!''Mission: Impossible 1''
* In the Black Vault, why don't they set it up to just ''turn off the computer'' whenever the technician is out of the room? Or don't even turn it off entirely; just put it to sleep. Make it so that the mouse and keyboard are unresponsive until the guy opens the door and all the lights change and so forth. It would be a heckuva lot easier to set up than all the other sensors and such, ''and'' it would've thwarted Ethan.
** Having that in addition to all the other security might have been a serious problem for Ethan, but they probably believed that any more protection than they had would be overkill. Just turning the computer off without having any sensors in the room would mean that Ethan could be in there doing practically anything at all and you'd have no way of knowing about it, and whatever mechanism you use to make the computer unresponsive could surely be bypassed with enough effort. If you disable the mouse and keyboard he could bring his own mouse and keyboard. If you cut off all power to the room he could bring a portable power supply. If you disconnect something inside the computer, he could reconnect it. He could even disassemble the entire computer and smuggle it out in pieces.
** Perhaps they tried something like that and the system was faulty, not coming up again when the technician re-entered the vault or not doing so fast enough.
* When Ethan first sees Phelps alive, he doesn't suspect that he was the mole. But when Phelps distinctly accused Kittridge of being the mole, Ethan did start putting together that he was the mole. Why?
** Because Kittridge being the mole didn't fit the facts as Ethan knew them, and Phelp's overplayed his hand in trying to pin it on Kittridge. Ethan had an epiphany that it must have been Phelps and Claire working together, though because of his feelings for Claire he then decides it might have been just Phelps. If you watch Phelps during Ethan's explanation of how the team was killed you can see him wondering if Ethan is buying it.
*** What "facts" did Ethan know that it didn't fit exactly?
** It is implied/said that Ethan did suspect Jim when he saw him (On the train, Ethan says "before London, but after you took the Bible from the Drake hotel in Chicago", when Jim asks when Ethan figured it out.), but he presumably played along throughout the scene. It may be that Ethan's imaginings of Jim being the killer were shown where they were for audience convenience, that Ethan knew in general, but only worked out the details in the scene, or that Ethan had worked out some details before, but only nailed them down during that scene.
* When they were in the Black Vault, why didn't Ethan just knock out the technician? The door would probably have muffled the sound of him falling and he would have had time to get everything.
* Why doesn't the Vault have a motion sensor? One that would turn on when Donloe left the room (like the floor sensor?)
* Why doesn't Phelps shoot Ethan right after he's disabled him in the baggage car?
* Does any else think it's morally dubious for Ethan to risk the lives of every American spy in the world just to clear his name and improbable that the IMF would rehire him after this stunt? (Max very nearly manages to upload the file.) Giving a NOC List to an arms dealer is itself enough of a reason to be disavowed even if you're planning on trying to stop them from copying it.
** Morally dubious stunts are the IMF's entire reason for existence. If a job can be done within the bounds of morality and the law then the US government has officially recognized agencies that can take care of it. You can rarely count the number of crimes the IMF commits on the fingers of one hand in any episode of the television series, and those crimes go all the way up to murder in more than a few episodes. Doing bad stuff doesn't get you disavowed; you only get disavowed if you get caught.

!!''Mission: Impossible 2''

* The fact that a Welshman seems to be in charge of the American IMF is puzzling!
** In the series they employ French, Australian, Scottish and English agents, likely amongst others- its not that surprising.
* One thing that's not altogether clear is why [=McCloy=] goes along with Ambrose's plan. Grabbing the Belleraphon from Nakovitch is one thing given that he ran off with it, but having no problem breaking into his building and stealing the Chimera virus in order to ''sell it back to him?'' Why the hell would he go along with that? Did his company not bother telling him that armed men attacked his building, killed scores of guards and stole a WMD?
** Whether [=McCloy=] was upset that Ambrose broke in and stole the virus doesn't matter once it was done. Ambrose has both the virus and the cure, neither of which [=McCloy=] wants being sold to anyone else.
*** Except that he offered Ambrose £37 million ''before'' that.
** About the only possible explanation is that [=McCloy=] thought that Ambrose stole both of them from Nakovitch and not just Belleraphon, which Ambrose indeed had thought he had done at the start of the film. This doesn't explain why [=McCloy=] doesn't seem interested in or aware that someone stole ''another'' sample of the virus and slaughtered countless guards in the process, but evidently if he is concerned and aware he doesn't connect the dots and realize that Ambrose never had the virus in the first place and, thus, was the culprit of the attack on his company.
*** That does seem to pretty much be what happens. Before the attack, Ambrose seemed to just be showing that he had Nekhorivich's work, which McCloy would want to pay money to get back. Afterwards, McCloy may well figure out that Ambrose had broken into the building, but since Ambrose has control of all materials, knowing this information would not be all that useful.
**** Could be that he is worried what will happen to him should he say no, I mean Ambrose is obviously quite crazy and dangerous.

!!''Mission: Impossible 3''

* Why is Ethan Hunt's wife allowed in the middle of IMF's headquarters at the end of the film? The organization is so secret, that they operate from the basement of a front business! That's a huge security risk they are taking for what is essentially a feelgood gesture. Imagine a real-world parallel: the wife of a high-ranking Pentagon official is kidnapped in order to get at her husband, and then she is rescued. I am quite certain the people at Pentagon wouldn't go, "Sorry we caused you so much trouble! To make up for it, come mingle with your husband's co-workers in a restricted area!"
** She would need to be debriefed, and the parallel is not the same because the existence of Pentagon officials is not a state secret; the existence of the Impossible Mission Force is. Plus, in the process of the "rescue" she ends up saving her husbands life, shoots a traitor to the agency dead, and overhears sensitive information about a recently stolen weapon of mass destruction. She is knee-deep in it and merely learning about [=IMF=] gives her priviledges.
* Why does Davian torture Ethan, asking him where the Rabbit's Foot is? Ethan had it when he was drugged in a limo, and Davian's henchman should find and give it to his boss.
** As explained by the mole after the interrogation, Davian did the ruse to make absolutely sure Ethan did not switch it out for a fake. Ethan claiming he gave Davian the real one through the count of ten thinking his wife was at gunpoint verified it for Davian.

!!''Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol''

* It's never explained how Cobalt hacked into [=IMF=]'s communications during the previous mission or even knew that they would be there, nor why he has access to the same [[spoiler: LatexPerfection]] that they do. A Mole would be suspected, and in fact all three previous films featured one in one way or another, but there isn't one. Given his OddlySmallOrganization and that his official position in the Russian government was simply a scientific advisor, and how extreme his theories were, its hard to believe he's ''that'' well connected that he even knows who the [=IMF=] are, let alone how to play them like a fiddle and manipulate their every move.
** Maybe he's just that smart.
* Who shot up the car with Ethan and Brandt, and why? Sidorov eventually runs up and tells the shooters to stop. Were those guy cops?
** Could've been Spetsnaz or something.
** Presumably the police were simply aware that Ethan, an escaped man thought responsible for one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in Russian history, was in the car. Hence, they made the mistake of simply choosing to try to eliminate him instead of attempting a capture. As much as it paints the Russian police in a dim light, this scene makes more sense when you remember that they had no idea the Secretary was in the car and not just more dangerous American terrorists.
** And it was just after the Kremlin had been bombed. The Russian police are understandably not acting very rationally in trying to catch or kill the guy they think bombed the Kremlin.
* In ''Ghost Protocol'', how was the cryptographer supposed to verify the launch codes at a glance? He obviously didn't know them already, and giving the codes a recognizable pattern kind of defeats the point of a password.
** There aren't many people who can tease out those patterns in their head.
** It's simple for codes to be practically impossible to guess but easy to verify. For example, if the launch code was a prime factorization of some number and you knew that number, then verifying the code would be nothing more than a multiplication, but as long as the number is large enough, you could never find the code just by knowing the number.
* What was the point of Hendricks [[spoiler: masquerading as his own [[TheDragon Dragon]]]] for the Dubai deal? There didn't seem to be any reason why the real henchman couldn't have done it instead, and after all that's what henchmen are ''for''. When his face was revealed to be an I.M.F.-style latex mask it seemed they were about to let loose a major plot twist, but it turns out it was just the Big Bad being eccentric.
** While withing the context of the movie, it doesn't make much sense (not that eccentricities are unusual for Hendricks), but it seemed like a pretty clear attempt to show the audience, and Ethan, how devastatingly wrong the plan had gone without confusing all the different villains.
** In the movie context, it shows (again) that this villain is a step ahead of the IMF. Remember, the plan was deliberately ''not'' to capture the henchman so he would lead them to the BigBad. The villain short-circuits that plan by showing up himself, in disguise.
* So who told the Russians in Dubai? Ethan?
** Bogdan. That is, I don't think Bogdan ''told'' them, but they knew he and Ethan broke out of prison together, and were presumably keeping tabs on him in case he could lead them to Ethan.
* Wouldn't NORAD's radar detect an SRBM incoming towards San Francisco?
** I was secretly hoping for that too. Perhaps NORAD had just installed a new detection system and when they saw a single nuclear missile heading towards the US they assumed it was an error, since a preemptive nuclear strike would be all-out. They ignored it rather than do a retaliatory launch. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov It's happened before.]]
** Maybe NORAD did react, but it was all off-screen.
* When the team realized the Russian cryptographer/scientist/nuclear codes guy was in Dubai, why not just let the meeting take place, then follow Winstrom and Moreau and capture them later, rather than take the risks of being recognized by following the original plan?
** Because they might lose them. The fact that they had to let the cryptographer see the actual codes only makes them need to caputre them sooner- you are, after all, talking about people who are trying to destroy ''the entire world'', and to stop them you've just let them attain the means to do it. Following them and capturing them later is extremely risky because you might lose them and, if that happens, everyone might pay the price.
*** By that point they have the security cameras controlled in the hotel, making following much easier. (And any other tricks that the targets could have used would also be usable in the plan they did do in the movie.)
* Is this movie just assuming there are absolutely no missile defense systems in the United States? And why even attack the United States with ONE nuke? If your goal is nuclear holocaust, wouldn't it make more sense to deploy multiple missiles to targets that don't have any defense systems or organized teams set out to foil you?
** The goal with the first nuclear weapon was to get the U.S. and Russia to start fighting each other, Which presumably wouldn't take much. (The missile did in fact come from a Submarine, and with the kremlin bombing, Russia would be the obvious attacker.) (Of course, I have no experience with how nuclear policy works, so it may be the the one stray missile wouldn't have lead to anyhing, but the movie explanatiobn makes sense even with working missile defenses and one weapon.)
* A magnet strong enough to carry the weight of a full grown man! Near COMPUTERS! How exactly does that work?
** Highly-concentrated narrow angled electromagnetic field. Picture it as a wedge of magnetic force, rather than a bloom outward. If it helps any, the guy who owns the place was said to have made his fortune off of ''stolen'' military-grade stuff, the computers were probably all hardened because, hell, the guy clearly had money to burn.