SPOILERS: List of paradoxes / plot holes

[180924609]

List of paradoxical story logic:

Spoiler

(1) The black goo
The liquid is first revealed to be ingested by a human looking man in order to disintegrate his entire body and provide the building blocks for life to start again.

But the same black goo is then shown to be very dangerous - if touched results in immediate hideous changes the test subject's DNA. Canisters of this stuff are packed into the Juggernaut destined for earth. WTF? Are they trying to 'reset' all life on earth or create a planet full of hideous monsters?

Whats going on here? Is the black goo 'past its sell-by date'? Has it fermented over 2000 years from a disintegrator into a mutating agent, creating new life forms with accelerated growth rate and strange qualities, acid blood, giant tentacles etc? That makes no sense.


(2) Engineer's DNA = human
If the Engineer's DNA is identical to humans that means all the HR Giger visions and bio-mechanics from ALIEN have now officially been flushed down the toilet. It means that the Engineer is not a creature - he is a MAN. It means that all that 'sort-of-bio-mech' stuff on his body is nothing more than a body hugging garment like the one Shaw or Vickers is wearing. It means that all the incredible bio-mech design from ALIEN, body shaped starships, bones and ribcage exoskeleton stuff is all simply: cosmetic design! It could be any shape really, but that was the look and feel these alien humans wanted! Pathetic.


(3) Giant alien man in cave paintings --> creator of all life on earth
From the point of view of Elizabeth Shaw, how the hell does she make the leap from a correlated set of images showing a star map to KNOWING that these early 'alien' visitors engineered all life on Earth?


(4) Why wait 4 billion years, thats 4 billion years, to finally arrive at (what is presumably) the pinnacle of 'design' i.e. a human man (), simply to then destroy it? If the engineers possess the technology to create large organisms at will with a highly accelerated growth rate simply by touching the black goo? Heck one of the murals shows a michael-angelo style depiction of an apparent instantanious act of creation.

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[james757]

List of paradoxical story logic:

Spoiler

I agree with everything you said apart from this one:

(2) Engineer's DNA = human
If the Engineer's DNA is identical to humans that means all the HR Giger visions and bio-mechanics from ALIEN have now officially been flushed down the toilet. It means that the Engineer is not a creature - he is a MAN. It means that all that 'sort-of-bio-mech' stuff on his body is nothing more than a body hugging garment like the one Shaw or Vickers is wearing. It means that all the incredible bio-mech design from ALIEN, body shaped starships, bones and ribcage exoskeleton stuff is all simply: cosmetic design! It could be any shape really, but that was the look and feel these alien humans wanted! Pathetic.

The bio-design cosmetic yes? But does not mean its pathetic. It could have been completely integrated into the biology of the engineer. The bio engineering could mean its something the engineers have developed and has grown. The ships have grown.

The engineer is simply an evolved human which is way, way head by hundreds of thousands of years in evolution.

I dont think it sucks.

[close]

[Ruzena]

List of paradoxical story logic:

Spoiler

(1) The black goo
The liquid is first revealed to be ingested by a human looking man in order to disintegrate his entire body and provide the building blocks for life to start again.

But the same black goo is then shown to be very dangerous - if touched results in immediate hideous changes the test subject's DNA. Canisters of this stuff are packed into the Juggernaut destined for earth. WTF? Are they trying to 'reset' all life on earth or create a planet full of hideous monsters?

Whats going on here? Is the black goo 'past its sell-by date'? Has it fermented over 2000 years from a disintegrator into a mutating agent, creating new life forms with accelerated growth rate and strange qualities, acid blood, giant tentacles etc? That makes no sense.


(2) Engineer's DNA = human
If the Engineer's DNA is identical to humans that means all the HR Giger visions and bio-mechanics from ALIEN have now officially been flushed down the toilet. It means that the Engineer is not a creature - he is a MAN. It means that all that 'sort-of-bio-mech' stuff on his body is nothing more than a body hugging garment like the one Shaw or Vickers is wearing. It means that all the incredible bio-mech design from ALIEN, body shaped starships, bones and ribcage exoskeleton stuff is all simply: cosmetic design! It could be any shape really, but that was the look and feel these alien humans wanted! Pathetic.


(3) Giant alien man in cave paintings --> creator of all life on earth
From the point of view of Elizabeth Shaw, how the hell does she make the leap from a correlated set of images showing a star map to KNOWING that these early 'alien' visitors engineered all life on Earth?


(4) Why wait 4 billion years, thats 4 billion years, to finally arrive at (what is presumably) the pinnacle of 'design' i.e. a human man (), simply to then destroy it? If the engineers possess the technology to create large organisms at will with a highly accelerated growth rate simply by touching the black goo? Heck one of the murals shows a michael-angelo style depiction of an apparent instantanious act of creation.

[close]

It's called Lindelogic or also Lindelcock plothole syndrome.

[Rockybear]

haven't seen the film but some reviews said the small tentacle thing grown inside Shaw is confined to the med pod room?
is there anything it can eat in the med pod room?
wonder how could it grow so big as it appears at the end
(in the original Alien script the alien get crew's food supply, and if it can't, Ash would help)

[Ruzena]

haven't seen the film but some reviews said the small tentacle thing grown inside Shaw is confined to the med pod room?
is there anything it can eat in the med pod room?
wonder how could it grow so big as it appears at the end
(in the original Alien script the alien get crew's food supply, and if it can't, Ash would help)

Spoiler

I adressed this shit several times, no the octopus doesnt eat anything, it grows there at insane rate for no reason, its GIANT facehugger. Total bullshit idea and design, one of the most funny and useless monsters evar, seems like Ed Wood strikes back

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[SteaminStephen]

a massive plotpoint for me was after the medpod scene & show casually falls into the room with weyland & david. Then just has a little conversation & heads back to the temple. As if she has totally forgotten a massive squid just came out of here & noone really needed to know about it.

[Glaive]

Why does no one stop Shaw going to the med-pod?

[RoaryUK]

Here's what I think, though I don't necessarily disagree with your theories:

(1) The black goo
The liquid is first revealed to be ingested by a human looking man in order to disintegrate his entire body and provide the building blocks for life to start again.

But the same black goo is then shown to be very dangerous - if touched results in immediate hideous changes the test subject's DNA. Canisters of this stuff are packed into the Juggernaut destined for earth. WTF? Are they trying to 'reset' all life on earth or create a planet full of hideous monsters?

Whats going on here? Is the black goo 'past its sell-by date'? Has it fermented over 2000 years from a disintegrator into a mutating agent, creating new life forms with accelerated growth rate and strange qualities, acid blood, giant tentacles etc? That makes no sense.

I'll answer that with another question.  What if the 'soup' the Engineer drinks at the beginning of time isn't the goo found on LV-223? That takes care of him and how he created life

As for what the black goo does post-creation, well, the film is one hell of a mess really, I don't think we will ever know.

(2) Engineer's DNA = human
If the Engineer's DNA is identical to humans that means all the HR Giger visions and bio-mechanics from ALIEN have now officially been flushed down the toilet. It means that the Engineer is not a creature - he is a MAN. It means that all that 'sort-of-bio-mech' stuff on his body is nothing more than a body hugging garment like the one Shaw or Vickers is wearing. It means that all the incredible bio-mech design from ALIEN, body shaped starships, bones and ribcage exoskeleton stuff is all simply: cosmetic design! It could be any shape really, but that was the look and feel these alien humans wanted! Pathetic.

Not necessarily.  We know the engineer from the beginning of time is a juvenile, so it's reasonable to assume he hasn't fully developed yet.  Maybe this bio-mechanic stuff doesn't develop until later in life, maybe this deveopment even by-passed him, as some things do with humans, making him an outcast so his sacrifice didn't matter.

(3) Giant alien man in cave paintings --> creator of all life on earth
From the point of view of Elizabeth Shaw, how the hell does she make the leap from a correlated set of images showing a star map to KNOWING that these early 'alien' visitors engineered all life on Earth?

Why not, ordinary people have been decoding Hieroglyphics for centuries based either on faith or science or both?  Shaw is simply a 'believer' who (perhaps blindly) makes a leap of faith in what she sees, it doesn't mean she knows anything.  But remember, Peter Weyland believed in her too, enough to put his life on the line, so maybe it wasn't even about her at all!

(4) Why wait 4 billion years, thats 4 billion years, to finally arrive at (what is presumably) the pinnacle of 'design' i.e. a human man (), simply to then destroy it? If the engineers possess the technology to create large organisms at will with a highly accelerated growth rate simply by touching the black goo? Heck one of the murals shows a michael-angelo style depiction of an apparent instantanious act of creation.

I've already explained my extensive thoughts on this in another thread so not doing it again here.  Put simply, what if we were created against the wishes of the engineer's hierarchy, by some rogue engineers who simply wanted to find their origins, the hierarchy knows nothing about this for years and of course, when they find out they seek to destroy us.

[Berserker Pred]

Here's what I think, though I don't necessarily disagree with your theories:

(1) The black goo
The liquid is first revealed to be ingested by a human looking man in order to disintegrate his entire body and provide the building blocks for life to start again.

But the same black goo is then shown to be very dangerous - if touched results in immediate hideous changes the test subject's DNA. Canisters of this stuff are packed into the Juggernaut destined for earth. WTF? Are they trying to 'reset' all life on earth or create a planet full of hideous monsters?

Whats going on here? Is the black goo 'past its sell-by date'? Has it fermented over 2000 years from a disintegrator into a mutating agent, creating new life forms with accelerated growth rate and strange qualities, acid blood, giant tentacles etc? That makes no sense.

I'll answer that with another question.  What if the 'soup' the Engineer drinks at the beginning of time isn't the goo found on LV-223? That takes care of him and how he created life

As for what the black goo does post-creation, well, the film is one hell of a mess really, I don't think we will ever know.

(2) Engineer's DNA = human
If the Engineer's DNA is identical to humans that means all the HR Giger visions and bio-mechanics from ALIEN have now officially been flushed down the toilet. It means that the Engineer is not a creature - he is a MAN. It means that all that 'sort-of-bio-mech' stuff on his body is nothing more than a body hugging garment like the one Shaw or Vickers is wearing. It means that all the incredible bio-mech design from ALIEN, body shaped starships, bones and ribcage exoskeleton stuff is all simply: cosmetic design! It could be any shape really, but that was the look and feel these alien humans wanted! Pathetic.

Not necessarily.  We know the engineer from the beginning of time is a juvenile, so it's reasonable to assume he hasn't fully developed yet.  Maybe this bio-mechanic stuff doesn't develop until later in life, maybe this deveopment even by-passed him, as some things do with humans, making him an outcast so his sacrifice didn't matter.

(3) Giant alien man in cave paintings --> creator of all life on earth
From the point of view of Elizabeth Shaw, how the hell does she make the leap from a correlated set of images showing a star map to KNOWING that these early 'alien' visitors engineered all life on Earth?

Why not, ordinary people have been decoding Hieroglyphics for centuries based either on faith or science or both?  Shaw is simply a 'believer' who (perhaps blindly) makes a leap of faith in what she sees, it doesn't mean she knows anything.  But remember, Peter Weyland believed in her too, enough to put his life on the line, so maybe it wasn't even about her at all!

(4) Why wait 4 billion years, thats 4 billion years, to finally arrive at (what is presumably) the pinnacle of 'design' i.e. a human man (), simply to then destroy it? If the engineers possess the technology to create large organisms at will with a highly accelerated growth rate simply by touching the black goo? Heck one of the murals shows a michael-angelo style depiction of an apparent instantanious act of creation.

I've already explained my extensive thoughts on this in another thread so not doing it again here.  Put simply, what if we were created against the wishes of the engineer's hierarchy, by some rogue engineers who simply wanted to find their origins, the hierarchy knows nothing about this for years and of course, when they find out they seek to destroy us.

Did I miss something that stated he was a juvenile? 

[RoaryUK]

Did I miss something that stated he was a juvenile? 

Yes, if you mean the sacrifice engineer, you'll find confirmation of it here by the guy who played him:
http://ifonlyuk.com/interviews/interview-daniel-twiss/

[Berserker Pred]

Did I miss something that stated he was a juvenile? 

Yes, if you mean the sacrifice engineer, you'll find confirmation of it here by the guy who played him:
http://ifonlyuk.com/interviews/interview-daniel-twiss/

Thank you! I remember reading it now.

[180924609]

@RoaryUK

(RUK1) As for what the black goo does post-creation, well, the film is one hell of a mess really, I don't think we will ever know.

>> Black-goo is clearly a total shambles be-anything-that-the-scene-requires mcguffin. A bit like The Light and The Black Smoke from Lindelof's Lost.


(RUK2) Not necessarily.  We know the engineer from the beginning of time is a juvenile, so it's reasonable to assume he hasn't fully developed yet.  Maybe this bio-mechanic stuff doesn't develop until later in life, maybe this deveopment even by-passed him, as some things do with humans, making him an outcast so his sacrifice didn't matter.

>> Shaw registers the LV223 Engineer's DNA as a perfect match for human DNA. Humans dont have bio-mech exoskeleton and arm pads growing on outer body so therefore the Engineer outer body - that we all assumed was a part of his body - is purely a skin suit.


(RUK3) Why not, ordinary people have been decoding Hieroglyphics for centuries based either on faith or science or both?  Shaw is simply a 'believer' who (perhaps blindly) makes a leap of faith in what she sees, it doesn't mean she knows anything.  But remember, Peter Weyland believed in her too, enough to put his life on the line, so maybe it wasn't even about her at all!

>> Shaw and Holloway cant read the hieroglyphics for shit:
Holloway: "Please tell me you can read that"


(RUK4) I've already explained my extensive thoughts on this in another thread so not doing it again here.  Put simply, what if we were created against the wishes of the engineer's hierarchy, by some rogue engineers who simply wanted to find their origins, the hierarchy knows nothing about this for years and of course, when they find out they seek to destroy us.

>> 4 billion years is a hell of a long time for 'Gods' not to notice us.

[Nero the Jackal]

Perhaps just like humans, suits and ships look slightly different.

I do not see much plot hole or paradoxes in the film because while it is set in the same universe and before the events of alien, the plot is not about the events that lead to the ship crashing on LV-426.

LV-223 was a R&D planet where they could do dangerous stuff safely away from their home world, now on that planet there was more than one dome and in each dome there were at least maybe two ships.

So it is not hard to imagine that when the chips were down, one ship got off either to escape or continue it's mission to wipe out mankind. The ship, which is known as the derelict obviously never got far.
Maybe each dome had different hostile aliens which had the common source of being descended from the black stuff but was mixed with different species to get different effects.

[Hive Tyrant]

Was it actually stated they created life on Earth 4 billion years ago? I just assumed they showed up in time to inject their own genes into the gene pool and bazinga, humans.