When there's a plothole, do you ignore it?

[JirinPanthosa]

It bothers me more when the mess up real science than it does when they make up fake science.

Like, if you make a black hole with a small blob of red goo, it should have the gravitational pull of a small blob of red goo from the same distance. That kind of thing pisses me off. Whereas if they said the red goo created a reverse polarizonium singularity that pulled in an entire planet, it would be fine.

 

[thewanderingjack]

There are some occasions when the writers haven't really thought things though and there's a plothole in some episode, maybe a tiny one one or big enough to drive a truck through it. Do you let it bug you or try to ignore it with some own headcanon?

Even if the episode is great in every other way, a plothole can ruin it for me... I can try to make some sense out of it but... that episode might not get much attention from me later.

I'm the same way : if the the story is based/depends on a big fallacy I'm stuck with "but none of that would have happened if..." The less it depends on it, the less it matters. I'm willing to make assumptions to rationalize it, but the thinner that gets the more it irks. I don't tend to write the whole thing off though, well, I do in that I can't consider it a good episode, but I'll still appreciate whatever good parts they do have (and just try to ignore/accept the problem). If anything it annoys me most because then to me, it could've been a great story if not for the problem.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Depends on how good the story or the acting or the pacing or whatever is. I think people tend to notice plot holes more if they're already bored and disengaged with the story, but will overlook the same or equivalent flaws if the rest of the ep is clicking on all cylinders.

Ditto if the story works on an emotional level.

Pretty much my feeling. The Reliant not noticing a missing planet in TWOK doesn't bug me much because the rest of the film works so well.

 

[Greg Cox]

Pretty much my feeling. The Reliant not noticing a missing planet in TWOK doesn't bug me much because the rest of the film works so well.

Or Starfleet forgetting where Khan was . . . even though both Chekov and Kyle are aboard the Reliant. And Kyle was actually in "Space Seed."

Doesn't matter. Still my favorite Trek movie.

 

[B.J.]

Like others have said, I'll ignore any errors / plot holes / etc if the story is good. But the science errors really make me roll my eyes, since it's something they shouldn't get wrong on a show like this. Voyager's treatment of dark matter and deuterium were some of the worst.

 

[Prax]

Because they found it in the silver blood?

 

[The Wormhole]

Because they found it in the silver blood?

The problem with how they treated deuterium is that in the episode Demon they acted as though it was some super rare element and because they were running so low, they were doomed. But deuterium is one of the most common things you can find in space, it's literally everywhere, the idea you can run out of it is practically laughable. It's like starving to death in a fully stocked grocery store.

Curiously enough in S7's The Void they did get it right when the aliens of the week stole Voyager's deuterium with this quote from Tom Paris:

PARIS: Why would anyone steal deuterium? You can find it anywhere.

 

[Prax]

Maybe they were in a region of space where non could be found, or maybe they needed already processed deuterium and there were no civilized systems nearby.

 

[Nyotarules]

Kirk being only a Cadet was a product of his cheating on the Kobayashi Maru test being reviewed. Had he been assigned a ship, he would have been a Lieutenant most likely. So really, the rank jump would be more like Lieutenant to Captain.

Still bugs me, Spock never got a promotion, why not? Then Beyond comes along and it seems one can apply for an Admiral's post with even less experience lol Probably explains all those 'Admiral goes mad' episodes.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Still bugs me, Spock never got a promotion, why not?

He's promoted to Captain in Wrath of Khan. Ialso got the impression Spock would move up to Captain if Kirk took the promotion to Admiral in Beyond.

 

[Jeyl]

A plot hole that occurs season to season is understandable. Writers probably didn't watch an episode or thought that nobody would notice.

Plot holes that occur within the same exact episode/movie? That's a different issue. Biggest being from Star Trek Generations and I think everyone here knows what I'm talking about.

 

[Prax]

Do movies count? Because movies having plot holes is canon.

 

[Tenacity]

I think everyone here knows what I'm talking about.

Got me.

 

[Voth commando1]

Yes, I ignore it-I'm not one to get riled up or upset over a lapse in the writer's logic or anything to that effect.

In fact, I'd consider myself pretty tolerant in that regard I'm willing to give the writers/actors/directors the benefit of the doubt ninety eight percent of the time.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Got me.

Picard not emerging from the Nexus earlier, to save his family.

That plot thread went nowhere.

 

[at Quark's]

Picard not emerging from the Nexus earlier, to save his family.

That plot thread went nowhere.

probably due to Picard's "ethicalness", wishing to not meddle with time more than needed to reverse the disturbance in the flow of natural events leading to the destruction of that planet with 230 million pre-industrial inhabitants caused by Soran.

 

[F. King Daniel]

probably due to Picard's "ethicalness", wishing to not meddle with time more than needed to reverse the disturbance in the flow of natural events leading to the destruction of that planet with 230 million pre-industrial inhabitants caused by Soran.

In for a penny, in for a pound. They made us care about Picard's family, yet we never even saw an inhabitant of Veridian III.

 

[at Quark's]

^they didn't make me care for his family. I felt in this movie his family was simply a vehicle to make Picard second guess how he spent his life until now (and hence make his personal story line fit into the movie's general theme). (The fact that we saw a dream version of his nephew in the nexus doesn't really change that for me).

 

[Jeyl]

probably due to Picard's "ethicalness", wishing to not meddle with time more than needed to reverse the disturbance in the flow of natural events leading to the destruction of that planet with 230 million pre-industrial inhabitants caused by Soran.

Not to meddle with time. According to how time should have played out, an entire solar system is destroyed and the Enterprise D was destroyed along with all hands. And given how instrumental Picard and crew would later become during the future Borg invasion, Earth's past and the Reman incident, I'd say that saving two members of his family from burning to death is about as far from ethical as you can get. And let's not forget Worf's future placement on Deep Space Nine that would prove instrumental in the Dominion War.

But saving two members of your family from burning alive, one of the most gruesome deaths I can imagine, is not ethical because time would be meddled with? It's already been meddled with on a galactic scale!

 

[at Quark's]

^sure he is already meddling with time.

But there is only one chain of events that led Picard into the nexus giving him this opportunity in the first place, and losing his family had nothing to do with that. So he might feel justified in only trying to reverse that chain of events (that also led to the destruction of 230 million persons), and not try to influence time beyond that.

However, if you go down the path of trying to change more for the good, where do you stop? Why shouldn't Picard attempt to go further back in time to stop the Narenda III incident? Or the entire Dominion war or World War 3, for that matter? Wouldn't it be unethical then to only save the inhabitants of Veridian 3 and the crew of the enterprise and his family, but none of those other people?

Also, I didn't say it would be unethical. I said "due to Picard's 'ethicalness'" (i.e. his 24th century Starfleet sense of ethics-- not necessarily corresponding with ours-- might prevent him from doing so, based on other decisions we've seen him take).