Prometheus Plot Holes
So, first off to preface, I did rather enjoy the movie. It was not awesome, but it was fun and it had a neat overall story with some cool ideas and great special FX. The female lead and the robot were both very well played in particular - and the captain gets some points in my book as well.
That being said, hoo-boy was there some implausible BS going on, and more than a few bizarre character decisions that just had you going WTF? in mid-flow...
Not the usual 'I'm going to wander off down this corridor alone' crap either. Oh no! That would have been an example of exemplary survival instincts in this particular crowd, given that any distance you could possibly place between them and yourself could only improve your chances!
So, mainly for my own amusement, here's my list of WTF story and character mistakes in Prometheus:
- The alien moon Prometheus lands on is described as having an atmosphere with a poisonous concentration of Carbon Dioxide at a concentration of 3%. Except that CO2 of 3% isn't particularly dangerous to humans! Carbon Monoxide is quite lethal at 3%, or they could have used a 10% figure for CO2, which would also have been legitimately dangerous. This is minor but careless, and a sign of things to come...
- Crew decides to land on some completely random point on the alien moon's surface without even orbiting it first, much less looking for any signs of habitation. They just happen to come down within visual range of the isolated alien facility/temple. Uh Oh.
- Scientific expedition enters an alien structure and immediately discard their helmets because the air seems breathe-able. They don't bother to scan for organic contaminants first (not that their scanners are worth jack all, as we'll shortly discover).
Don't worry though - we're shown that these scientists have FAITH in their mission! Whut? 0_o;
- Lead female scientist notes their android deftly and quietly manipulating alien controls on multiple occasions, asks him if he can translate the alien writing all over the alien facility - a task she specifically had him train for. He gives her a snarky response and she drops the matter altogether, because, you know, being able to understand writing wouldn't be handy information to a science expedition or anything.
- Visualization technology is inversely proportional to the rest of your tech. Cameras of the future are apparently really crappy and grainy compared to what we have today. Meanwhile, the ultra-advanced alien holographic technology is a virtually unwatchable low-res mess compared to the far less advanced human versions.
- Expedition finds a 2000 year old Promethean 'head' that is described as being in a remarkable state of preservation despite being found in a decidedly damp and biologically active chamber - grubs and the like are viewed crawling through the soil. Guess they weren't hungry.
- Soil? Why is there soil in what should be a biologically sealed 'clean-room' facility!? Why are there poorly sealed canisters haphazardly arranged everywhere? These aliens really suck at bio-hazard handling. OH GOD THEY SUCK! Their safety techniques make the sophistication of the British settlers who handed smallpox infected blankets to the Natives appear to be the ultimate peak of galactic bio-warfare protocols. No wonder their shit keeps eating them! Only a human science team could possibly be less competent in handling bio-hazardous materials, as we will shortly learn...
- Science bay scanners on the ship declare the 'head' biologically sterile and safe before they open up the helmet and find a clearly NON sterile, organically active head inside. Your scanner SUCKS ASS! Throw it out and demand a full refund from whomever sold it to you. View all technology on your ship with renewed suspicion, as this expedition was apparently equipped by the lowest bidder.
- In a similar vein, the cutting edge of futuristic decontamination techniques appear to consist of spraying everything with a CO2 fire extinguisher for a few seconds - which proves to be exactly as effective as you'd expect. What these people really need is a good industrial autoclave.
- Science team decides it would be funny as hell to make their Promethean head twitch and scream by sticking a big needle into it and triggering convulsive spasms until it explodes. That's great guys. What exactly were you trying to learn there? Nothing as far as we can tell. FX team decides to have fun, forgets to mention sequence to the writers until the last minute...
- Better yet, your android with an analytical IQ that exceeds 1000 just decided it'd be an interesting experiment to infect one of the science leads with an alien bio-weapon - just for the hell of it! No purpose, no cost-benefit analysis, no corporate profit scheme, no attempt to learn anything specific, it appears to have no bearing on his 'secret mission' whatsoever. He's just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks... Cave Johnson would be proud!
- Exo-Biologist is trapped in an alien structure of unknown purpose with one other companion. They have been isolated and freaking out for several hours, having witnessed a hologram detailing the terrified deaths of their alien predecessors, having stumbled upon piles of ancient alien corpses, having gotten intermittent reports of 'life signs' of which have driven them to the edge of panic...
...suddenly, they come face to face with the horrifying alien SPERM COBRA! (Listen, it's a sperm cobra. There's no other name for it. Just accept this and get out the brain bleach.) Exo-Biologist inexplicably attempts to snorgle the thing like it just crawled out of Cute Overload! The audience fails to be startled when face-rape ensues.
- The lead scientist infected by David suffers from horrifying disease symptoms that make Ebola look like a fun way to go, and begs to be flamed down by corporate bitch (who happily complies) in front of the entire crew. Shortly thereafter team returns to the alien site with their helmets securely fastened again in proper fear, yet they almost immediately remove them again when their android assures them there is no danger of infection...
...because these morons apparently believe every word their computers, sensors, and robots tell them despite the fact that virtually every iota of data they've gotten from them so far has been wrong or misleading. Also they assume that their tech is sufficient to warn them of any dangers posed by an alien civilization many thousands of years more advanced than them, all lethal evidence to the contrary.
- The Prometheus' non-science-y captain is apparently the only one who manages to realize that this place is in fact a bio-weapons facility designed to destroy Earth - presumably because all the actual scientists are too busy trying to roll in every unknown substance they can find!
- Pair of highly intelligent women flee directly away from crashing alien ship in an extended sequence with all the absurdity of a Loony Tunes parody as it inexorably rolls in a perfectly straight line towards them. Only at the last moment does it occur to our lead to move a few feet to the side to let the ship pass (corporate bitch never figures this out - squish).
- Tiny alien fetus sealed in a sterile room environment somehow grows into 300kg face-raping starfish monster without any source of sustenance - but we're pretty used to this phenomena from the prior 'Alien' movies, so I guess we should give it a pass.
- Full-on hentai face rape sequence is inexplicably reserved for alien Promethean rather than corporate bitch, thus passing up the opportunity for movie to become an immediate blockbuster in Japan...
...Y'know, now that I think about it, I'm good with her getting crushed in retrospect. ;0_0
- Lead scientist smugly declares the superiority of human faith and yearning for philosophical answers to pointless questions from their 'makers' to her android head companion, despite the by-now glaringly obvious conclusion that said 'makers' are an even more psychotically incompetent species of religiously conflicted jackasses than humanity itself - if that is remotely possible.
Overall Prometheus is still fun for some of the overarching themes and concepts, and for some amusing FX sequences and the performance of some of the leads - but on character plausibility it takes several obvious pratfalls, and taken individually several of its story elements are so laughable as to drain away the intended suspense. They could have easily cleaned up most of these, but they let their aesthetic directive override common sense a few too many times, rather than doing the harder work of reconciling the two, and the movie suffered for it.