10 Plot Holes And Inconsistencies In The Mamma Mia! Movies

Between Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, there are plenty of inconsistencies and plot holes in the overall story. Based on the musical of the same name by Catherine Johnson, who also wrote the screenplay for the film, Mamma Mia! is a jukebox musical movie that tells the story of a young bride-to-be named Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) through ABBA songs. After finding out she has three potential fathers from her mother’s (Meryl Streep) old diary, Sophie invites all three of them – Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgård), and Harry (Colin Firth) – to her wedding.

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Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again was released with a new writer and director, Ol Parker, attached. The sequel cuts back and forth between the reopening of Donna’s hotel in the wake of her death and flashbacks to the summer she met Sam, Bill, and Harry and got pregnant with Sophie. The sequel changed several details from the original, creating discrepancies between the two movies, particularly between Donna’s diary entries in the first movie and the flashback sequences in the sequel. As a result, there’s a great deal of plot holes and inconsistencies between the two Mamma Mia! movies.

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10

The Timeline Makes No Sense

The Present-Day Time Period Is Anachronistic

Between the flashbacks to 1979, the present-day in Mamma Mia!, and the present-day in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, the full timeline of the movies is all over the place. The story begins chronologically when Donna graduates from the University of Oxford in the spring of 1979, as seen in the first flashback of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. In Mamma Mia!, Donna’s diary entries from that summer state that she had already met all three men by August 11th. This means that she would’ve already been pregnant with Sophie by the end of August 1979, and given birth sometime around May 1980.

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In Mamma Mia!, Sophie states multiple times that she is 20 years old, which means that this film takes place in either 2000 or 2001. The story of Mamma Mia! can feasibly pass as one set in the early 2000s, but the timeline starts to get tricky in the sequel. While it was released in 2018, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again takes place only five years after the end of Mamma Mia!, which would set it in 2005 or 2006. However, the characters all use modern technology like iPhones, which makes it impossible to buy that the sequel is meant to take place in the mid-2000s.

9

Donna Meets Sam, Bill, & Harry In The Wrong Order

Donna Was Supposed To Meet Sam First

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The specific dates in Donna’s diary do not correspond with the order in which she meets all three men on-screen. Donna wrote that she met Sam on July 17, Bill on August 4, and Harry on August 11. However, after graduating in the flashbacks, she meets Harry first, then Bill, then Sam. Donna’s diary also slyly indicates that she slept with each man before meeting the next, but the flashbacks reveal otherwise. She meets Harry in Paris, then she meets Bill, who takes her to Kalokairi. Once she’s on the island, she meets Sam and presumably sleeps with him multiple times before he leaves. It’s only after her brief relationship with Sam that Bill finally comes to the island, and Donna sleeps with him last.

8

The Younger Versions Of Sam, Bill, & Harry Look Different In The Mamma Mia! Movies

Their Younger Selves’ Looks Change In Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

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Mamma Mia! only briefly shows what Sam, Bill, and Harry looked like when they met Donna in 1979. These younger versions of them appear in photos and Donna’s momentary flashbacks upon seeing them 20 years later, and are played by the same actors who play the characters in the present-day, just with different, longer hairstyles and dressed in varying 70s aesthetics.

The issue wasn’t with the accuracy of the casting, but rather with each of their younger selves’ particular looks in Mamma Mia! compared to Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

Though it made for a funny visual gag in Mamma Mia!, the younger versions of Sam, Bill, and Harry in the flashback sequences in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again weren’t going to be played by these same actors again. Instead, the sequel cast younger actors who were closer in age to the characters in 1979 and bore a close resemblance to their corresponding actors. The issue wasn’t with the accuracy of the casting, but rather with each of their younger selves’ particular looks in Mamma Mia! compared to Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

7

Sam & Donna First Meet On The Island

Donna Claimed In Her Diary thThatat Sam First Brought Her To The Island

The discrepancies between Donna’s diary entries and the flashback sequences pile up throughout the movies. Not only did she claim she met Sam first on July 17 in her diary, but Donna also claims that Sam “rowed [her] over to the little island,” Kalokairi, implying that he first introduced her to it. However, in the flashback to their first meeting, Donna had already arrived on the island (on Bill’s boat, no less) and started exploring when she happened upon Sam on his motorbike in the rain.

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6

Bill Takes Donna To The Island On His Sailboat, Not A Motorboat

Their Mode Of Transportation To Kalokairi Changes

Similar to the inconsistency in Donna and Sam’s first meeting, Donna and Bill’s mode of transportation to the island changes between the Mamma Mia! movies. In her diary, Donna claims that after Sam left, she met Bill, presumably on the mainland, since he proceeded to “rent a motorboat” so she could take him over to the island. However, in the flashback sequences, Bill brings Donna to the island on the same sailboat he has in Mamma Mia!, not a motorboat. Bill also doesn’t join Donna on the island until later, so the claim that she took him over there is, at best, misleading and at worst, false.

5

Donna Doesn’t Show Harry The Island

Harry Never Actually Makes It To Kalokairi At All

Unlike Sam and Bill, the contradictions between the Mamma Mia! movies regarding Donna and Harry’s fling are a little more complicated. In Mamma Mia!, Donna wrote in her diary that Harry “turned up out of the blue” after she met the others, so she said she’d “show him the island.” Like the others, it’s not explicitly stated where she first met him before visiting the island. In Mamma Mia!, Harry tells Sophie that he “hopped on a train and followed [Donna] to Greece, quite spontaneously,” which does technically happen in the flashbacks, but Harry misses the ferry and never makes it to the little island.

Because of his wording, Harry’s account of his history with Donna corresponds with both the flashbacks in the sequel and her account in her diary, but her account does not correspond with the flashbacks. Though she does write that she only “said” she’d show him the island, it’s more than safe to assume she meant that she did end up showing him the island. Despite what Donna’s diary entries imply, not only did she never actually bring Harry to the island as shown in the flashbacks, he was never actually there in the first place.

4

Donna Doesn’t Keep The Guitar Harry Bought Her

Harry Still Has The Guitar After They Part Ways

In Mamma Mia!, Sophie calls out Harry for taking Donna’s guitar, but he clarifies that he only “borrowed” it and that he bought Donna the guitar. In the flashbacks, though, when Donna misses the ferry and hitches a road on Bill’s boat, she doesn’t have the guitar in tow, and later, when Harry is left stranded on the ferry dock, he’s carrying a guitar case. After that, Harry and Donna do not see each other for 20 years until he and the others show up for Sophie’s wedding in Mamma Mia!, so the guitar wouldn’t have been able to still be in her possession all these years later.

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3

Tanya & Rosie Aren’t Supposed To Have Met (Or Even Know About) Bill

Donna Never Told Her Friends About Bill Or Harry

In Mamma Mia!, after discovering that Sam, Bill, and Harry have all shown up to Kalokairi, Donna finally spills the beans to her best friends, Tanya and Rosie, about Sophie’s three potential fathers. Donna had always maintained that Sophie’s father was Sam, but now confesses that she’s actually “not sure that it was him because there were two other guys around the same time.” Clearly, Donna never told Tanya and Rosie about either Bill or Harry — not just that they could also be Sophie’s fathers, but that they even existed at all.

In contrast, the flashbacks see Tanya and Rosie visit Donna on Kalokairi, and she introduces them to Bill. Sam has already left at this point, and Bill has returned from his race to visit Donna on the island. Rosie develops an immediate crush on the handsome Bill, and becomes jealous when Donna joins him on his boat. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again presumably had Tanya and Rosie meet Bill, despite never having heard of him in Mamma Mia!, to set up Rosie and Bill’s eventual romance decades down the line, but it ignores a blatant truth in the first movie.

2

Donna, Harry, & Rosie’s Eye Colors Change

Their Younger Selves Have Different Eye Colors

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Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again did a decent job casting the younger versions of the older characters for the flashback sequences. However, there is one difference between the younger and older versions of some of the characters that is hard to ignore. In 1979, Donna has brown eyes, and Harry and Rosie have blue eyes, However, in the present-day, Donna now has blue eyes, but Harry and Rosie suddenly have brown eyes. Of course, the actors who were cast as the younger versions just happen to have different eye colors than the existing older actors of their corresponding characters, but it’s a distracting inconsistency nonetheless.

1

Donna’s Mother Is Supposed To Be Dead

Donna’s Mother Is Suddenly Still Alive In Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Of all the plot holes and inconsistencies in the Mamma Mia! movies, this one might take the cake. In Mamma Mia!, it’s established that Donna did not have a good relationship with her and that they were most likely estranged ever since she got pregnant with Sophie. At one point, Donna says that “somebody up there” – as in, in heaven – “has got it in for me. I bet it’s my mother,” indicating that her mother is dead.

However, in the opening scene of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Sophie addresses an invitation to her grandmother, Ruby, indicating that she’s clearly still alive in the present day. Ruby’s existence is mentioned throughout the sequel, both in flashbacks and present day, to set up her eventual appearance at the end. Obviously, Donna’s mother’s death was just retconned for the sequel, but the fact that she’s alive is a glaring plot hole in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

Does The Musical Also Have These Plot Holes?

While Mamma Mia! is quite faithful to the play it is adapting, a lot of the plot holes or inconsistencies that pop up in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again simply doesn’t exist in the play, for one major reason. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is an entirely original story that acts as both a prequel and sequel to the first film, which itself was a full adaptation of the stage play, albeit missing a few musical numbers. Because of this, things like out-of-place technology or the younger versions of characters not looking like themselves just aren’t an issue in the musical.

Most of the plot holes and inconsistencies in the films themselves mostly stem from the addition of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again into the timeline that explores what happens after Mamma Mia! but also explores Donna’s youth in 1979 through flashbacks that make up a large portion of the film. While the musical isn’t perfect, it doesn’t suffer from a lot of these issues. Despite the inconsistencies, though, there is still a lot to love about Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

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Mamma Mia!

PG-13

Comedy

Musical

Romance

8.8/10

Release Date

July 18, 2008

Runtime

108 Minutes

Director

Phyllida Lloyd

Writers

Catherine Johnson

Sequel(s)

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Cast

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- Meryl Streep
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  Pierce Brosnan
Mamma Mia! is a musical film set on a Greek island where Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) seeks to discover the identity of her father before her wedding. The film stars Meryl Streep as her mother, Donna, and features numerous songs by ABBA. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd, the story unfolds as three possible fathers, portrayed by Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgård, arrive on the island.

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Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

PG-13

Musical

Comedy

7/10

8.8/10

Release Date

July 20, 2018

Runtime

114minutes

Director

Ol Parker

Writers

Ol Parker

Cast

See All
- Meryl Streep
- Andy Garcia
A sequel to Mamma Mia! (2008), Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is set five years after the events of the first film and follow Sophie Sheridan as she attempts to reopen the Hotel Bella Donna after the death of her mother. The film cuts back and forth between Sophia’s struggles at the hotel and Donna’s past, detailing how she met each of Sophie’s three possible fathers introduced in the first film. The ensemble cast features Amanda Seyfried, Lily James, Pierce Brosnan, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Stellan Skarsgård, Colin Firth, Andy Garcia, and Cher.

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