolent force than we could ever imagine.