MovieChat Forums > Project Almanac (2015) Discussion > Let's list the plot holes

Let's list the plot holes


OK I start: they were gone for 9 hours partying @ Lollapalooza (Chicago), but it is 10 hours away from their home (Atlanta)! The machine is supposed to only bend time, not space.

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The future is changed, that won't happen again.

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To be fair goodboy-3, they never said how they got there. Remember they won the lottery. There are still planes and cars buses etc during this time period.

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He goes back to Lollapalooza alone the second time to kiss his girlfriend, what happened to the first version of him?

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What happens to the 15 versions of them when they're changing that guys school presentation?

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Haha. That's true!

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Not really. Remember, before he goes into class, the girl finds his original version on the way to class and tells him it's been canceled.

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What happens to the 15 versions of them when they're changing that guys school presentation?


Even weirder, one of the versions of the main guy was in the class when the guy was giving the repeat presentations. Why was there no 'feedback' when he saw himself sitting in class, and I think even high fived the guy once he got it right?


And when the girl got revenge on the bully, why didn't anyone else react to the two versions of her?

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The cheerleader said something to the effect of "How are you here too?" or something like that. Not to say that I vouch for this madness, but I would have thought she just ran around the corner and grabbed some drinks from someone.

That's the best I can come up with.

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The cheerleader said something to the effect of "How are you here too?" or something like that. Not to say that I vouch for this madness, but I would have thought she just ran around the corner and grabbed some drinks from someone.


Not only that, but she had a different outfit on when she avenged herself. And it also should've been more than one person who saw both versions of her.

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Let's just say those were high school kids that would just think it was strange and they would not think about it for more than ten seconds. No offense to the high school kids reading this XD



Stand up for what is right, even if you are standing alone.

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have you not seen the perception experiment where most people don't realise when someone they are talking to changes specific things about their appearance? if someone duck behind a counter and is wearing a different coloured shirt when they come back up, people don't notice.
the whole person can change as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-HxtKgKrL8

the brain doesn't process every single piece of information, so what someone is wearing is ignored over something more critical like "how did this person get over here so fast?"

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I thinks for the feedback they have to be looking at each other. If I remember correctly the only people that got that feedback were people that saw each other.



Stand up for what is right, even if you are standing alone.

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Could be like "7 Days" where Parker takes over his past self, but with the future gear. In Project Almanac's case, there can only be one time traveled version, in addition to the natural time version.

In the case of the concert, he would have had to remain with them returning from the concert.

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[deleted]

He goes back to Lollapalooza alone the second time to kiss his girlfriend, what happened to the first version of him?


Excellent question. I didn't catch him solving that in the return trip.

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After destroying everything, he returns prior to the time he left, back to when he is in the attic. This makes no sense. In every other scenario they return to within seconds of the time they left.

Also, not a plot hole but dude, here's an idea...go back to when you decided to go back alone and don't do it. Then get some balls and just tell the girl you like her.



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He couldnt have done that, because he would have had to confront himself and that would have caused the malfunction.

Fav Movies- Prestige, Gladiator, 12 angry men, Good Will Hunting, The Usual Suspects

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[deleted]

apparently cameras aren't subject to temporal paradoxes


I guess it is just inverse Terminator technology, the field of energy created by living things messes up time travel instead of making it possible...unless you're living metal.

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[deleted]

I kind of felt they came out naked only so the filmmakers could show Arnold naked; fanservice.


I think it was done so that the T-800s couldn't bring in any powerful weapons that would make their mission 'easier'.

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The Terminator films had to do with jumping through time, not a specific time ceasing to exist. That second camera should definitely have vanished instead of giving an ending like that. I'd have no problem with this instead of adding more nonsensical scenes.

Also, the camera jumped with them everywhere prior to this, so we can't say it wasn't subject to the same laws either.

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Guys just remember, we don't know what would happen if we traveled back in time. So for some reason or another, the camera doesn't get deleted.



Stand up for what is right, even if you are standing alone.

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So he disappears completely but the camera that was with him does not? Meh. Don't think so. Even if he traveled back and destroyed the time machine - the story would pick up back to when he left. There are so many plot holes it's crazy and more importantly the kid bases all his decisions on a girl. Absurd. What happened to saving your dad?

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"So he disappears completely but the camera that was with him does not? Meh. Don't think so. Even if he traveled back and destroyed the time machine - the story would pick up back to when he left. There are so many plot holes it's crazy and more importantly the kid bases all his decisions on a girl. Absurd. What happened to saving your dad?"

I think he does go back to save his Dad originally. When he sees himself in the video. Then he realizes he can't save his Dad without consequences. There was already a timeline in which he had created the time machine. In that timeline he must've tried to save his Dad, things collapsed and he destroyed the time machine. The version we watch, he tries to land the girl, things collapse and he destroys the time machine.

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He didn't return. He disappeared. You can clearly see it when he sits on the table after burning the time machine.

In the attic scene at the end he was not the time traveler, but the original version of himself before any of the time travel happened.

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[deleted]

I was thinking if he went back to the first time at Lollapoloza where he said before the world ends I want to go skydiving(or bungee jumping can’t remember which one he said) then he would have been on track. To me it seemed like things started going downhill AFTER he jumped back and kissed Jessie. All he had to do was jump back to that exact moment and repeat what he said in the 2nd timeline.

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The need for him to go back to his 7th birthday makes no sense. He could have destroyed the thing at any date prior to their discovery of it


Fav Movies- Prestige, Gladiator, 12 angry men, Good Will Hunting, The Usual Suspects

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Maybe David said, "Screw it--I'm saving my dad!"😀

~~Bayowolf
There's a difference between being frank... and being dick.

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My only guess is that this wasn't the first time he(maybe they) had built the machine so he goes back to when the first signs of it are present. But what I don't understand is how does the camera end up back there and how does it have footage of them finding the camera on it? is a ghost filming them? And after all that *beep* you don't tell your dad not to leave and try to prevent his car accident? And if they can all go back and distract each other so the future Quinn can take his test they can't all go back and figure out how to distract David from going back by himself? Or destroy the equipment? Meh.

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Wait explain that further, what do you mean its not the first time they built it? As long as he goes back to a time when it wasnt built yet and destroys it should solve the problem no matter how many times they built it.

And I think they wanted to go back and stop david from jumping alone but david refused and went back himself again, because he didnt want to undo the jessie thing. My point was that it WOULD have taken the group and not just david alone to prevent him from doing it because you cant confront yourself

Fav Movies- Prestige, Gladiator, 12 angry men, Good Will Hunting, The Usual Suspects

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I just got the impression by how they ended the film that the machine would eventually be built again. Just by having him appear in the footage implies that this could have been one of the many times this project may have happened. I'm still not quite sure and quite bothered by the fact that the idiot didn't save his dad after all that. Seriously.

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The toy car in the experiment fuses with the wall when it travels through time, but the kids never fuse with any object when they time travel.

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Well the car was the first test. So maybe they fixed that.



Stand up for what is right, even if you are standing alone.

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I buy the time travel, but no way the battery on the camcorder stays charged for 10 years.

"Oh look, it still works."

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If this is supposed to be 'found footage', someone must have uploaded the footage from the GoPro cams into the huge camcorder (which btw must have what, 60 min capacity using minidv tape, being from 2004?)

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[deleted]

When did 2004 become the 1980s? hard drive camcorders existed, especially in the large form factor displayed in the film. iirc, even on my pretty *beep* 60gb model, it could record upwards of 10 hours, since the videos were in 480p. if he had a 500gb model, you could record quite a bit of footage on there before you filled up the drive.

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This is very funny and true, regarding how our heroes could travel space as well as time.

Now, there are many things that you could nail this movie about, but I would like to provoke you people with is this one as being the major fail:

Spoiler Alert!
They made a HUGE production about the toy car being transported through time into the wall. The recorded gopro video shows the pre-time traveled toy car. This means that the car was already in the wall before the "jump."

This could only mean that: IF 1.) time travel is possible, AND 2.) you were to travel in time to a future you, THEN 3.) your time-traveling self would have already been there the whole time (for what ever length of time that might mean.)

Now, this is the biggest plot hole because: After painstakingly setting up this major REALITY of time travel, they NEVER play out this phenomenon again.

What do you think?

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Now, this is the biggest plot hole because: After painstakingly setting up this major REALITY of time travel, they NEVER play out this phenomenon again.


That's not a plot hole. Please learn the definition of a plot hole.



Stand up for what is right, even if you are standing alone.

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What about the most simple of the plot holes? Why would a 7 year old be having a birthday party in the middle of a school day???

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What about the most simple of the plot holes? Why would a 7 year old be having a birthday party in the middle of a school day???


Could've been after school, or on a holiday day (i.e. Labor Day, since Dad was also off from work, apparently). I can't recall seeing any indicator of a specific time of day.

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Who said that it was a school day?

~~Bayowolf
There's a difference between being frank... and being dick.

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My biggest prob was the camcorder being perfectly charged after ten years, impossible.

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Well for all we know, all the time travel could have changed the way the battery works or the camera itself. If there is time travel, anything is possible.



Stand up for what is right, even if you are standing alone.

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