5 ms·

That's the thing, though. Gigantic spaceships, alien panspermia, stasis pods, human-passing androids, underground alien bases, convenient maps in caves. All tha

That's the thing, though. Gigantic spaceships, alien panspermia, stasis pods, human-passing androids, underground alien bases, convenient maps in caves. All that disbelief can be suspended. A handpicked team of professional astronauts on an interstellar mission being a bunch of complete incompetents over and over again for plot convenience is the real headscratcher that eventually makes it feel like the plot is an afterthought and makes you disengage from the film as a story rather then just pretty pictures. It's a pattern you see a lot especially in sci-fi and action, and it's annoying because it's not like you couldn't have the glossy visuals or set-pieces if you also had coherent plots.

FrustratedMonky 1y ago
Exactly. If human characters don't react like real humans would, then that is much harder to 'justify' or 'suspend belief' about. Lets take our helmets off in a unknown hostile enivroment? Lets play with giant worms with teeth, as if in real life those things wouldn't scare the crap out of you even if they weren't alien.
- mbreese 1y ago
  Hubris is a tough drug to kick. If you were a biology officer on a spaceship with a bunch of fancy tech, why wouldn’t you think you could poke and prod a giant alien worm? Part of the story is that everyone thinks that they are in control until something happens, they realize their mistake, and then they probably die.
  - like_any_other 1y ago
    > why wouldn’t you think you could poke and prod a giant alien worm? Because 90% of the average moviegoing audience got it right. You can invent tortured reasoning for why a biology officer on a spaceship with a bunch of fancy tech would be dumber than the bottom 10% of humans, but the real explanation is just lazy/incompetent writers.
    - toast0 1y ago
      They don't make a whole lot of movies where all the characters just follow the rules, cause it wouldn't be fun to watch. Xenobiologist is tired of eating with the rest of the crew and eats in the lab instead seems reasonable. We didn't see the leadup to see the deviance normalized, we just get to see the end of it. Alien:Earth isn't the best writing, obviously, but we're how far into the series, the writing just has to be enough plot to get to the xenomorph rampage scenes. It's like plot in a video game or an adult film; you have to have it, but it doesn't matter.
      - reactordev 1y ago
        We’re at the end. The whole first season didn’t make sense after the first episode. It just nose dived. People above have already stated the obvious. It’s a popcorn series and a check box. That’s it. No staying power. No one wants to watch robot children who talk to xenomorphs make them pets. No. Just no. These creatures do not follow instructions from a tweenager. Get away from her you bitch. These are the same creatures that almost wiped out the predators… c’mon man!
      - like_any_other 1y ago
        > They don't make a whole lot of movies where all the characters just follow the rules, cause it wouldn't be fun to watch. Compare it to how they didn't follow the rules in Alien 1 then: they weren't supposed to let the facehugger victim into the spaceship due to quarantine rules. Ripley, acting as interim captain, tried to enforce that, but was overridden by Ash, the science officer [1]. A perfectly understandable action due to human empathy, but in this case, it is doubly justified since, as we later learn, Ash was an android, acting on secret orders to retrieve the alien specimen. Smart, reasonable actions from everyone involved, that didn't make anyone scream at the movie in frustration. And this was just a mining crew of ordinary workers, not the best scientific minds a multi-billionaire was able to assemble for a research expedition. Meanwhile the only justification for sticking his face into that evil-looking alien snake in Prometheus is that the guy was just a moron because he had fancy science equipment??? Also, Prometheus was written by Damon Lindelof - who also wrote Lost. The same Lost where all those mysteries turned out by series end to have been just random nonsense, with no explanation or justification ever given. Another point in favor of the incompetent writer thesis. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8cEcaK4-qA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8cEcaK4-qA
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  > If human characters don't react like real humans would, I don't assume all characters are human just because they walk and talk like a duck. Blade Runner, after all. Half are synths and some are transhuman consciousness uploads. The plot continuity is shit like AI wrote it. ;-D > Lets take our helmets off in a unknown hostile enivroment? [sic] Yeah, but there are plenty of people with character traits who do do stupid shit and take stupid risks. Besides, who would volunteer for a risky mission unless they really needed the money and didn't care so much about their personal safety?
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  Bro, we had a pandemic and people refused to wear masks. The characters are the equivalent of space truckers taking off their COVID masks the first chance they get. You don't think that is realistic? I'm sorry but they act exactly how I would expect life long space truckers act. Look at how hard OSHA/regulators have to push. This was one day ago. For this to happen that guy would have to have tied off the safety switch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntr8kCLSxqk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntr8kCLSxqk People get really dumb/lazy when they get complacent. That is half the message of the franchise. Life has become routine labor, corporate control, and handing over oversight to someone else (synthetics) because everyone is on cruise control and only doing their little piece because they are on their 500th boring space trucker run.
- YeGoblynQueenne 1y ago
  >> Lets play with giant worms with teeth, as if in real life those things wouldn't scare the crap out of you even if they weren't alien. I think the worm thing (I thought of it as a snake, which just goes to show) is the result of an even worse sin than bad writing. I think the scene was deliberately written this way to pander to a certain type of audience member who enjoys watching dumb movies just to point out how dumb they are and thereby feel really clever. It's fan service really. I'm ... guilty of indulging in that kind of thing myself (calling out movie characters' decisions for being stupid) and I've often stopped to wonder whether I'm not being baited, after all. Sometimes I certainly think I am and in Prometheus the bit with the worm/snake was one such instance.
scotty79 1y ago
> handpicked team of professional astronauts on an interstellar mission being a bunch of complete incompetents over and over again It's set up in the future. Observing current trends it's quite realistic for everyone to be really, really dumb by then.
smcin 1y ago
Agreed. Necessary suspension of belief vs unnecessary and contradictory. For an in-depth list for 'Prometheus': "Red Letter Media talks about Prometheus" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0]. (To what extent were those due to Lindelof, not Scott?)
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
By this point, 'professional astronauts' is just another term for 'space truckers'. The film makers put in a lot of effort to point that out. Switch that in your head and it makes more sense. They have done so many routine missions, and it's all so routine, that they aren't prepared for non-routine. The whole structure of missions leaves the non-routine handling to synthetics. These are like key components of this franchise what the story it's trying to tell. We reached the stars, but became alienated from both exploration and ethics. We lost the wonder and lost control of our fate. Life has become routine labor, corporate control, and synthetic oversight that isn't looking out for our best wishes even though we assume it is.

FrustratedMonky 1y ago

Exactly. If human characters don't react like real humans would, then that is much harder to 'justify' or 'suspend belief' about. Lets take our helmets off in a unknown hostile enivroment? Lets play with giant worms with teeth, as if in real life those things wouldn't scare the crap out of you even if they weren't alien.

mbreese 1y ago
Hubris is a tough drug to kick. If you were a biology officer on a spaceship with a bunch of fancy tech, why wouldn’t you think you could poke and prod a giant alien worm? Part of the story is that everyone thinks that they are in control until something happens, they realize their mistake, and then they probably die.
- like_any_other 1y ago
  > why wouldn’t you think you could poke and prod a giant alien worm? Because 90% of the average moviegoing audience got it right. You can invent tortured reasoning for why a biology officer on a spaceship with a bunch of fancy tech would be dumber than the bottom 10% of humans, but the real explanation is just lazy/incompetent writers.
  - toast0 1y ago
    They don't make a whole lot of movies where all the characters just follow the rules, cause it wouldn't be fun to watch. Xenobiologist is tired of eating with the rest of the crew and eats in the lab instead seems reasonable. We didn't see the leadup to see the deviance normalized, we just get to see the end of it. Alien:Earth isn't the best writing, obviously, but we're how far into the series, the writing just has to be enough plot to get to the xenomorph rampage scenes. It's like plot in a video game or an adult film; you have to have it, but it doesn't matter.
    - reactordev 1y ago
      We’re at the end. The whole first season didn’t make sense after the first episode. It just nose dived. People above have already stated the obvious. It’s a popcorn series and a check box. That’s it. No staying power. No one wants to watch robot children who talk to xenomorphs make them pets. No. Just no. These creatures do not follow instructions from a tweenager. Get away from her you bitch. These are the same creatures that almost wiped out the predators… c’mon man!
    - like_any_other 1y ago
      > They don't make a whole lot of movies where all the characters just follow the rules, cause it wouldn't be fun to watch. Compare it to how they didn't follow the rules in Alien 1 then: they weren't supposed to let the facehugger victim into the spaceship due to quarantine rules. Ripley, acting as interim captain, tried to enforce that, but was overridden by Ash, the science officer [1]. A perfectly understandable action due to human empathy, but in this case, it is doubly justified since, as we later learn, Ash was an android, acting on secret orders to retrieve the alien specimen. Smart, reasonable actions from everyone involved, that didn't make anyone scream at the movie in frustration. And this was just a mining crew of ordinary workers, not the best scientific minds a multi-billionaire was able to assemble for a research expedition. Meanwhile the only justification for sticking his face into that evil-looking alien snake in Prometheus is that the guy was just a moron because he had fancy science equipment??? Also, Prometheus was written by Damon Lindelof - who also wrote Lost. The same Lost where all those mysteries turned out by series end to have been just random nonsense, with no explanation or justification ever given. Another point in favor of the incompetent writer thesis. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8cEcaK4-qA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8cEcaK4-qA
burnt-resistor 1y ago
> If human characters don't react like real humans would, I don't assume all characters are human just because they walk and talk like a duck. Blade Runner, after all. Half are synths and some are transhuman consciousness uploads. The plot continuity is shit like AI wrote it. ;-D > Lets take our helmets off in a unknown hostile enivroment? [sic] Yeah, but there are plenty of people with character traits who do do stupid shit and take stupid risks. Besides, who would volunteer for a risky mission unless they really needed the money and didn't care so much about their personal safety?
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
Bro, we had a pandemic and people refused to wear masks. The characters are the equivalent of space truckers taking off their COVID masks the first chance they get. You don't think that is realistic? I'm sorry but they act exactly how I would expect life long space truckers act. Look at how hard OSHA/regulators have to push. This was one day ago. For this to happen that guy would have to have tied off the safety switch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntr8kCLSxqk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntr8kCLSxqk People get really dumb/lazy when they get complacent. That is half the message of the franchise. Life has become routine labor, corporate control, and handing over oversight to someone else (synthetics) because everyone is on cruise control and only doing their little piece because they are on their 500th boring space trucker run.
YeGoblynQueenne 1y ago
>> Lets play with giant worms with teeth, as if in real life those things wouldn't scare the crap out of you even if they weren't alien. I think the worm thing (I thought of it as a snake, which just goes to show) is the result of an even worse sin than bad writing. I think the scene was deliberately written this way to pander to a certain type of audience member who enjoys watching dumb movies just to point out how dumb they are and thereby feel really clever. It's fan service really. I'm ... guilty of indulging in that kind of thing myself (calling out movie characters' decisions for being stupid) and I've often stopped to wonder whether I'm not being baited, after all. Sometimes I certainly think I am and in Prometheus the bit with the worm/snake was one such instance.

scotty79 1y ago

> handpicked team of professional astronauts on an interstellar mission being a bunch of complete incompetents over and over again It's set up in the future. Observing current trends it's quite realistic for everyone to be really, really dumb by then.

smcin 1y ago

Agreed. Necessary suspension of belief vs unnecessary and contradictory. For an in-depth list for 'Prometheus': "Red Letter Media talks about Prometheus" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0]. (To what extent were those due to Lindelof, not Scott?)

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

By this point, 'professional astronauts' is just another term for 'space truckers'. The film makers put in a lot of effort to point that out. Switch that in your head and it makes more sense. They have done so many routine missions, and it's all so routine, that they aren't prepared for non-routine. The whole structure of missions leaves the non-routine handling to synthetics. These are like key components of this franchise what the story it's trying to tell. We reached the stars, but became alienated from both exploration and ethics. We lost the wonder and lost control of our fate. Life has become routine labor, corporate control, and synthetic oversight that isn't looking out for our best wishes even though we assume it is.