Passengers

Passengers (2016)

6 suggested corrections

(9 votes)

Plot hole: In multiple scenes in the movie the starship is in a gentle rotation which allows 1G gravity on the ship. When the power to the propellant is cut the rotation stops and gravity is lost. Such a design for a starship doesn't make sense as the entire structure could be put in a continuous motion, as is indeed done with many probes today without requiring the continuous addition of power. Even if this design was chosen with part of the structure fixed and party of it moving around it still seems unlikely that the rotating part would come to a grinding halt within seconds (if it did, the friction of the structure would be huge, requiring enormous levels of energy to keep it moving) The only reason the movie chooses this unlikely design is to integrate the crucial shot of Aurora floating out of the pool when power is first lost.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: There are parts spinning with different speeds and directions. Spinning an entire solid ship wouldn't allow for things like that. Regardless, we can't say which starship designs make sense or not. The ship has a reactor with seemingly endless energy, so powering the rotation is not a problem. The sudden stop is because whatever spins the ship has lost power. If you try to turn an unpowered motor or engine, especially if geared, you will feel resistance because the mechanism is acting as a brake.

ironcito

Factual error: During Jim's first spacewalk, while floating, with no gravity, a tear rolls down his cheek.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: He's not in free fall. He's at the end of a tether, held taut by centripetal force. The tear should have fallen "down" into his suit's visor.

Plot hole: Gus wakes up and doesn't realise initially that he's seriously ill, although he knows he's not right. When Jim woke he was given a full body scan to check his health minutes after waking, so surely Gus must have had the same scan? When all his medical problems would have been identified. So he'd have known he was very ill minutes after waking.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Minutes after waking there was nothing wrong with his body yet, his body started to deteriorate rapidly afterwards.

lionhead

How do you know nothing was wrong with him minutes after waking up?

Because he got a full body scan like you said and nothing came up. The first sign of symptoms he shows is after they enter the bridge (or command center) and he dismisses it as something common. Before that he shows no sign of any medical problems.

lionhead

That's the mistake here - he should have had a body scan on wake-up. So did he develop multiple medical issues in the pod because his pod function was affected by the central computer being damaged by the asteroid strike? Which would fit as his pod woke him up early, a built in safety feature perhaps so people don't die in their pods? Maybe his pod wasn't working right for 2 years, so slowly damaging his body? So the wake-up body scan should have detected his multiple issues! He couldn't go from healthy to over 600 disorders in a day.

I'm not sure the pods are sensing anything, they're essentially freezers, but without freezing you. The finger connections are not sensing anything from a person in the pod as there's nothing to sense, as people are dormant. It only senses vital signs when people are woken up. So Gus blaming his pod for his medical issues is inaccurate surely? A movie mistake?

The malfunctioning pod caused his medical issues. It keeps them in cryogenic stasis. We don't know exactly how they work of course but it is more than just sensing. Basically the people inside the pods are kept dead, but the pod manages to halt any deterioration of the cells. Imagine that going wrong and the pod isn't able to keep the cells in check. Just like when exposed to high levels of radiation the cells have been damaged but there won't be any signs immediately. Only after a few hours the cells will start to break down.

lionhead

He developed several severe medical issues after being woken up too early in a pod that was malfunctioning. This is fictional, future technology and we have no idea how it works, but I think its safe to assume that the pod has to keep the entire body in check during cryosleep, and if the pod malfunctions it could cause all kinds of problems, both directly and later on. If it works on a molecular level than no issue can be detected for quite a while before problems start to show, much like with radiation poisoning when cells suddenly and rapidly start dying whilst hours or even days before you feel fine.

Other mistake: Aurora doesn't get an arm injection when she wakes up from hibernation. The device should have been seen retracting (as Jim's did) just before she got the shock to start her heart.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: We also don't see the finger clips going off her fingers. Her pod was cloudy; we see her from the other side of the injection, and it's possible this was just edited out. It could have happened, and we just didn't see it.

tsahi

Factual error: Exterior shots of the spaceship show the main thruster/engine running. In outer space, this would cause continuous acceleration meaning that, during the spacewalk, Jim would have been left behind as soon as he let go of the ship.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Not entirely correct. He will feel two inertial forces: the first is the forward acceleration you mention, and the second is the radial acceleration outward from the center of the ship, as a result of the ship's rotation. So he will be pulled to a balance point between these two forces.

tsahi

Stupidity: Gus is a blatant example of Deus Ex Machina. 1: The % of his pod malfuntion was too low. They mention multiple times how low the chances of a pod malfunction are (Jim's is the first in history), and then it happens twice? Jim's med-scanned him but Gus' didn't (?) so he had 610 things wrong with him. So he woke up dying 2: Gus' existence has only one objective: to give Jim the armband. 3: Before anything else can happen with Gus, he dies conveniently. Gus' existence had no other reason. We didn't care about him emotionally. He didn't advance the plot. He provided no new info or answers to questions. (failure cascade is easily discernible by Jim once he has access to the bridge) It would have been easier to just let Jim find an armband/access another way. DXM: holder of the macguffin magically appears (pod failure) delivers the macguffin (armband + code) goes away (dies without explanation) it's downright shameful.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: This is all your opinion of a plotline - admittedly, an utterly lame one - not a film mistake. Film criticism and error spotting are two different things.

In addition, the statistics about pod malfunctions obviously referred to spontaneous malfunctions, which had never happened. These malfunctions in the movie, however, were not spontaneous – they were caused by catastrophic failure of the ship itself due to an asteroid hit.

Continuity mistake: In the scene in the bar where Aurora discovers she was woken up, when she walks out and says to Jim "stay away from me" - she points at him initially then spreads open her fingers, but when scene cuts back to Jim a second later you see a single finger pointing.

More mistakes in Passengers

Aurora: If you live an ordinary life, all you'll have are ordinary stories.

More quotes from Passengers

Trivia: Despite receiving fifth billing, Andy Garcia is only on screen for 10 seconds and has no lines at all.

More trivia for Passengers

Question: How would they have gained access to the command ring from the main ship? The main ship arms are spinning anti clockwise and the command ring is spinning clockwise, so they're out of sync. The command ring also appears to be spinning faster.

Answer: With difficulty is the answer! Question is why are command ring and engine room spinning in different directions, to make this an issue?

Answer: To spin the ship on its axis, you have to spin it against something. You can use side rockets to push it against the thrust of the rockets, or you could push it against a core rotating in the opposite direction. The conservation of momentum, with the right balance of mass between the inner core and the outer spirals, will make the two parts rotate one against the other, without carrying fuel for the rockets.

tsahi

More questions & answers from Passengers

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.