Think like a scriptwriter...
Top notch scriptwriters make hundreds of thousands of dollars for their writing. But have you ever watched a movie and thought: Man, what a plothole! Or, what a wasted plot opportunity! I could have solved that problem.
Give me your examples. I'll go first.
When Spielberg combined with Tom Cruise to make War of the Worlds, he decided not to make the aliens Martians (as in the original novel published back around 1900) because, to paraphrase, "audiences today know too much about the real Mars and wouldn't accept that in a modern version."
I could have fixed that with a few lines to the effect that the Martians came to Earth in the distant past to escape their dying world. They buried themselves underground (as in Spielberg's version) because ancient Earth was incompatible with their biology. They arranged for their machines to re-animate them at a future time when Earth's atmosphere was better able to support their life form.
Boom, done!
Explains the dead Mars we know today, explains why the ancient aliens emerge from underground. Thirty seconds of dialogue is all it would have taken to honour the original novel while still letting the movie unfold as we saw it.