Factual error: The type of surgery shown made by the machine transversely cuts the rectus abdominis muscles. Besides not being a standard surgical incision in order to "remove a foreign body" as stated, it seriously damages important muscles of the abdominal wall making any immediate active mobilization of the trunk virtually impossible, even under strong analgesia.
Factual error: Carbon dating cannot be used without knowing the amount of C14 in the atmosphere and its evolution in history. Using this method just after arriving at an alien planet is impossible.
Factual error: As the ship lands the ship's voice states "temperature at 2.725 K." At that temperature, only helium would be a gas. All others would be frozen solid, thus probably no atmosphere. In a virtual vacuum. It would be virtually impossible for a breathable atmosphere to be present within the structure. This temperature is incompatible with life.
Continuity mistake: When Charlie gives Ellie a rose, the stem starts out long, but when he puts it into a cup the stem is half the size.
Continuity mistake: The 2 who are left behind to spend the first night there, due to the storm, are sprayed with a horrible spray when one cuts the alien creature as it wraps around the second's arm. They both get spray on their faceplates, but in the next shot the one that hasn't got it wrapped around its arm has no spray on his faceplate.
Factual error: In the beginning of the film strands of DNA from the engineer are shown degrading completely and then randomly reforming. That way would be impossible to get similar strands of DNA which are implied in the film to be in our cells. Only through replication is a DNA strand able to divide into two similar ones.
Suggested correction: It was never explicitly stated that we evolved from the Engineers. We might just be some experiment they created from completely different DNA.
Factual error: When Shaw sacrifices the engineer to the alien she rolls out of the escape pod and lands with her hand and Holloway's ring showing. If the atmosphere was that toxic she would be dead and the suit would not be able to hold air pressure,.
Suggested correction: If the air is toxic, that doesn't mean she'd die from it right away. And the air pressure doesn't matter as it's been established that the pressure on the planet is about the same as what they are used to, or is in their suits when the other crew member removed his helmet before.
Other mistake: Charlie gets up and goes to the bathroom, where he finds a sink full of water ready for him, although he didn't ask a machine to do it and he didn't fill it himself.
Other mistake: When Dr Shaw is in the medical "machine", and she wants an abdominal operation, a voice says, "Preparing anaesthetics," but all it does is wipe a line on her stomach with something brown - could be betadine. But Shaw screams and yells in pain. If it really is a "machine" that can perform surgery, well, surely it could put the patient under an anaesthetic that knocks them out, properly.
