History Main / AdaptationInducedPlotHole

** In the [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994 original film]], it's made fairly clear why the hyenas are so willing to go along with Scar's plan: they're a bunch of bickering louts with no leader, he's able to bribe them with food, he's responsible for their initial attack on Simba and rewards them even after they fail, and based on the way they speak to him, it seems like they've known each other for a while. In the remake, it's made clear that Scar only met the hyenas after said attack, he doesn't offer them anything apart from his word, and the hyenas already have a clear leader in the form of an AdaptationalBadass-ified Shenzi. Yet the hyenas are still happy to fall in line for a very risky plan, based on the statements of the brother of the guy who just ripped through them like tissue paper. If anything, it makes one wonder why the hyenas didn't try to attack Scar the moment he showed up.

* [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheLongHalloween The adaptation]] of the famous Batman Graphic Novel ''ComicBook/TheLongHalloween'' creates one surrounding the Holiday Killer's identity. In the original graphic novel, it was left ambiguous at the end who of the three primary suspects; Alberto Falcone [[note]] who is caught in the act while attempting one of the killings and confesses to all of then, [[/note]] Harvey Dent [[note]] who had motive to kill mobsters as the DA and is proven to be mentally unstable and murderous in the story when he become Two-Face [[/note]] or Gilda Dent [[note]] who confesses to the killings in her inner monologue and burns some apparent evidence while alone at the end [[/note]], did which, if any, of the Holiday killings. The Holiday Killer themself is kept off-panel in every scene before Alberto gets caught to assist in this mystery. In the film, however, [[spoiler: Alberto Falcone is ruled out as a suspect when he's shot and thrown into a boat's propeller, leaving him DeadderThanDead halfway through the story,]] and at multiple points, both the audience and Batman see the Holiday Killer plainly; they wear thick clothes and a mask, but have the unmistakeable body-type of a well-built man.[[spoiler: While Harvey does get charged for the killings (after becoming Two-Face) at the end, Batman confronts Gilda in the scene where she burns the evidence in this version, but doesn't call out her claims of having been the only killer as nonsense.]] It's also at least treated as a possibility that [[LetOffByTheDetective Batman will let them go now that the Holiday killings are over,]] because he finds their motives sympathetic, which would be seriously only OutOfCharacter for Batman even if [[spoiler: Gilda/Harvey's killings hadn't lead to a gang war in Gotham and hadn't killed Alberto Falcone, who is (mostly) innocent in this continuity.]]

* ''Fanfic/ABrighterDark'' [[AdaptedOut removes]] [[GreaterScopeVillain Anankos and the kingdom of Valla]] from the narrative. The problem is, a lot of character motivations and backstories (most notably Garon's) only make sense with Anankos's involvement, meaning quite a bit of the fic (which [[StationsOfTheCanon follows canon very closely]]) doesn't make sense.

* ''Fanfic/AllMyHomiesHateAthalieSeverin'': ''Why'' does God suddenly decide to kill Athalie Severin right at that moment, when he could have killed her before she [[spoiler: killed her sister]] or abused her kids? ''Webcomic/{{Muted}}'' averted this by not having God appear at all, and not being, well, a CrackFic.

* The first ''Comicbook/ArmyOfDarkness'' comic was an adaptation of [[Film/ArmyOfDarkness the movie]] which featured the alternate ending where Ash wakes up in a post-apocalyptic future rather than going back to his own time. The next series of comics start where the movie ended, with Ash fighting deadites at work.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManAcrossTheSpiderVerse'', ComicBook/MilesMorales notably has a different last name than his father, Officer Jefferson Davis. When Miles was originally introduced in ''[[ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man]]'', this was because "Jefferson Davis" was only his father's ''birthname''; he took his wife Rio Morales' last name after he got married, wanting to distance himself from his criminal brother Aaron Davis. But since this isn't the case in the film, it raises the question of why "Davis" isn't Miles' last name too.

** In the original ''[[Comicbook/TheInfinityGauntlet Infinity Gauntlet]]'' storyline, one of the things that led to ComicBook/{{Thanos}}' downfall was his decision to purposefully hold back against the heroes so that he could impress Death. The cartoon adapts this plot point but removes Death from the equation, meaning Thanos basically holds back against the heroes either because of [[NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction his own arrogance]] or a random case of BondVillainStupidity.
** Season 3 adapts the original ''ComicBook/{{Thunderbolts}}'' story arc from the comics, which involves the Masters of Evil, a team of super-villains, posing as a new super-hero team in order to get people to trust them. In the comic, it actually made sense that nobody recognized them despite the fact they were still using the same powers, since the Masters of Evil had been through several lineups over the course of their career, and the members they used for the impersonation all had super-powers and abilities that were, for the most part, pretty common in the Marvel Universe [[note]]Baron Zemo[=/=]Citizen V was a BadassNormal like ComicBook/ThePunisher, ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}} or ComicBook/BlackWidow; Beetle[=/=]MACH-1 had a PoweredArmor like Iron Man, Comicbook/WarMachine or nearly everyone in Iron Man's RoguesGallery; Goliath[=/=]Atlas had SizeShifting like any hero using [[ComicBook/AntMan Pym particles]]; Moonstone[=/=]Meteorite was a FlyingFirepower like ComicBook/MsMarvel and plenty of other characters, and so on--and one of the few characters who didn't have a common power, Songbird, didn't have the same abilities that she'd had back when she was Screaming Mimi.[[/note]]. Plus, they showed up [[DarkestHour at a time where most heroes in the Marvel Universe had gone missing]], making it easier for them to get accepted with no question, since people were all too happy to have a new superhero team serving as their protectors. In the cartoon, the Avengers have only met the Masters of Evil a few episodes before they show up disguised as the Thunderbolts, the only line-up they have displayed is the one they use while in disguise, very few of the characters with similar super-powers have been introduced, and every Marvel hero is still alive and well, so you are left wondering how the Avengers don't put two and two together when this mysterious new superhero team with the same powers as a super-villain group they recently fought shows up.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' followed the comic book {{Retcon}} that established that the scarab that empowered UsefulNotes/{{the Golden Age|OfComicBooks}} Comicbook/BlueBeetle was actually an alien robot. No effort was made to explain why the original Blue Beetle's costume still looked like [[SpandexLatexOrLeather spandex tights]] when Jaime, the current Beetle, had a suit of PoweredArmor. (In the comics, it was because the scarab was infused with magic power while on Earth, which distorted its actual powers, and it only "awoke" after the second Beetle - who never actually used it - started experimenting on it.)

** Tahu's brave proclamation in ''Mask of Light'' that "None have breached the gates of Ta-Koro before!" is undermined by the fact that it ''has'' been breached during the Bohrok-Kal arc (with the destroyed gate's rubble even burying Tahu), not long before the movie's events. In the writers' defense, it was something of a {{filler}} story written sometime during the film's production, and it's possible they didn't know about it or didn't feel like changing the line.

* The portable version of ''VideoGame/PacManWorld2'' copy-pastes several lines of dialogue from the Console version, without any regards to context. This leads to things like the FinalBoss gloating how Pac-Man can't survive his fireball and InterfaceScrew attacks, followed by the fight not changing at all.

** Like with the [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil original game,]] the two scenarios are now mutually exclusive in the events they depict, even accounting for GameplayAndStorySegregation, but both need to be canon for the rest of the series to make sense. The protagonists encounter different people in the same places (or the same people, but alone), characters die "twice", etc.

** In the original game, it was implied (and confirmed by other material) that Brad Vickers was [[ImplaceableMan Nemesis']] initial target, and the monster had been stalking the S.T.A.R.S. officer for some time. In the remake, though, [[PlayerCharacter Jill]] is Nemesis' first target, and we see that his pod was deployed right outside her apartment. Yet Brad still explains to Jill what Nemesis is and that he's hunting S.T.A.R.S. even though, by rights, he couldn't have even seen Nemesis for more than a minute before the game began, if at all.

* ''VideoGame/RamboTheVideoGame'' is a CompressedAdaptation based off the first three ''Franchise/{{Rambo}}'' films, and the segments based on ''Film/FirstBlood'', ends with Rambo getting arrested just like in the film. Unlike the film, where Rambo kills only a single policemen by accident, the game allows him to maim, shoot, and massacre aplenty without any guilt, which makes Rambo's imprisonment feels more like a slap on the wrist.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': Second Edition has a really odd and [[ExaggeratedTrope extreme]] example. Paizo, the creators of ''Pathfinder'', decided to remove slavery from the primary setting of their games due to no longer feeling comfortable with the DarkerAndEdgier tone they made when they first released ''Pathfinder''. However, instead of saying it was abolished or creating a narrative reason, they instead retroactively removed slavery from the game,
not just in the sense of not allow pcs to own slaves (which would be completely reasonable), but making it so even ''villains'' don't have slaves. This creates tons of plotholes, as there were a lot of evil races, organizations, and countries that use slavery, and there's even a species of demon created from slavers, yet now suddenly they never once used slaves despite having them being a core part of why they were presented as evil, the biggest one being TheEmpire Cheliax, which had an Adventure Path dedicated to the players being freedom fighters in a city ruled by them and being able to free slaves during it. There are also multiple organizations dedicated to abolishing slavery, so what they are supposed to do now is a mystery, or if they even exist now, given the reason they were created no longer is apparently a thing anymore.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': Second Edition has a really odd and [[ExaggeratedTrope extreme]] example. They decided to just retroactively remove slavery from the game, not just in the sense of not allow pcs to own slaves (which would be completely reasonable), but making it so even ''villains'' don't have slaves. This creates tons of plotholes, as there were a lot of evil races, organizations, and countries that use slavery, and there's even a species of demon created from slavers. There are also multiple organizations dedicated to abolishing slavery, so what they are supposed to do now is a mystery.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' episode "Trucks!", some trucks (not road vehicles, but what Americans would call freight cars) deliberately cause an accident because they think Peter Sam is Sir Handel, despite Peter Sam being painted green and Sir Handel being painted blue. This made more sense in the original Railway Series book, where all the narrow gauge engines were painted the same red color.

** Crossing with AdaptationExplanationExtrication, there's no reason why John needs to remain barefoot the entire movie, after killing dozens and dozens of terrorists he could salvage shoes from, unlike the film where the one opportunity he has to steal shoes is from Tony, a mook whose "feet is smaller than his sister's". John just needs to be barefoot because the game says so (either that, or ''all 50-plus'' terrorists John killed throughout the game have feet smaller than his sister's).

* The obscure NES game ''Menace Beach'' revolves around rescuing your girlfriend from a villain. The enemies who attack you are his henchmen sent to impede your progress. The game was later rereleased under the title ''Sunday Funday'' as a Christian edutainment game. Problem? To make the game more Christian, the plot was changed to be about you trying to get to Sunday school. With this change however, there is now no explicable reason for all these weirdos to be trying to violently murder your character, or for your character to take so many detours through the sewers and caves to reach the church. WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd said it best in his review:

** For instance, the game's recreation of Hans' masterplan from the film - hijacking all the bearer bonds from Nakatomi Plaza's vault, stage a faked suicide bombing and escape in their getaway vehicle makes a lot less sense when translated to video game, given how Hans brought along nearly a hundred extra mooks - compared to the film where his team consists of twelve guys. How does a small army of terrorists fake a suicide bombing without raising any suspicions? And should Hans' theft of the bonds goes off without a hitch, how is his legion of goons going to evacuate discreetly given their numbers?

** AdaptationInducedPlotHole/LockeAndKey2020

* [[TheHeavy Cinder Fall's]] backstory in ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' is a WholePlotReference to the Cinderella fairytale but transplanting the classic story into the pre-established world of Remnant and other alternations create some serious [[FridgeLogic logical holes.]] In most versions of the story, Cinderella is made responsible for all the housework in her family manor that, while large, has only a few people in it, while here, Cinder appears to be [[OddlySmallOrganization the only staff in a hotel]] that looks like it could hold dozens if not hundreds of guests. Slavery is also explicitly illegal in Remnant [[note]] Cinder is forced to do menial labor in a business and [[ElectricTorture physically tortured as punishment]] so Madam being her legal guardian makes the difference between her condition and traditional slavery a rather obvious DistinctionWithoutADifference and a massive loophole it seems unlikely those who outlawed slavery could overlook [[/note]] but the Prince Charming analogue in Cinder's backstory, a sympathetic huntsman named Rhodes, never brings up the possibility [[JustEatGilligan of calling the police or social services,]] instead deciding to help her by training her to be a huntress for the next several years. WordOfGod was that Rhodes was unaware of the true horrors of Cinder's living conditions, just as the Prince is generally unaware of Cinderella's, but this [[VoodooShark raises further questions,]] because in this story the duo interacts for years instead of a single night, Cinderella's treatment is not illegal in most tellings due to both not being as harsh, and [[DeliberateValuesDissonance taking place before laws against child abuse were commonplace,]] and the Prince did not approach Cinderella with the explicit intention of helping her as Rhodes does Cinder, giving Cinderella far less incentive to explain things.

** In order to make Lister smuggling Frankenstein on board less wildly irresponsible, the book says she was an expensive pet-shop cat that was inocculated against everything. This makes it significantly less likely that she just happened to be pregnant, which is required for the Cat race to exist.

* In the ''Literature/RedDwarf'' novelisations, the disaster that wiped out the ''Red Dwarf'' crew was caused not by Rimmer's incompetence, (which happened in the TV series) but by a series of malfunctions that the crew were unable to notice. For some reason, the disaster did not happen in Ace Rimmer's universe, despite it having no connection to his presence (or lack thereof) on the ship, with the one real difference being that Ace was held back in school, while Prime Rimmer wasn't (which led to Lister having a bunkmate on the ship who encouraged him to apply himself).

* [[TheHeavy Cinder Fall's]] backstory in ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' is a WholePlotReference to the Cinderella fairytale but transplanting the classic story into the pre-established world of Remnant and other alternations create two serious [[FridgeLogic logical holes.]] In most versions of the story, Cinderella is made responsible for all the housework in her family manor that, while large, has only a few people in it, while here, Cinder appears to be [[OddlySmallOrganization the only staff in a hotel]] that looks like it could hold dozens if not hundreds of guests. Slavery is also explicitly illegal in Remnant [[note]] Cinder is forced to do menial labor in a business and [[ElectricTorture physically tortured as punishment]] so Madam being her legal guardian makes the difference between her condition and traditional slavery a rather obvious DistinctionWithoutADifference and a massive loophole it seems unlikely those who outlawed slavery could overlook [[/note]] but the Prince Charming analogue in Cinder's backstory, a sympathetic huntsman named Rhodes, never brings up the possibility of [[JustEatGilligan of calling the police or social services,]] instead deciding to help her by training her to be a huntress for the next several years. In almost every other telling, the Prince initially has no idea the hell Cinderella is living in, and the "ascension" he offers, marriage into royalty, is something that can be done almost instantly.