My list of plotholes and niggles

[quote]23. they didnt know was an alien movie ..thats all ...[/quote] RE:23 --[i]Why weren't the life suits fitted with monitors (heart, vitals) set to raise alarms should the onboard crew be AFK (sic) from their duties?[/i] The whole scene was cringeworthy. As I was watching, I'm thinking, sure the Captain and Vickers can go off have their fun, I'm sure there's going to be an alarm system should something terrible befall our hapless geologist and biologist. (why are the scientists portrayed as such idiots by the way?). But alas, towards the end of the 21st Century it seems we do not have the common sense for such a simple idea ?

Here's one for you: why didnt weyland just send a crew of david's aboard Prometheus? The entire human crew were completely redundant.

@ Frantz Whilst I enjoyed the film and welcome praise at it, its plot holes should be openly discussed and do not deserve blind fanboism like yours. "Radar scan" lol, pretty much sums up your ethos towards this thread --ignorance.

ok, i found this on the weyland website which might explain the helmet removal PORTABLE DECONTAMINATION PACK see here: https://www.weylandindustries.com/timeline

The helmet thing really bugs me. When I see a "scientist" do something like that in a film, I dont think that its a character who is reckless risk taker, it doesn't add to his character. It simplys shows him to be a poor scientist who doesn't understand the basics of germ theory. It completely undermines him and suspends my belief. Shaw then does exactly the same, despite telling him he shouldnt. Vickers the risk averse corporate ball breaker says nothing whilst this is happening, even though she take quarantine seriously enough to kill someone later. Later in the film, we see the air lock being 'decomtaminated' after the storm hits. We also hear Shaw tell Weyland not to remove his helmet in the ship as they dont know how Holloway became infected. The characters actions are so illogical I simply cannot take them seriously at all. Why do any of the crew need to remove their helmets in any of the visits to the temple? Was this essential to the plot? No.

Hi! I don't see it as plot holes. I see it as a display of human stupidity, they believe one thing and nothing else can get in the way. This movie is about the disillusion combined with horror on a once beautifully optimistic mission. I would like to help with my twisted point of view of interpretation, using your first post as a starting point: 1. The dream. Indeed they could have made this better, which would have made it stranger, less accessible for the audience but more plausible. I'm a fan of discomforting experience but I choose to ignore the "easy stuff" as not every audience is the same. 2. 3. The landing. The planet is a moon. Think we missed a deleted scene of survey from orbit and longer atmospheric trip? They had the fuel (nuclear energy) to fly around for days, we were watching a 2 hours movie. The mission wasn't to survey possible resources on the closest point of contact but to find traces of intelligent life so we have to assume they were looking for it. 4. 5. and 6. The geologist and the biologist. Agreed. But the question is why would Weyland corp not use its good money to hire more intelligent people. But it seems every Alien movie is filled with unintelligent idiots who can't keep their cool and who break quarantine, Kane and Lambert to name the first two. The answer is always the same: bring something home. 7. The goo. It's an universal modular compound that in contact with humidity develops an organism that at a fast rate takes the best form for extermination. The movie shows at least 4 different forms of infection. And there was no pregnancy per se, Shaw is sterile - I think Ridley Scott made it pretty damn clear. 8. Electrifying the head in the lab. It's true. You can't have useful brain activity without cardiovascular activity at least. What does a twitchy frog experiment help us with? 9. The head explosion in the lab. That should have been explained and displayed better. It was infected like the other space jockeys who exploded from the inside. Maybe another form of extermination? 10. Medical staff hygiene. Good one. But I guess we're back to points 4.5.6 or they are shareholders to the companies that make their bioscanners. I also thought that in no Alien movie the infected showed up on any scanner but ultrasound so they're assumed healthy. Well there we learn something about assumptions. 11. How did Shaw know where they were headed? It would be naive to think the space jockeys wouldn't head to Earth with the bioweapons. Just like Shaw knew they changed their mind about creating us, she knew all the mistakes were made from lack of information, but she used the new information very well. The discussions with Janek and David help you see how she believes but she is not entirely naive anymore. 12. How did David know where the mean jockey was headed? David saw the star map. And saw the mean jockey kick everyone's ass after Shaw showed her rebellion. The mean jockey was already betrayed by someone, a dissident space jockey like the first one we see in the very beginning of the movie who used the weaponry to create life instead of death. Someone who didn't "agree with the gods". The mean jockey knows the created will turn against the creator, the more intelligent characters of the movie understand this but don't want to explain to Shaw or Charlie, or the audience. David is an interesting character, he is programmed to turn against humans in order to gather knowledge. You forgot to ask about another potential plot hole: why does David want to go back to Earth while knowing the threat? Somehow he developed this rebellion against the creator for creating him inferior and discarding him when a greater challenge comes. He wants to bring something back. Even if it means the end of the human race on Earth - he knows it will happen as long as the space jockeys are somewhere in the galaxy, but they're superior humans to him, he gets off on new knowledge so he's happy anyway no matter what. 13. How does Shaw know the giant facehugger would attack the mean jockey? Refer to her discussion with Janek. He doesn't care why, he assumes you build weapons, and they turn against you. She assumed the same. 14. Shaw's horror but lack of alarming. She is sterile so she was not pregnant. She wouldn't want to be believe she is pregnant even if it was the case. David didn't break it down in a gentle way, revealed that he was involved in Charlie's infection, she knew it was an alien parasite to be brought back to Earth so she didn't trust anyone. Ridley Scott doesn't pretend nobody has seen the other Alien movies. 15. Star Wars analogy. In Star Wars The Empire Strikes back the line is "He told me you killed him." -No. I am your father. Followed by Luke being very very upset. Now someone tell me how a daughter wanting to replace her dad in the family business is like Luke Skywalker's fatherless situation? I know it's not what you meant but give it a break. 16. The bet. It was humor about the Alien movies fanbase who have been speculating since the 80's! How can you miss that? 17. Walk/run after abdominal surgery. Good point. Ridley Scott knows nothing about women lol 18. Tentacles. It's a primitive tier aimed at exterminating at least aquatic life of greater size. We know octopuses are good at escaping both under water and ground surface, it's a modular form. If it needs feet to run it will eventually find a suitable host and get them to put it simple. 19. Space jockey technology: Ease of use. David. He uses the language archaeological information left by the dissident engineers who visited Earth, and finds out how to open doors, access holo feeds... The space jockeys didn't want that, and didn't need high security, they were betrayed. 20. Why do the space jockeys want to kill. They live in hibernation most of the time, where are they from? Unknown. Are they on their way to extinction? Most likely. I think they're nomad, living with the past mistakes from their civilization, terraforming is motivated by a dream/goal they have to be able to live freely on a planet again without a gas mask on. The time it takes to terraform an entire planet was spent by the dissident engineers to do something else meanwhile: create a new human race. If you can't save yourself, save your children - create us humans to evolve on the target planet instead of just preparing it for colonization and then repeat the same mistakes that lead to the loss of a homeworld. That means embracing extinction to leave the chance to someone else. The space jockeys can't all agree to that, they fight and kill because of it. 21. Weyland's last trip. Peter Weyland thought that the same visitor comes to Earth year -35,000 and -900. That means the visitor can provide hibernation technology or immortality. David points at the hibernation pods, Weyland Corp's next hot thing. 22. Faith. Ridley Scott maybe wanted to hint that religion isn't just a human creation strictly to Earth. That the old civilizations were instructed to believe in the space jockeys, they all made their own interpretation. And Shaw descends from this. I think that is pretty cool. 23. Contingency plans about the crew. Every crew member on a vessel has his or her own tasks and contingency plans. They were not all given the same instructions book or code of conduct. You don't get to know your captain will leave two useless expendable scientists to suffer if there's a violent storm preventing your rescue. And back to points 4.5.6.: the objective is to bring something back. 24. Lindelof. Good point but off topic. 25. Flute and Fisher Price squishy buttons. To be sarcastic: Yeah you're right, they should have used holographic QWERTY keyboards, preferably white with square bezels and capacitive touchscreens. I watched Prometheus saturday and then talked face to face with 10 others who also saw it, for what seems like hours. So my interpretation of the unexplained parts of the backstory and symbols may be far fetched in mythology and science but I think it's what Ridley Scott wanted us to do. My wish here is to share how easily you can watch a movie that makes sense even if it doesn't serve it all on a silver plate, and then instead of treating it like the TV show Lost, go straight to the most plausible meaning and choose to believe in it. Not all the space jockeys wanted to create or destroy, like us on Earth they all want different things. I choose to believe that.

actually, at number 11. David does tell them that the ship is heading to earth. if you pay close attention he does say that. And about the helmet thing, it was only holloway who did it. Because he is a reckless idiot. When he didn't suffer, the rest of them did the same. This is just an assumption, but i think the space jockeys want to kill us, because now that we have developed space travel and strong weaponry, they consider us a threat.

The stupidity of this conversation prompted me to make an account simply to reply to this nonsense. I like the explanations of Nicky.the.hutt and Frantz. These aren't 'plot-holes,' this is the poster being a dumb-ass. I'm mean, seriously, I'm still trying to fathom the stupidity. It made me think you (the original poster) was a troll, but there was nothing in the post that resembled a troll sense of humor. Now I'm sorry the movie doesn't take everything and chop it up for you and present it on a silver plate, and I'm glad it didn't. Now, I'm not saying the film was perfect, there were a few things that were a bit strange (Highly religious scientist, wait, what?). But you guys are making it out to be the worst written-film ever (And I watched Snow-White and The Huntsman the same night, trust me, it's not). But the plot-holes were small and manageable, just because it doesn't tell you anything (or assumes you to be relatively smart), doesn't mean it's a plot-hole. My main problem was the ending, I wanted them to die on the planet, not go on another adventure for a sequel. I also hated the last sequence showing the Xenomorph. But overall, I liked the film. And overall, if you thought those were 'plot-holes,' get your head straight, there's something wrong with you.