It’s come to my attention recently that the new It thing for people to complain about in movies is plot holes. However, in the words of Inigo Montoya,

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Culture, society, the collective human psyche – whatever you want to call it, it tends to go through phases. We get these new buzz diagnoses for our problems. ADHD. Gluten free. Plot holes. For most health issues, we see a rise in these diagnoses because we have improved ways of identifying the condition in question, rather than that the condition itself is becoming more common. So are we seeing more plot holes in movies because we’ve gotten better at recognizing plot holes?

Nope. I think we’ve gotten worse at recognizing them.

Take, for example, this article about Star Wars: Episode VII. I’ll pick out just a few of the author’s points.

1. To blow up the 120-km “Death Star” in Star Wars, the rebels needed detailed plans for the base and a full-scale invasion force — as well as the supernatural targeting skills of the most powerful Force-user in the galaxy. To destroy the exponentially larger and better-protected “Starkiller Base” in The Force Awakens, all that was needed was a janitor with no special skills, a few run-of-the-mill handheld explosives, a couple not very difficult X-wing blaster strikes, and some moxie. It also helped that the Millennium Falcon was able to “fly low.”

This is perhaps a poor one to begin with, as that is a genuine plot hole. Or, at least, it would be if it were true. Before the mission, the rebels pore over detailed plans for the Starkiller Base; much of their planning is cut out because who wants to watch four hours of war strategy when all we want is lightsabers finally? The filmmakers make a point of showing Poe leading teams in these bombing runs. After who know how many dozens of runs, we see them complain that it’s not working and Poe rallies them to keep them at it. That, combined with some extremely well-placed explosives, is what finally takes down the base.

8. It’s okay that Poe survived a Tie Fighter crash; after all, so did Finn. But has any film ever cared less about (a) giving the false impression a character has died, and then (b) having that character show up later with no one being surprised by it? Even Finn doesn’t seem to care very much what the explanation is.

Now this is a better illustration of my point. People survive plane crashes all the time. Presumably TIE fighters have slightly better safety features than your average 747. We as the audience don’t need to know how, though we might wonder. The argument that they might have died and then there would be no movie is invalidated by the sheer fact of “they did survive.” Now, Finn “doesn’t seem to care” how Poe survived. Let me ask you: how would the events of the film change if Finn “cared” more? I’m not talking about character development, I’m talking about events. If Finn had demanded in a scene we would later all forget about to know how Poe survived, and Poe had told an exceedingly boring story about how he had been thrown clear of the crash site and came to just in time to see the smoldering wreckage sink into the dunes, would the power of Finn’s love for his friend have made the Starkiller Base blow up faster? Allowed him to find Rey sooner? Saved Han Solo from being betrayed by his son? Nope, the film would have been ten minutes longer thanks to a scene we can, should, and must assume happens off-screen.

In my post about Tarantino, I talk a little about the difference between plot and story. To reiterate, Plot is concerned with the action of the film while Story is concerned with character growth. Plot is the What Happened, Story is the How Did the Characters Change and/or Feel. So what exactly is a plot hole, then? It’s not whatever that author’s points were, obviously. So what is it really?

A plot hole is an event (or lack thereof) that should not have been physically able to occur, based on the previously established laws of the film-verse, that significantly alters the occurrence of everything after that event. It’s a plot point that defies explanation, that by its presence (or absence) completely changes the direction of the film.

Point #1 would have been such a beast if it had been accurate. Let’s say it had. With no schematics, no real inside man, and a lot of ineffectual brute force, the Starkiller Base should not have been taken down so easily. The First Order would have disintegrated the entire planet that the rebels used for their base, essentially wiping out the entire Resistance. Our heroes might have survived, considering they weren’t on the planet at the time, but their chances of defeating the First Order are now virtually zero. BB-8 is gone, and with him, the map to Luke. The Jedi order is likely doomed, the Resistance is doomed, and the galaxy is doomed.

That is a plot hole. “I’m incapable of both willing suspension of disbelief and paying attention to exposition” is not a plot hole. In fact, not a single one of the author’s 40 (yes, 40) points qualifies as a plot hole. The majority are complaints about minor character or production design points, many are directly addressed in the film (what, did you fall asleep through the whole thing?), and the few that might qualify are based on misinformation.

The doubly frustrating part is that this gentleman isn’t the only one. There are entire blogs devoted to calling out “plot holes” in films, and while some might be legitimate issues with storytelling or the like, the vast majority are not plot holes at all. It’s almost enough to make one start a blog devoted to rebutting all these CinemaSins types. Almost.