Ask Lemmy

Clue (1985)

TBH, most fiction have 0 plot holes. Most people who use the term 'plot hole' in commentary on the internet are using it incorrectly. They tend to use it to mean "something happens which I personally dislike or don't understand" rather than it's real meaning, "something that directly contradicts previous plot points and leads to a logical inconsistency." That is, it's only a plot hole if it literally cannot happen because it would negate some other plot element.

A character making a decision that feels out of character isn't a plot hole. Someone not choosing to use the sci-fi magic tech to solve a problem when it exists in-universe isn't a plot hole. It might be bad writing. But it's not a logical inconsistency.

A plot hole would be something like a plot point centering around a character's illiteracy (in a manner where it's clear they're not faking) after a scene where the character is shown reading.

For my money I'd say "Hot Fuzz". The script is so tightly written that it's AMAZING on rewatches. Almost every single line of dialogue is either a joke, set-up for a joke, a payoff, advances the plot, foreshadowing, establishes characters, or some combination of all of these.

The only things I could maybe see people thinking of as plot holes would be how absurd some character motivations are, but to me that just falls into suspension of disbelief.

First, we have to agree on what a plot hole is.

My definition of a plot hole in a story is something that simply can not happen given the existing rules of the story, or something which could only happen in an unexplained and if not literally impossible than at least so unlikely it is practically impossible way that defies everything else we know about the story.

This would be an item inexplicably jumping locations, a character having knowledge they could not possibly have, or a character or item being in two places at once. Things like that which gnarl the story.

What it isn't: A character making a bad decision, a character acting unusual (even to the point of acting out of character- that can be bad writing, but not a plot hole), a character forgetting something, a plot contrivance, an unlikely coincidence, something being unrealistic but consistent within the context of the story.

I commonly see poorly written scenes, or scenes where someone thinks a character was acting irrationally, or scientific or legal or other plot points that are intentionally written to serve the story described as plot holes.

With that description, I'd say quite a great number of works of fiction don't have plot holes.

Blade Runner 2049 doesn't seem to contradict itself or the original.

Real life is riddled with plot holes, you cant expect a work of fiction to be perfect.

the first film and show that come to mind are Primer and DARK, respectively.

Primer is a time travel movie with no plot holes. But I don't think you're looking for plot holes, there are plenty of movies, even time traveling ones, that don't have plot holes.

The answer, as with all things, is Tremors.

Baby Driver came across as an especially tight script. I personally don’t have much of a radar for plot holes, so I might be way off. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Shrek, of course

I don't want to say "none", but I think of the film "Captain America: Winter Soldier" as having some of the tightest writing in superhero comic book movies. It's something of an outlier a case study imo of strong storytelling that the whole thing is so competently put together. There are far fewer suspensions of disbelief than most superhero movies, imo.

Breaking Bad, maybe?

I can't think of any plot holes in Grandma's Boy.

ITT: Edgar Wright movies

Quantum Break pulled off an extremely well made time travel story. I don't recall any plot holes, especially not major ones.

I just finished the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. It’s a series of books (that was recently turned into a tv series) which was pretty great.

No time travel, but plenty of robots!