Movie plot holes

Okay, I’ve seen “The Martian” many times. I love it. Just... a problem has just now occurred to me and I can’t enjoy it as much as usual. So, the “MAV” that Whatney blasts off from Mars in has to be lightened. Why? According to the engineers back on Earth, “the MAV was only designed for a low orbit. If the Ares gets into a low orbit of Mars, it won’t be able to break from Mars’ gravity.”

Seems to make sense, yet... what good is the MAV if it can’t get high enough for another craft to intercept it? Worse yet, with only one passenger and all the extra weight gone, and no extraneous weight like soil samples and such, it STILL can’t reach the Ares? What the hell would it do with six pax and at its intended weight?

Damm. I’ll never be able to enjoy this as much ever again.

Let’s hear other plot holes that ruin movies for you.

 

Godfather or Godfather II, can't remember. Kay is taking her grade-school class for a walk. Michael shows up after being in Italy for a year after the murders at Louis's, and then avoiding her for a year after he came home. They talk, he convinces her he loves her, she gets in the car and drives away with him, abandoning her class.

 

How come Jason Bourne never ever tries to disguise himself? Never even puts on a cap despite knowing that every camera in the world is looking for him.

 

When Biff Tannen goes from 2015 to 1955 to give his younger self the Sports Almanac, how can he return to the same 2015 like he did?

Once he handed off the Almanac, he altered the course of all their lives.

 

That Biff would just "fade" from existence, similar to how Marty almost did in the first movie.

 

Old Biff? He returned to 2015 as if nothing happened.

Doc even drew it out. Once the Almanac was handed off, it spun everything off on a new tangent.

 

Time travel always makes my head hurt, but I'll take a stab at it.
Old Biff was able to return to his own timeline because he returned before Young Biff placed his first bet and history hadn't changed yet. In other words, Young Biff could have still opted to throw the almanac in the trash and the future hadn't been written yet, so Old Biff's timeline was still intact.
It's similar to how Marty and Doc were able to retrieve the almanac in the original 1955, even though Young Biff had already gotten hold of it. Until the first bets were placed, that's just how the events of that strange night went down and nothing in the future had changed.

 

He returned to 2015, but at least how time travel happens in BttF, changes are not instant. The new tangent is created, but eventually, the timelines "equalize" or even out. Marty and Doc are kind of "outside" of the normal flow of time as well, which is why they can travel to 1985 and 1955, instead of being instantly changed. Biff also doesn't understand time travel as well as them, or, have as much access to the time machine. (i.e. He gives the Almanac to his past self and returns to the future, thinking he has succeeded)

 

Biff became Donald Trump. Plot hole filled.

 

[ Vombatus Creepy Vagina Joke here cough cough ]

 

So I'll take a shot at this one.

Caveat: While I am a longtime space nerd (grew up during the space race and watched EVERY second of Gemini and Apollo coverage), and I began my college career as a physics major (my favorite textbook of all time had a plain white cover with only the words "Nuclear Astrophysics" on the cover), I am NOT a scientist. In fact, I switched majors in large part because I hit the wall in math -- and physics is ALL math. So if this is not completely accurate, well... sorry.

BUT... here's the deal:

So the Hermes spacecraft (the mission is Ares, not the spacecraft) has made the trip to Mars and back, then uses the earth's gravity to slingshot it back to Mars. That means when it gets there, it will be moving at a very high velocity -- much faster than it would have been traveling when it arrived the first time. Plus, it will have less fuel than it had the first time around.

Slowing down enough to get into low Mars orbit will take a LOT of fuel -- so much that you wouldn't have enough left to get out of low Mars orbit and get back to earth (or if you did get out of Mars orbit, you wouldn't have enough fuel to slow down when you reach earth).

In fact, the Hermes doesn't even go into Mars orbit at all in the movie. It does the same manuever it did to go around earth -- a flyby that gives it a gravity boost around Mars and back to earth. That manuever takes place at a higher altitude than even a high Mars orbit, much less the low Mars orbit altitude the MAV is designed to reach. In fact, didn't NASA need the Chinese booster to resupply the Hermes spacecraft because it could reacher a higher altitude than anything NASA had ready to go?

So it's perfectly reasonable that a MAV that has enough power to carry a crew of six, rock/soil samples and all of its equipment into low Mars orbit would not come close to getting enough altitude to rendezvous with the Hermes on its high-speed flyby without having to shed a LOT of weight, even with only one passenger.

 

Nope. That didn’t cross my mind.

Haven’t had enough caffeine yet though.

Hope you are doing well.

VB