Whether he took his helmet off or not, they're still incredibly dumb people displaying very stupid behaviour.
I've heard people try to justify the biologist's behaviour by using Kane doing similar in Alien with the alien egg. They're not too comparable for me. Firstly Kane isn't a biologist who should know better, and secondly it's an egg that is in the process of hatching with movement inside it. Of course you're going to be curious to look inside to see what it is, and being a newly born creature your first thoughts are probably not going to be that it's dangerous at that stage. The Millburn character is literally standing right in front of an alien snake-looking species with quick movements that is hissing and striking a pose that is threatening, but the guy wants to carry on trying to get nearer and touch it. He knows nothing about what dangers it can cause.
I don't even understand how these 'scientist' people are taken on this voyage of exploration with the attitudes and personalities they have. The other guy, the geologist, whose job it is to scan the area, seems to hate everyone and gets scared easily in a new location with signs of death. How do people like this get hired? It isn't believable. The original crew in Alien weren't explorers but they still acted more rationally and professionally than these guys.
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DeadMac1 (159)
5 months ago
He was in a protective space suit. The characters of the movie are not aware that they are in an Alien movie universe and expect Acid blood. I mean imagining Highly Corrosive Acid Blood and tremendous strength (unlike Earth snakes) that can break an arm off is quite far.
It was because he was a biologist, he took peculiar interest. Even on Earth, biologists perform specific hand movements to tame a snake. He applied the same logic and was trying to take control and/or examine/study the snake. The other one was a Geologist; he was genuinely frightened and stayed back. Had he been trying to tame the snake - THEN THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A FLAW !
The scene is perfectly fine and remains true to the movie universe wherein cynical characters & human hubris is depicted.
About your query on how such cynical or rather strange, less-proficient scientists ended up in the mission. The answer is Vickers. She wanted the mission to fail. And she was the one who recruited. So it's OBVIOUS, that she wouldn't recruit whole-heartedly and rather select less-proficient people who were not so capable to provide leads to what Weyland was looking for.
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spurtle467 (1499)
5 months ago
He's in a suit that looks like it could be cut and we see later on that their helmets can also be broken with force. What we know about snakes from Earth is that they can bite and they can tightly wrap themselves around their prey to suffocate them. Any normal person would apply this logic and back away but this bozo is treating it like a little kitten just when it's about ready to attack. It's a scene that was presumably supposed to be scary only it's made frustratingly laughable by the actions of these characters.
The reason they're in this mess is because the guy next to him, who has access to all the mapping equipment, gets lost. They try to make contact with the captain of the ship who is away somewhere having sex. One idiot earlier in the film took his helmet off just because they felt it was breathable air, with disregard for any harmful pathogens that could be lurking about. Another member tries to later outrun a rolling ship by running in a forward direction under its shadow. The level of incompetence and lack of intelligence from this crew is unbelievable for the mission they are on. The writers treat their audience like morons. At least in Alien when someone did something wrong, like when Ash broke protocol and let the members outside the ship in, there was pushback from Ripley. The decision to begin with felt more believable because there was panic and the crew members were in a rush to try and get help for Kane. We later learn that Ash has an ulterior motive anyway. The crew members on Prometheus just make dumb decisions for the sake of it, because the writers can't think of anything better.
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Melton (2266)
5 months ago
Why Hollywood doesn’t pay a competent screenwriter to sort out these scripts before sinking gazillions of $$$ into the project will forever baffle me.
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DeadMac1 (159)
5 months ago
You're missing lot of things. You should watch the movie and get your facts straight.
> It was a small snake and had no teeth & fangs. He wasn't a normal person but a curious biologist. Lack of proficiency was already discussed in my earlier post. Vickers wanted such scientists. So, in one way you are acknowledging the actions of the crews and the story's foundation.
> It was expressed not once but twice in the scene that the air is cleaner and much cleaner than Earth in the dome facility before Holloway removes his helmet.
> They got lost after they came back to the point where they had activated the mapping pods. The pods went and mapped further inside and hadn't mapped the exit route.
> In one particular moment, the Girls actually took a sharp 90 degrees turn but to their bad luck the ship too turned due to bad terrain. Watch the scene again and then comment. Rest of the time the falling debris were blocking them.
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spurtle467 (1499)
5 months ago
The point is he doesn't know enough about the alien snake to take any chances. He doesn't know it doesn't have any teeth or fangs about its body anywhere, or how strong it is. And yes I guess he wasn't a normal person because of how stupidly he behaved around the animal.
Also, having to excuse the characters by saying Vickers handpicked morons so that the mission would fail, is as flimsy as it gets.
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