MovieChat Forums > Man of the Year (2006) Discussion > Plot Hole

Plot Hole

posted 15 years ago by eck66
11 replies | jump to latest

I enjoyed this movie, but there was what seemed to be a giant plot hole that I couldn't ignore, and I was wondering if anyone else noticed it.

During any election, and especially presidential elections, extensive exit polling is done. Now, exit polls may not be perfect, but I know that they are accurate enough to indicate a massive difference in votes, such as what was depicted here. There would have been all kinds of red flags going up almost immediately. I can remember only one brief, throwaway line about exit polls in the movie, so they essentially tried to sidestep this problem. Thoughts?

[–] Jaybone23 15 years ago

Valid point. I was thinking the same thing myself as I watched this again just this morning. I guess the only answer is...if they'd dealt with this accurately, they wouldn't have a movie. I also had a problem with the way the Laura Linney character was dealt with by the corporation she worked for and how she reacted to the drugs they dosed her with. The scene in the corporate coffee bar? Not at all believable.

The movie begins with an interesting premise, but too often I found myself asking, "Wha?"

[–] Bixbyfan 15 years ago

Don't get me wrong here, I really enjoyed this film, but I had a really big problem with Linney's "reaction" as well. There's no way she had all those drugs in her system for that long before having any sort of response other than "hmm, wonder where this spot on my arm came from? oh well" and then to have such a (convenient) violent outburst in public. Ludicrous.

[–] Jaybone23 15 years ago

Yep! Exactly. Seems THAT one could have been dealt with quite easily. Some of the other plot problems might have been more difficult to get around, but the deal with the drugs should've been handled in a different way.

I, too, ultimately enjoyed the film. This is easily Robin Williams' best recent film. He's been in some crap the last few years. And you (usually) can't go wrong with Christopher Walken!

[–] Gearwar28 13 years ago

Not to mention that nobody in the whole god damn movie ever tried to question the fact that there had been an error in the voting system. I mean there were just accusations. I found it rather odd that William's character wouldn't even insist on a little proof before he announces a computer error.
Its only named briefly at the end that they did proof it really was a computer error. But by that time Dobbs had already stepped down. Rather odd in my opinion

[–] Jaybone23 13 years ago

Indeed. And it's not like these plot issues were insurmountable. A good screenwriter could have dealt with all of the problems we've been discussing here. The plot holes are so gaping and obvious, one wonders if the filmmakers had indeed addressed these problems during production, but then had to lose some of the explanatory scenes in editing so as not to bore or confuse the audience. I dunno. It just seems there could have been minor changes that would have made for a much better movie.

[–] r2626 13 years ago

Look up the definition of plot hole.

Help stamp out and do away with superfluous redundancy

[–] DARSFoG 13 years ago

So I am watching this tonight. They do mention the "Exit Polls" Right before the Eleanor gets attacked in her house the tv mentioned how the voters must be keeping their votes a secret as the exit polls do not reflect the numbers.

Child of 60's; Raised in the 70's; Born in the 80's; Stuck in the 90's.

[–] clearthinkernow 11 years ago

Actually exit polling has been found to be massively flawed. Reporters will continue to do it because they don't actually know what to do on election day, but no network will ever count on it again.

[–] elliest_5 11 years ago

Well, I thought that one line explained it enough: they said something along the lines of "I guess people don't want to reveal their real vote intentions" or something... Also, I assume everyone trusted the electronic system so much that they couldn't imagine how it could go wrong.

What I didn't get was the actual glitch in the system. I don't know much about programming, but I can't imagine how an application designed to count how many times A,B, or C has been selected would be influenced by the label assigned to A, B, and C. My initial suspicion was that the glitch was deliberate to favor the current president under the assumption that he and the conservative guy would be the only candidates and when the third candidate entered the ballot the system ended up favoring him instead. But this was not confirmed or even hinted in the movie, it was just explained away as a mistake.

~*~

[–] DeusExKatrina 11 years ago

While this movie certainly had its share of flaws, I don't think this is one of them. It's not a plot hole if they explain it in the movie.

- We know that exit polls were done and the discrepancies were commented in -- it's plausible that people wouldn't want to admit they voted for the comedian, so that explanation checks out fine.

- We also know that Dobbs was in fact pretty popular, and that something like 70% of Americans said they would have voted for him if they had been able. So the discrepancies in the exit polling may not have been all that huge to begin with.

So there is no plot hole.

Besides, it's not like they poll every single person or every location. I've never seen any journalists at my polling locale.

What I didn't get was the actual glitch in the system. I don't know much about programming, but I can't imagine how an application designed to count how many times A,B, or C has been selected would be influenced by the label assigned to A, B, and C. My initial suspicion was that the glitch was deliberate to favor the current president under the assumption that he and the conservative guy would be the only candidates and when the third candidate entered the ballot the system ended up favoring him instead. But this was not confirmed or even hinted in the movie, it was just explained away as a mistake.

This, I completely agree with. The "glitch" was ridiculous. It would be entirely plausible for the shady guys to have been intentionally fixing the election so I don't know why they didn't just go with that.

---
"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the antidote to shame."

[–] jutuomin 11 years ago

What I didn't get was the actual glitch in the system. I don't know much about programming, but I can't imagine how an application designed to count how many times A,B, or C has been selected would be influenced by the label assigned to A, B, and C. My initial suspicion was that the glitch was deliberate to favor the current president under the assumption that he and the conservative guy would be the only candidates and when the third candidate entered the ballot the system ended up favoring him instead. But this was not confirmed or even hinted in the movie, it was just explained away as a mistake.

>>This, I completely agree with. The "glitch" was ridiculous. It would be entirely plausible for the shady guys to have been intentionally fixing the election so I don't know why they didn't just go with that.

This I agree with. I also think it would be impossible to ever have a electrical voting system in any election that doesn't give out any printed results of its votes. It should print out a receipt of every vote to the voter and some kind of check printout to check the votes after the elections.

And this is not that difficult to believe as real electrical voting system actually work this same fashion. In my country (=Finland) they introduced an electrical voting system like this that was used in the 2008 municipal elections in some preselected municipals. The system was later found out being faulty (which is exactly the reason why you want it to print out the results for checking). In some municipals the elections was then re-voted using ballots.