A Science Fiction Love Story Movie That Isn’t

Science fiction movies, especially those that involve space travel, generally allow human logic in their characters.  At least, it is logic that goes with the plot. Most of them that involve hyper-sleep while traveling to other planets, are with a purpose of conducting something scientific or capitalistic.

In the second movie in the Alien franchise, the movie tells us that they sent a group of settlers to a planet that is inhabited by alien creatures whose sole purpose is to use human bodies as hosts to give birth to reproduce more aliens.

In the movie Avatar, we see scientists and mercenaries travel to a moon for a company that is stripping it of natural resources. In Avatar, the people on the ship were in hyper-sleep for 5 years.

What about a movie where Earthlings pay money to be put on a space ship to travel so far away, that they will be in hyper sleep for 120 years?  The only reason that the movie gives to us is that the people want to start over.

The movie I’m talking about is Passengers.  Since first seeing Chris Pratt in the movie Jurassic World, I became a fan.  In fact, I became so much of a fan that I looked up other movies he appeared in before Jurassic World and watched them, such as Guardians of the Galaxy.  I also like science fiction movies, so you might say that with Chris Pratt being in Passengers, I had to see the movie.

Some of you might have seen the movie, and some who haven’t might want to see it, so I won’t go into many details about the story line. What I would like to talk about is the lack of human logic that for me, ruined the rest of the story.   Due to an accident that happens while 5000 people are in hyper-sleep, one character’s pod opens.  He awakes to find out that he woke up 90 years too soon.   The pods do not allow to put people back to sleep once they have awakened.

The ship’s crew is also in hyper sleep in a section of the ship that cannot be accessed from the outside.  There is no way to communicate with Earth, and no way to get inside the room that holds the crew to wake them up.  After a year of being alone, the man purposefully wakes up a woman.  When she finds out that he woke her up, she accuses him of murdering her.

Okay.  I can see why she thinks being awakened 88 years before the ship arrives on the Homestead II planet could be the same as murdering her because while in hyper sleep, she doesn’t age.  Her hair doesn’t grow or change style.  Had she been left to sleep the entire 120 years she would have been in her same physical stage as she was when placed in her pod — when the trip began.  Then, her aging process would begin and she would eventually die, but on a planet with 5000 other people rather than on a space ship where only one man is awake.

The idea behind the space ship is that the humans trusted the technology of man.  The ship was suppose to be indestructible,  much like the Titanic.  One of the ads for the movie says, “There is a reason they woke up.”   That gives you an idea that the ship was not indestructible, but I asked myself while watching the movie, what was the reason they wanted to sleep for 120 years to travel to another planet anyway?

The company that sold tickets to 5000 people to travel for 120 years, was not a company sending scientists, teachers, doctors and other professions to start settling on a new planet.  Anyone who could afford a ticket could take the trip.  For instance, the woman who was awakened 88 years too early, was a writer.

Imagine man having the technology to place humans in hyper sleep for hundreds of years.  Why would we want to leave the planet Earth?   Waking up after 120 years is a new start no matter what planet you’re on.   Imagine the changes in technology, medicine, law.

Why would 5000 people want to arrive on a new planet where they start off 120 years behind?  Even if the ship returned to Earth for a new batch of folks, it would be 240 years before they reached the planet.  Someone help me do the math, please.  How many generations of people would there be on the new planet and how many years behind would they be in everything by the time the new settlers arrived?

Why not be safe on planet Earth where others are awake to make sure you continue your sleep for 120 years, and when you wake-up, to have people fill you in on what has happened while you were asleep?

Passengers might have kept my attention much better had it given a logical reason for why the ship was carrying 5000 humans on a 120-year trip.  In my opinion, the reasons given in the movie removes it from the science fiction genre.  Okay — there is a message that only love has meaning, and of course Chris Pratt is no stranger to playing roles where he is willing to sacrifice himself so others might live.   That is the only reason I was able to watch the movie through to the end.