PLot Hole....
When JCVD put the grenade in that guys pants, and he disarms it...couldn't he have just tossed away the grenade?
shareOf course, but it was nicer the way they did it. LOL
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MovieChat Forums > Hard Target (1993) Discussion > PLot Hole....
how exactly is that a "plot hole?"
Because the guy could have thorwn the grenade at JCVD, potentially killing him and sparing his life, if this guys kills people for a living, you'd think he would have the sense to throw a live grenade and not to disarm it.
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yeah, i don't think you fully understand what the term "plot hole" means.
No, I fully understand, I don't what your problem is if you just have something permanently shoved up your butt or what, but it's a plot hole. A man who is shown to have experience with firearms and military tech would rather try to defuse a live grenade than throw it away and maybe kill the person who just tried to kill him? It goes completely against all logic, I know it's a movie, but this is a big hole.
share1. He has just been kicked to the ground, he knows JCVD has run off but he didn't see where to. Where would he throw it to kill him when he doesn't know where he is?
2. Lie down then try and throw a tennis ball. See how far it goes, not very, you can't pull back your arm to get much distance on it. The grenade explosion would likely be bigger than the distance he'd manage to throw it. So it's safer to disarm it.
No where near safer to disarm it, not with the pin pulled, JCVD jsut walked off, not ran, and laying down, folks in throw Army throw grenades laying all the time. With a maximum radius of maybe 10-15 meters he could throw it, way smarter than try to disarm it. And he was sitting up too. It makes no sense why he would try to unscrew the firing mechanism when he could just throw the thing. It's a plot hole, a small one, but a plot hole.
shareTo Groovymatt:
I'm going to have to disagree with both of these arguments, sir. It doesn't matter if he would have gotten Van Damme with the grenade or not. The idea was to try and pitch it away from himself and try to save his own life. Second, wouldn't it always be better to have some distance, any distance, between the exploding grenade and your body. Even if he only managed to toss it 10 feet, that's a whole lot better than having it go off in your hands and absolutely killing you.
Every week I see a thread like this turned into something stupid by someone who has nothing better to do than nitpick definitions.
A plot hole, or plothole, is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story's plot, or constitutes a blatant omission of relevant information regarding the plot. These include such things as unlikely behaviour or actions of characters, illogical or impossible events, events happening for no apparent reason, or statements/events that contradict earlier events in the storyline.
The above definition, when applied to the scene described in this thread, could be taken either way. Seriously, who gives a phlying phuk? Don't bother discussin the scene, let's discuss the definition of a term the OP chose - you know, when it's completely obvious what the OP means.
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not to "nitpick definitions" again - but by every week do you mean "every couple of years" because that's how old this thread is.
not to "nitpick definitions" again - but by every week do you mean "every couple of years" because that's how old this thread is.
To find the answer, just start at the top of my previous post in this thread: I began it with "Every week I see a thread like this (note: I did not say "this thread") turned into something stupid..."
I simply happened upon this thread because I had just seen the movie for the first time in a while.
Arguments on the definition of "plot hole" are all over imdb (the most recent one I saw was on the Trekies board as one person pointed out what they considered a plot hole and someone else, predictably, swooped in with their own personal definition that everyone was supposed to take as gospel). Never once did I say "Every week I see an argument in this thread."
You could have gotten the answer to your question just by reading my first sentence in the aforementioned previous post a second time.
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well gosh, i wasn't sure that i was asking a question as much as trying to make the point that your post was a bit silly.
i think it is safe to assume that I understood that you didn't mean you see this argument every week in this particular thread as this particular thread is over 3 years old and has been dead for almost 1 one of those years.
this is a 20 year old JCVD movie - not exactly Bridge on the River Kwai. He tried to disarm that grenade as opposed to tossing it because it's a silly action movie and it was part of the schtick. We had just watched JCVD's mullet swaying from side to side in slowmo while he pounded that guy's head in and held onto a burning 2x4. I don't know if the OP was being serious but i suspect maybe he was being a bit tongue in cheek. all i said was "how exactly is that a plot hole?" he did, in fact, manage to dismantle the grenade after all...
as it were though, i wasn't trying to get into the deeper intricacies of what the word means and i certainly wasn't trying to offend you or anyone else by quibbling over the definition of the term "plot hole"
It's not a plot hole. Illogical move by the character perhaps, but it's completely feasible to assume that he simply wanted to take the more complicated route. In his mind disarming the grenade was a surefire way to live through the situation, and he would be right if it weren't for the spark that killed him. Also, keep in mind that it was a split-second decision, and that he most likely just did what he had trained himself or been trained to do.
It's not a plot hole, it's just an action that wasn't spelled out for you.
It's still a plot hole. It 1)took too long for the grenade to explode 2) Let's assume he wasn't ex-military or something, only a moron would try to remove the fuse assembly. He's clearly familiar with arms, and anyone familiar with grenades knows get away, so there's absolutely no rational explanation.
shareMaybe LH's character thought that disarming it would be a quicker solution, but he sure was dumb enough not to throw the fuse after unscrewing it - instead, he kept it 2 inches from the body of the grenade, laughing... :-)
The funniest part of the movie was when Lance Henriksen said: "Whoops" right before the hand grenade exploded!
sharei think it was meant to be only a explosion,but then they came up with this idea that was funnier
shareYeah...pretty clear you don't understand the meaning of the word.
shareNo I do. And I still contend it is one, granted I may have missed the slight slapstick point of it, but that doesnt mean it isn't a plot hole.
shareLook, words lose all meaning when everyone starts imposing their own personalised definitions to it. You're discussing something in a public forum and the public evidently disagrees with you semantically. This does not necessariliy indicate that your proposed idea is flaud, but it does indicate the communication is innacurate. In the end, it all comes down to what definition of a "plot hole" you're employing.
The specific mechanics of an action of dealing with the hand grenade in the antagonist's pants has little to do with the plot, the preceding theme or story in the film. It would have been a plothole if the story indicated earlier that the antagonist was an explosives expert, but it didn't. In Hard Target, the antagonist is a sociopathic entrepreneur proficient primarily in event organisation. There is nothing plot braking about him trying and failing to save his life by doing silly panicky stuff in the end of the movie.
I can see why you think this is a plot hole, because it is indeed a gap in the causality and logic of the plot, and perhaps if it had happened earlier in the film it would be more obvious, but it doesn't really influence any subsequent events.
There is a much larger and much more important plot hole in this film. Lance Henrikson and his goons are all set to leave town, having completed their business in New Orleans, announced they intended to leave and even stated they were going to vanish to another country where they were safely beyond the powers of American police investigation. If they had just done that, the film was over and the bad guys had got away. However, for no real reason at all that I can determine, they decide to show up on the street in broad daylight and start a shootout with JCVD's character instead, thus setting in motion the interesting part of the storyline where they chase him across the countryside and much spectacular destruction ensues.
That is a proper plot hole, because it radically influences the direction of subsequent events, it is illogical and arbitrary and there's no obvious way to fix it. JCVD could have killed Henrikson's character in any number of ways at the end. Henrikson throws the grenade away, but Van Damme roundhouse kicks his face off, or picks up a gun and shoots him, or spears him with a piece of convenient wreckage... The specifics of Henrikson's death are implausible, but it doesn't really matter. You can't fill in the plot hole I'm talking about easily at all. When you examine this film's storyline, it's basically an hour of time-killing investigation ploddery and then thirty minutes of virtually plotless shoot-out, joined together by an enormous plot hole.
Agreed, major plot hole, this one is a small one, the only event it could have influenced is when LH's character died. Of course he always could have thrown the grenade, but that does not matter truly, because no screenwriter would have the good guy and the girl die, LH had to die, but the method of his death, the "reality" they've chosen to create, in which JCVD puts a grenade in LH's shorts, gives LH a weapon, and the opportunity to kill the the protagonists, or save his own life and run like a dog, we're supposed to accept that LH would attempt to defuse the grenade? I can accept him being in a state of shock and blankly staring at the grenade, or even him not having the strength to throw the grenade far enough for him to be outside of the killzone, but his actions honestly make no sense to me. I appreciate your candor and your willingness to listen to another viewpoint, and again I do agree on the major plot hole, and that this is only a small, maybe insignificant one.
shareYes, he could have tossed away the grenade, but's not a plot hole. It's unrealistic, but not a plot hole.
It's intended to be humorous/ironic. It's a contrast of the character. Here is this deadly serious militaristic killer, and he makes a stupid mistake and goes "whoop...". That's the purpose and punch of the scene--the irony. Much of all storytelling is unrealistic, but that doesn't really matter. It's about the effect.
You know that's very true, honestly im just overzealous when it comes to events that go beyond my suspension of disbelief. Which is why I called it a plot hole. But you're absolutely right.
shareIt's not a 'plot hole', it's a 'leap of logic'. There's a difference.
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