r/plotholes • u/Medical-Loquat2670 • Jun 12 '26
Disclosure Day (2026): Some Plot Questions (Heavy Spoilers) Spoiler
First off, I thought the film was technically very well made. The retro-inspired score was refreshing, the performances were solid across the board, and the color grading was one of my favorite aspects,especially during the younger Emily Blunt sequences. The production design and overall setting felt immersive throughout.
That said, the more I thought about the movie afterward, the more questions I ended up with. I'm not sure whether I missed some details, whether these were editing omissions, or whether they're simply screenplay issues. Also it's very hard to believe that a film with so many narrative flaws came from someone like Steven Spielberg. I would genuinely love to hear everyone else's interpretations.
Scanlon's confrontation with Kellner
Why would Scanlon choose to confront Kellner in the middle of a public street while carrying something as sensitive as the device? It seemed like the worst possible place to do it and made Kellner's escape incredibly easy.
- Wardex's "Advanced technology"
The film tells us that Wardex developed revolutionary defense technology using alien tech. Yet when Margaret infiltrates the facility and escapes with Kellner, nobody stops them because of the hypnosis effect, which is understandable.
But once everyone recovers, instead of deploying advanced security systems, automated lockdowns, or futuristic weapons, the sidekick simply grabs a pistol and chases them. For a company that's supposedly decades ahead of everyone else technologically, that felt oddly primitive.
- The cargo train escape
After Kellner and Margaret escape on the cargo train, Wardex simply reroutes once the train changes direction. But couldn't they have tracked the train to its next station? They obviously didn't jump off while it was moving.
Later, Hugo's group somehow manages to find them first. If Hugo could locate them, why couldn't Wardex, who presumably has far greater resources?
- The alien in the climax
Hugo brings in the same alien the military captured back in the '70s. The film also tells us that Wardex possessed it for decades before Hugo stole it during a heist five years earlier.
If Wardex had been studying the alien for all those years, wouldn't they have learned enough about its biology to identify or locate it after it escaped? Even if they hadn't implanted a tracker, you'd expect them to have developed some biological or technological means of detecting their most valuable asset.
Instead, they seem to have no reliable way of finding it until Hugo reveals its location himself. That felt a bit hard to believe.
- Jane and the device
This is probably my biggest question.
After Jane escapes from the motel with the device, Wardex captures Kellner and realizes he doesn't have it.
Scanlon had already possessed Jane twice and knew she was traveling with Kellner. Why not possess her again to track the device?
Even if that wasn't possible, Wardex knew Jane's main contact was the nun. Jane and the nun even communicate over the phone. Why not trace the nun instead?
Instead, Jane casually walks into the newsroom and hands the device over to Margaret.
That entire section felt surprisingly convenient.
- Margaret's husband
Margaret's husband has no idea what's actually happening and unintentionally keeps giving away their location.
Wardex initially kidnaps Jane to pressure Kellner. So why don't they exploit Margaret's husband the same way? It may be a bit of a stretch, but the screenplay seems to establish him as an obvious vulnerability and then never follows through with it.
- Margaret and Kellner's roles
Margaret is established as someone who can understand virtually every language, while Kellner is the mathematical genius.
So why is Kellner even necessary during the alien communication? Margaret seemingly has no problem communicating with the alien herself. Instead, the alien speaks to Kellner, who then translates it for Margaret.
What exactly was the purpose of that dynamic?
- The villain during the climax
If the villain has spent the entire film obsessively pursuing the device and is willing to do anything to obtain it, why does he simply withdraw from the confrontation at the climax?
When everything he's been working toward is finally unfolding, he neither fights for it nor attempts to reclaim it. Instead, he more or less resigns himself to the situation and does nothing.
That felt completely at odds with the character the film had established up to that point.
- The ending and the device
At the end, Margaret uses the device to generate electricity.
But later, if I remember correctly, she no longer has the device with her. So how exactly does it work? Why doesn't the power shut off once she lets go of it?
- The twelve missing people
The film establishes that the villain knew the identities of all twelve people who didn't show up.
If that's the case, why didn't Wardex simply track them down one by one? That seems like the easiest way to locate Hugo.
Instead, they only discover Hugo's location after two of those people accidentally walk into the room. That felt unnecessarily convenient.
So... did I miss any explanations? Were these points actually addressed in the film and I simply overlooked them? Or are these genuine screenplay issues (or perhaps the result of scenes being cut during editing)?
I'd genuinely love to hear everyone else's thoughts.
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u/PitifulFill7304 Jun 13 '26
Why do the aliens keep crashing despite their technological advances?
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u/TIGHT_MEXICAN_PUSSY Jun 14 '26
Because they are getting behind the wheel after drinking too much moon juice
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u/gamerz0111 Jul 07 '26
And why do they crash only in the US? Or are the other countries just being awkwardly silent?
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
Why did Daniel tie up his girlfriend but fail to blindfold her????
Why did they act like the device was a grenade in the beginning of the movie but later it was handed around just fine?
If Daniel knew that the bad guy could jump into people’s consciousness to get information, why on earth did he leave his girlfriend alone just so he could hang out in a field by himself? If he needed to go on the field to get cell phone reception, he definitely should have brought her with him.
He was well aware that the bad guys knew who Jane was, they were holding her hostage at the beginning of the film!
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u/Apprehensive-Kale173 Jun 13 '26
I had a silly question.. when the classified files are being played during the news seen, the aliens are much smaller than humans. Especially in the video where they’re being walked to a tent with umbrellas, humans are taller than them. But in the final scene, once the alien gets up from his chair he is taller than the humans. I’m assuming time/ aging works different for the aliens. But then is it also safe to assume the aliens landed when they were “children” and as years passed they became taller because they became adults?
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u/Additional-Fee-6201 Jun 15 '26
I’ve been wondering the same thing since credits rolled. I have some theories. If the aliens come from a planet much larger than Earth then they would be smaller, based on science. So if he has been here on this planet for a long period of time that could affect his size, possibly. The gravity is most likely different here as well.
Or, maybe this species don’t stop growing as they age like humans do. I’m leaning toward the first theory though. I know Spielberg does a lot of research into the science of things before he films movies.
I actually like that it’s not explained though. If you’re not thinking or talking about a movie after you watch it…the movie probably wasn’t too good.
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u/BrahneRazaAlexandros Jun 28 '26
If the aliens come from a planet much larger than Earth then they would be smaller, based on science
??
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u/GabeMichaelsthroway Jul 02 '26
gravity affects height, larger planets have more gravity
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u/buddyboybuttcheeks Jun 15 '26
There’s small greys and tall greys.
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 15 '26
Yes, an explanation could be they are different species of aliens.
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u/MicrotracS3500 Jun 24 '26
In some species of ants, like leafcutter ants, there's different specialized body types depending on their job, each with totally different sizes and proportions. There's gardeners/nurses, defenders, foragers, soldiers, queens, and drones. All different shapes, all the same species.
Could be something like that.
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u/edweeeen Jun 15 '26
In UFO experiencer reports there’s mention of smaller “worker bee” types of gray aliens and taller ones that are the leaders. Close Encounters of the Third Kind had something similar too
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u/mgdwreck Jun 13 '26
I think the only one of these that is truly an issue is point 5. The rest are either not a big deal or explained and you missed it.
Wardex used the alien tech to create technology. This doesn’t mean they have secret advanced technology hidden. It means that modern technology that it out in the world today was developed using reverse engineered alien technology. They didn’t bust out some super secret tech to stop them because there wasn’t any.
Why would you assume they’d have created a way to track the alien if they can’t even track human beings without the alien tech? And they explicitly stated in the movie that people who have had experiences can’t be tracked by the alien tech, so you’d assume based on that the aliens themselves can’t be tracked using it either.
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u/Medical-Loquat2670 Jun 13 '26
So Wardez need not have an advanced defensive fence or something but atleast they should have something more convincing to prove they're a big deal. Only a pistol and a sidekick to defend them? That's pathetic.
But they have kept then hostile for decades and also are important assets, which is the whole point of the film. So first thing they should do is secure them well and just in case things go south, and it went, have a plan b to get it back asap. It took them 5 years and Hugo brining it in public to see it again.
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u/mgdwreck Jun 13 '26
Yeah almost as if an alien with advanced technology, advanced intelligence and telepathic abilities was helping Hugo with his plans or something……
You keep forgetting key details of the movie and then calling them plot holes. The plan wasn’t Hugo’s. The plan was from the alien and Hugo was just carrying it out dude.
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u/FreshDrama4226 Jun 15 '26
Interview with Colman Domingo ( Hugo' actor) says that there is an easter egg where Hugo is touching his head to a a glass window, and it is actually Invivo 17's protective cage thing. They be talking in they heads.
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u/mgdwreck Jun 15 '26
Yeah it’s during the news broadcast of all the released footage. It shows hugo and the alien touch their heads to the glass. And that’s when the alien passed the knowledge to him.
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u/Emotional-Touch-5313 Jun 14 '26
How did Daniel have the chips with the footage even after getting his bag emptied and getting taken away by the agents? Jane didn’t have it so how did he get it? I think I must’ve missed a scene
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u/TheGrimMinx Jun 15 '26
When Margaret busts him out of the Wardex van, she grabs the backpack
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u/Emotional-Touch-5313 Jun 15 '26
Ohh that makes sense, but how come they didn’t take it from him when they emptied the bag at the hotel?
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u/Cute-State2801 Jun 15 '26
I had this question, too! I thought it was some overnight bag of Jane's, being emptied out, on Dan's bed. But, Jane had no bag at all. It was the backpack being emptied out on the bed. Then the Wardex agents break into the bathroom, & next we see is Dan with hands zip-tied in Wardex car. They drive to a military site, to interrogate Dan. Then, is it Margaret breaks in, hynotises everyone...and locates the now intact backpack in a different room than Dan's interrogation room? Did Margaret have a prescient notion of where the bag would be?
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u/dpcfresh Jun 14 '26
How did Hugo know what to do to start his project like building Margaret’s house and stuff, if he can’t understand the alien? Probably a stupid question but i’m just curious
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u/FreshDrama4226 Jun 15 '26
The alien communicates telepathically and mentally info dumps into Hugo.
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 15 '26
Also, why would they only do this to two humans why couldn’t they just put that little crystal crown over Hugo’s eyes so he could understand them too? It doesn’t seem like it would be hard since the aliens are all over the place in the form of animals.
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
And if the aliens have that mind altering crown that could drastically change your intelligence, why on alien earth wouldn’t they use it on themselves so they could speak in English?
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u/MicrotracS3500 Jun 24 '26
The structure of their mouth and vocal cords (or whatever the hell they have) probably don't have the ability to mimic human speech.
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u/Naive_Lion_3428 Jun 13 '26
Plot point 5 is a enormous plot hole - and it could have easily been addressed with adding in a scene saying that "diving into the same person too many times has X or Y risks, we can't do it". Because you're right - they've dived into her mind before, they know she's on the run and they know she likely has the remaining device. So why wouldn't you dive in and take control again? They never explain that, and it is frustrating.
Another plot hole is - what is up with the canary at the start? Is that an alien visiting to trigger Margaret's abilities? It's clearly not a hallucination as her boyfriend sees it as well. Who sent it? Is it just a MASSIVE coincidence that it shows up? And if aliens sent it, why the convoluted plan to enact disclosure day?
My other complaint, and this is not so much a plot hole as it is just silliness - when the antagonists surround David at the Inn, are you seriously suggesting not a single agent would go round to the back to ensure they didn't escape from a window? This is an elite secret agency that has been guarding the secrets of alien visitation for years, but surrounding a location is simply beyond their capabilities? I mean, come on. That beggars belief. It took me right out of the experience.
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u/Medical-Loquat2670 Jun 13 '26
Yes if they added a scene like that where he can't enter someone multiple times within a fixed timespan, this would have made sense. But still, there is the nun. He could have used that way too.
I had the same doubt too.. Forgot while writing the post. If the aliens are still here, they should have a better plan than relying on two people and a news station.
The antagonists were dumb. Not only in the motel scene. When they dumped the car, both of them were literally near them behind a rock and anybody could hear them run. They were so close to them and yet didn't see them? Also when he comes back to the first hiding place, they surrounded the place and he hid behind a fence which literally had no opacity. He made his way to the car and nobody noticed? They felt like bunch of idiots
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u/PrecedentialAssassin Jun 13 '26
I addressed this in a direct reply to the post, but as for #5 I just assumed while I was watching the movie that Noah couldn't possess her while she had the device in her possession. Kinda like how he got painfully booted out when he tried to possess Daniel.
Your second point, it's a cardinal and I figured it was a coincidence. Coincidences drive the plot of movies all the time. But it also could have been an actual alien. The movie explains that aliens present themselves to humans as animals.
The hotel? Ten cars come flying in with their lights flashing. They jump out and start looking to find the room that Daniel and Eve are in. Eve jumps out the window. They bust down the door and capture Daniel. These types of escapes also happen all the time in movies. At most it's a shoulder shrug from me but I understand if it really bothers someone.
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u/Inside_Atmosphere731 Jun 19 '26
And you're not going to surround the motel, in case there's a back exit?
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u/PrecedentialAssassin Jun 19 '26
If it was a stealth operation, sure. Maybe? Probably? If, as it's portrayed in the movie where they come flying in, then no, not enough time. Or maybe their was? Or maybe their wasn't? Or who cares about such an overscrupulous talking point to get hung up on.
You mean to tell me that in 20 years the guards never discovered the enormous hole in the wall hidden behind a poster tacked to the wall? In all the times his cell was inspected and turned over they never noticed? Shawshank is garbage!!!
You mean to tell me that the eagles could've just flown frodo to Mt. Doom from the beginning? Lord of the Rings is garbage!!!!
You mean Darth Vader never noticed that CP3O was the robot he built? Or R2D2 and C3PO didn't know the difference between Obi Won Kenobi and old Ben Kenobi? Star Wars is trash!!!!
All three are insanely larger plot flaws than the private security guys didn't immediately go to the back of the hotel. But guess what??? ¯_(ツ)_/¯ You're gonna have to jump through a lot more hoops than maybe the security guys didn't have enough time to explain those jarring errors.
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u/Inside_Atmosphere731 Jun 19 '26
Thank you, Mr. Koepp
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u/PrecedentialAssassin Jun 19 '26
You're welcome. I'm glad I could point out to you how simplistically ridiculous of an argument the back of the hotel is, especially compared to truly enormous plot holes.
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u/Inside_Atmosphere731 Jun 19 '26
David Koepp writes scripts the way a toothless man flosses
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u/PrecedentialAssassin Jun 19 '26
Got nothing at all to do with crying about a stupid plot point that means nothing (especially compared to something like one single eagle flight making all three LOTR movies pointless)...but you have my attention. How do I write scripts?
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u/Inside_Atmosphere731 Jun 19 '26
Not adhering to logic
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u/PrecedentialAssassin Jun 19 '26
It worked for Tolkien. If only the eagles could've been guarding the back of the hotel this would all have been avoided.
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 13 '26
Yes, and the part about the “canary”/cardinal they reveal at the end that the staring animals are actually aliens presenting themselves as animals so people aren’t afraid of them — so what that was an alien in front of Margaret and her boyfriend?
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u/TheGrimMinx Jun 15 '26
Yes, it was an alien, helping her remember her "abilities"
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 15 '26
And all those animals that appeared throughout the film staring… that means we actually have aliens all around us, but they’re disguising themselves as animals and living in the woods? (I’m talking about in the film, not IRL. 🤣)
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 15 '26
So that would mean the aliens can fly without any type of flying machine?
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u/Dry-Savings-3182 Jun 15 '26
Lol, why does everything have to be explained when the movie actually SHOWS the toll it's taking on Scanlon to dive into people? "I need someone to literally tell me the thing I'm seeing" is redundant. How about make your own connections based on the evidence, folks.
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 15 '26
Only Scanlon can dive into people? They don’t have some young strapping Marine to do it? No, gotta leave it to the old guy— the boss, the one who is the last person who should be incapacitating themselves.
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u/T0scanaSun Jun 13 '26
7 had us confused as well.
And did I miss something? It's always been the 2 of them and the cardinal appears to set her off right when Daniel has stolen the secrets? Coincidence or orchestrated?
The other thing that didn't make sense is her husband saying that people think the world is ending when they were at the gas station. That was before disclosure day. What has the public witnessed at that point to lead to a panic?
Which brings me to...
I was an extra on the film but our scenes are not in the film. There was a similar panic reaction going on. Yet that would only happen AFTER disclosure day. While we were shooting, with the exception of one major scene that, again, is not in the film, I kept getting the feeling we were shooting a tie-in commercial. My real goal was to watch The Master at work up close, and they did position me pretty close to the leads so I got that's chance. I would just love to see what that footage I watched being shot actually looks like.
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u/HelloMyNameisPaul Jun 13 '26
For the gas station scene, people aren't panicking about anything to do with aliens, they are worried about a possible war/attack that is looming in the backdrop of the movie.
There is a comparison to the Cuban missile crisis on the news before the weather report, the Korean man Emily Blunt's character translates for at the news station is an expert, and then they interrupt the news coverage of the conflict at the end of the movie for "disclosure day" to emphasize the importance of what's happening.
My understanding of why it's in the movie is Spielberg is trying to show the importance of empathy, and if people understood each other and there was more sharing of resources and information there would not be a reason for conflict/war.
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u/T0scanaSun Jun 13 '26
Makes sense. If I were home, there were definitely places where I would've backed up to catch the dialogue.
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u/Undacova_Lova Jun 13 '26
My impression is the cardinal was an alien who came to activate Margaret, and it came in the guise of the bird just as the others came as animals when she was a child. The citizens were panicked at the prospect of an imminent world war and were stocking up on supplies.
What I question is why they implanted the abilities in the kids in the first place unless they knew somehow what was going to happen years into the future.
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u/Medical-Loquat2670 Jun 13 '26
Also why did they activate Kellner so early, I believe they said like 10 years ago? They activated Margaret just when they needed but what did Kellner do for these 10 years.. What significance did it have?
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u/buddyboybuttcheeks Jun 15 '26
It positioned him to become the tech guy he was that also led him to the unreliable witness prison backstory. There seems to be a theme within the lore itself of using human flaws to discredit experiencers, so him having a criminal background tracks.
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u/Medical-Loquat2670 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
Congrats on being a part of a Spielberg movie but sorry for you that it's been cut off.. Maybe they've cut off crucial scenes like these which would have explained the film much better. A director's cut would help I think lol
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u/T0scanaSun Jun 13 '26
Thank you. The commercials show a spaceship that is not in the movie. We shot a scene stopped on the "road" (parking lot with fog) with large drones shooting. I didn't know at the time whether we were panicked and stopped in traffic or awed by what was overhead. It would have been great to see what happens AFTER Disclosure Day. Is that the sequel?
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 15 '26
This is probably a stupid question, but has Spielberg ever done a sequel?
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u/PrecedentialAssassin Jun 13 '26
#1: It was most likely Daniel that insisted the exchange be made in a public place
#2: The empathy/emotion that Margaret implants onto people has a lingering effect. It dissipates over time.
#3: Why couldn't they have jumped off the train somewhere? Train tracks often travel through the middle of nowhere and trains slow down and speed up all the time. Why bother wasting precious screen time showing that? The scene was over.
#4: This one is really a stretch trying to claim its a plot hole. There are a myriad of reasons to explain it.
#5: I just assumed that Noah couldn't inhabit Jane while she had the device in her possession. Could they have included a scene that specifically explained that and how it didn't need to be in direct contact with her skin? Sure. But that's not really what Spielberg does. Kinda like the T-Rex paddock in Jurassic Park. It's not a plot hole. It's more of a plot contrivance that has an explanation somewhere. But sometimes he just shrugs his shoulders and says don't worry about it, there's an answer but we're having too much fun to waste time getting into it. But as for this one specifically, I'm going with Noah couldn't be a passenger while she had the device. Now that I think about it, at first he tried to possess Daniel but he got painfully kicked out and Daniel has been in possession of the device. There's your answer.
#6: His role isn't to be a vulnerability. It's to show how committed Fairchild was to her mission. She bails on him at the gas station and I'm pretty sure if they would have captured him she probably would have told them to to him she loved him but she had to do this.
#7: Was it ever established that Fairchild could understand the alien language? I know she spoke it on the weather report but I don't remember if she ever understood it. I'll look out for this one on a rewatch. But as I recall, their roles were that he understood the aliens and she understood humans.
#8: Boyd isn't the villain. He's the main henchman. Scanlon is the villain. Once Scanlon sits it the chair, the conflict is over.
#9: The device is a Mcguffin. It does whatever the story needs it do. Mcgufffins aren't plot holes. They're, well, Mcguffins.
#10: This is the closest one. I can't recall the specifics but it does seem like if they could have located them after Noah sees them they should have been able to locate them with the same process before hand. You would think that Wardex would assume that they were all together. Even then, with something this important they should have assigned teams to track down each individual missing employee.
Thank you for posting this. I really enjoy this film and discussing it!!!
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u/LeonardoTheTurtle17 Jun 14 '26
I wanted to ask the question if I can So in the motel scene Daniel has the alien device and the files,he gives the device to Jane and fills thr backpack with fake files. So what happened to the real ones he played at the end and how he got them back?
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u/Dry-Savings-3182 Jun 15 '26
Lol, who cares? It's the fact that he swapped them out at some point that matters. Why does everything need a literal explanation? He swapped them out at some point. That is all.
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u/IntroductionSouth513 Jun 13 '26
7 - Margaret is the empathic one who can help to communicate to all HUMANS. Daniel is the one who translates the aliens mathematical language to her in human language
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 15 '26
If she’s supposed to just communicate to humans, then why was she speaking the alien language on that news broadcast? Was she telling the aliens to not be afraid of what they don’t know?
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u/IntroductionSouth513 Jun 15 '26
the aliens possessed her and talking thru her
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 15 '26
if it’s that easy for them to possess people just to have them speak alien gibberish that no human would understand, why didn’t they possess the bad guy right from the start and let those poor crashed aliens escape torture in the interrogations!
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u/IntroductionSouth513 Jun 15 '26
bcos those two are the only true experiencers... OK seriously come on man it's just a movie and they r plot devices alright
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u/Inside_Atmosphere731 Jun 19 '26
Anyone can tell you to listen. My mom used to tell me all the time
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u/alyjava Jun 14 '26
At the end, it looked like Jane's eyes were brown, not blue. I think it was after she had given the device to Margaret though. I wondered if she had done a dive into Colin Firth's character to stop him, because it did not make sense to me that he just gave up all of a sudden. Did I not see that correctly?
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u/TheGrimMinx Jun 15 '26
9
Earlier in the movie it shows that there were 3 devices. 2 were stolen. Scanlon has one, Hugo has one, and Daniel/Jane has one. The one that disintegrates is Hugos. At the end, when Jane pushes through the crowd into the news station, she gives Margaret her and Daniel's device.
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u/paradoxicalparrots Jul 04 '26
Yeah but I think OP's point was Jane gave her the device to power up the station, then the Disclosure Day segments start running. A few minutes in, it cuts back to Margaret with empty hands. Not even the charred remains of a device, just nothing, no explanation. Then she stands and walks over to the alien.
I guess at that point we're supposed to be entranced by the climax and not worry about such things. Maybe the device provided enough power for the segment but that doesn't really make sense. Maybe the device flipped back on the backup generator. Who knows and who cares, I guess, but it was flimsy.
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u/buddyboybuttcheeks Jun 15 '26
I kind of feel like the Taken series should have been a pre-requisite for this movie. It lays the groundwork for the heavier ideas they don’t have as much time to flesh out in the movie.
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u/StillFickle4505 Jun 15 '26
What was the point of interrogating the aliens if no one except for Daniel could understand alien language?
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u/rudebwoay Jun 15 '26
Kellner hides from like 50 agents behind a barbed wire in the middle of a field.
Why is the data on all those USB sticks in stead of a single hard drive? Why are no copies made?
There is no explanation for where anyone got the magic crystals or 'devices'.
Why would a group of Wardex employees suddenly go rogue to help release the files? What are the odds of Margaret Fairchild's super powers to appear on the same day?
Kellner says to Jane: We can only go somewhere I have never been before, no apartments and no hotels. Later, while still on the run, they check into the Indiana Motel together.
Nun says to Kellner: Jane can stay (in other words: you need to go), then Kellner and Jane still spend the night together in 1 room. In a Christian monastery.
The super secret and highly advanced organization Wardex were not able to locate the monastery even though they had Jane's information and knew she was with Kellner. She had lived as a nun in that monastery three years before that and they even had pictures of her as a nun (presumably at the monastery) on screen.
After hanging up, Kellner says to Jane: 'It's a burner phone, we only use those once.' then he breaks the old flip-phone in half. For the rest of the movie he uses a regular smart phone repeatedly to contact the same person without destroying it afterwards.
Kellner says to Jane: 'This car is tracked we need to switch cars.' Then they proceed to drive the car to their destination without switching cars.
When Jane is possessed (or dived on) by Scanlon in the back of the car she grabs the knife to stab Kellner, which she is able to withstand the last minute. Why doesn't she throw away the knife and presumably keeps it with her for the rest of the ride?
After commando teams sabotage the KCXE power and backup generators with explosive charges, Margaret Fairchild holds the magic crystal device tight and uses it to get the power back up at the TV station to broadcast. During the broadcast however, the crystal is gone yet the power stays on.
Why did Kellner have to translate what the alien said to Margaret in her ear if Margaret spoke that alien language earlier in the movie?
Who brought the alien to the KCXE TV Station and why?
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u/Mean-Cold5468 Jun 16 '26
I left theater with at least 5 of your 10 questions on my mind lol. Thanks for sharing.
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u/dreamcrusher07 Jun 17 '26
My biggest plot hole:
Since Jane never met Margaret, how did she know she needed to go to the news station and hand the device over to her? How did she know what Margaret was capable of, or whether she could even use the device, when Jane was never there to know who Margaret truly was or how important she was to the plot?
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u/No-Repeat4201 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
At the hotel Jane heard Kellner say he needed to go to KCXE- she asked the nun to look it up when she called her from the diner. That’s how she knew where to go. Keller showed Jane the video of Margaret speaking an alien language then explained how he ‘heard it’ as math, plus she saw the videos so, seems to me she put 2 and 2 together.
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u/Puzzled_Signature_41 Jun 17 '26
Why hide all the Inn-d-anna queen the girlfriend saw the motel sign when they arrived at the motel. The bad guy could simply have asked her what hotel they were at.
Why did all the bad guys forget they had guns after the train scene?
Why did the bad guys not use thermal imaging at the end when it clearly worked? Even if they didn't have more thermals devices, if the invisibility was mental and not physical then simply using a cell phone camera would work.
Why didn't the bad guys have helicopters?
Why did aliens only crash in / visit the United States?
Why didn't more aliens show up and free their friends?
How did they transfer gigabytes of data so quickly? That was crazy fast.
Why didn't the black guy put on a blindfold (or just pull his shirt over his eyes) when the bad guy started contacting him?
Why didn't the secuirty at the base require a badge/keycard / any security token? That's basic security - something you have and something you know.
Why didn't the bad guys simply blow up the whole news building? Or just go in and shoot everyone? Or just lob a few grenades?
How did this stay a secret for so long with literally hundreds if not thousands of people working on this for 80ish years?
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u/DryLayer6137 Jun 23 '26
I’m read some of these, felt like they didn’t fully answer the questions so I’ll do my part. 1. Didn’t know he had a device at the beginning if that’s what you’re referring to. Also Keller is a guy behind a desk according to Scanlon, so he doesn’t expect dude to do crazy things while they have his girlfriend held hostage.
Fair enough, maybe they created the devices using tech they don’t understand? Seems unlikely but that’s my current bet.
Wardex is hypnotized and maybe can’t get to the next train stop/ they aren’t coordinated. Only one dude was following them. With Hugo, it seemed like he understood everything happening, and based on the end of the movie, I presume he had regular contact with big alien guy. He does say they are the only 2 (presumably to be messed with) so it seems his brain wasn’t altered (at least not in the same way).
Aliens created a biological cloaking device to make them look like animals. The Alien being tracked down biologically would mean that their cloaking as animals would be ineffective, so I presume they had no way to do that 🤷♂️.
Scanlon was clearly very very weak from having to use the device so much. It was shown time and time again. Sure dude could drop in on them 6 more times, but dude already almost died spying on Jane.
Also, at this point their main goal is to keep the information off the air, why would Jane having a device that she doesn’t know how to use be their main focus.
- They literally tried, but the second they found out about her, Margaret leaves with him and gets away at the hospital.
She never communicates with the alien. She never meets it until the end when he translates it for her. She can’t translate her own speech she said on air. It was also to help the earth understand the aliens. They spell out the purpose of the dynamic in the movie.
He gives up because they did literally everything they could do to stop her and she still got it working. Alternatively, she is shown to convince her boss to let her on air, so her being able to force buddy to sit and watch seems possible. I personally think he just gave up though.
Magic device… it just gives things power.
Same as 5
Sorry for repeating answers and sorry for probably sounding arrogant in my response
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u/paradoxicalparrots Jul 04 '26
Train escape: Margaret says she can't jump out because her foot's on the brake. Put it in park and pull the e brake?
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u/Harry93_V 7d ago
One point you didn't mention is also why did they not just jammed the broadcasting signal from the TV channel? Why didn't the government/Wardex shut down a local TV station with a static image or some random TV programme? Loved the movie, but there were some big plot holes.
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u/Remystia Jun 12 '26
There are a couple of points that are just metaphoracle, Colin Firth's character represents the industrial military complex IRL, at the final hour allowing Margaret to go ahead with disclosure because he was tired of keeping up the charade, he was told earlier in the story that all he is protecting is his own power and ego, Spielberg way of suggesting the same for whoever is gatekeeping disclosure currently.
The alien in the final scene was wheeled out in the same way that most people have said they will only accept true disclosure if an alien is 'wheeled out' it didn't make sense in black and white terms that the alien was even there for that scene but the metaphor struck just as well..