6.7 KiB
Life (2017)
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Author: u/totorox92 Because I want to Know*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/6roycn/life_2017/
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Score: 39
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Created: 2017-08-05T01:23:40
Post:
Okay, are we still allowed to talk about movies which fail at basic rationality? Cause I've got a doozy. Spoilers ahead.
Life is about alien microorganisms brought back from Mars to be studied in quarantine on the ISS. To help preserve quarantine, a representative from the CDC is along for the ride, to make sure nothing goes wrong. Spoilers! Shit goes wrong.
Now, having problems arise is... fine. We need a source of drama after all. What's not okay? Basically everything else.
So, to maintain quarantine, they have a special module attached to the ISS. When Calvin (the alien) breaks out of the sample box, he'd still be stuck behind the second firewall, the specialized compartment. Except apparently the compartment was juryrigged for the purpose: when Calvin starts to attack the crew inside the quarantine capsule, Ryan Reynolds tries to use the incinerator (which somehow also works as a flamethrower) to kill it. It doesn't work. He keeps trying though. Then, after he runs out of fuel, the flamethrower drifts into the fire suppression system, triggering the equivalent of sprinklers, which provide an escape path for Calvin into the ISS general systems.
This is just dumb. First, if the incinerator was out of fuel, how did it still have a little flame to trigger the suppressors? The astronaut keeping at something which doesn't work is excusable, people get scared, it happens. But being out of fuel means no more fire. Second, the alien had been expected for more than 8 months. They even had a new crewmate called up just to handle quarantine; how did they miss something as obvious as having separate systems? That's basically the definition of quarantine!
Moving on; no one aboard except for the CDC girl knew quarantine procedures.
What.
Seriously; when the alien initially breaks out of its box, everyone immediately tries to get inside the quarantine chamber in order to save the trapped scientist. Do they not understand what quarantine means? Later, in a surprise twist that everyone should have seen coming, it turns out that the ISS itself is supposed to be the third level of safety. If Calvin breaks out of his little box (apparently they didn't design it very well) and out of the special chamber (which was basically only separated by, a door) then the ISS itself could be hurled into deep space to keep the Earth safe. But the CDC lady was keeping this a secret! She had to confess that the 'rescue mission' (which for some reason was manned) was actually there to push the ISS into an escape trajectory. Allowing yet another catastrophe, because they didn't tell one of the other astronauts that there would be no rescue!
I mean, the list goes on:
They can't call for rescue because the liquid cooling system for the transmitter is connected to every other water source on the ship, and Calvin gets in and eats it.
The Guy who messes up the 'rescue attempt' didn't know about anything that was going on because somehow he was the only person whose headset broke, after he deliberately ran away from the safe areas of the station.
No one appears to have any idea that actions have consequences, even firing the attitude thrusters on the ISS randomly, forcing it into a decaying trajectory.
Their final plan relies on a human holding a switch down in the capsule with the alien, when the alien has demonstrated high intelligence and super-human strength.
I mean, a lot of the bad luck can be called just that: bad luck. Things happen, wrenches get thrown into the works, that's just life. But these are trained professionals, with a grounding in science and engineering. Saying 'we've never had a situation like this before!' because there's an alien aboard is fine, but all the other problems they face are ones they should know how to deal with, and yet somehow don't.
I'm not even going to touch how only one person on the station was actually willing to except the inevitable and die (pointlessly) for the greater good, when everyone involved in the project (which had been more than 8 months coming remember) should have known that was an entirely likely outcome.
Comments:
u/XellosPY [+24] (an hour later)
If Life annoyed you then don't watch Alien:Covenant; it'll give you an aneurysm. It's probably the worst case of characters being stupid for plot purposes I've seen.
u/totorox92 [+14] Because I want to Know (2 hours later)
I wouldn't mind it so much in an Alien movie; I'm not expecting that to be anything clever. But Life looked like it was trying to be something sort of thought provoking an intellectual (I mean just look at that pretentious title), and so finding it to be... not that, made me pretty pissed... I actually had that movie on my list, thanks for reminding me.
u/XellosPY [+7] (2 hours later)
Yeah, I know what you mean. I had huge expectations for Life and it starts rather well, but as soon as Ryan Reynolds goes into the lab to try and save the idiot scientist the movie goes into a downward spiral. The characters are completely irrational and unprofessional and the ISS seems to be designed to make quarantine as difficult as possible. Also I hated that the alien gets a face after it evolves enough, making it so different form what the usual monster designs was one of the only creepy things in the movie.
Make sure to come back with your opinion about Alien! I think it'll surprise you with just how dumb it gets.
u/totorox92 [+9] Because I want to Know (5 hours later)
Okay, I get what you mean. There's like, three scenes where someone goes: "Do the thing!" "We can't do the thing, we will literally die!" "Do the thing anyway!"
And on top of that, the stand in captain is a weenie who apologizes for things he shouldn't. Checking out the planet is a no-risk scenario up front, a week out of the way on a 7 year trip. Then, the girl who was hanging out on the lander starts freaking out for, at the time, no apparent reason, and blows up the lander by firing wildly in every direction, and why do they even have guns on a colony ship in the first place? And again, their final plan is pointlessly convoluted, they can lock the thing into any compartment with their sensibly blastdoored ship, and instead they lure it into a complicated trap?
It didn't seem to trip too many switches though; most of the problems could be chalked up to being an action/horror movie where we expect them to be kind of dumb. It could have been Cabin in the Woods, but I dunno if I'd call it unusually egregious for its genre.