There's just too much suspension of disbelief that has to happen, here
Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie. I'm a big sci-fan in general, although a lot of the time we get recycled plots and ideas over and over. But lately it just seems like they're all the same: A) something makes them deviate from the plan and B) everything that goes wrong after that is a coincidence and just happens to spell doom for them.
I could buy one thing going wrong, but not so many things in a row. It's one thing if they depend on each other, like dominoes or some sort of cascade effect. But you've not only got Icarus I suddenly showing up out there with a distress call, you've also got Trey making a huge mistake. And you just happen to have a dude left alive on the Iracus I. Who just happens to have gone psycho. And you just happen to have a ship's therapist who's slightly crazy on his own.
Just too much of this movie didn't work for me. I can suspend my disbelief...you have to if you're going to be a fan of sci-fi movies. But for this movie to work I had to suspend disbelief about the following:
1) And this was my big problem with Prometheus, too: I cannot believe, I simply cannot stop myself from disbelieving that there would not be an *extremely* rigorous process to weed out people who buckle under pressure, people who have their own agenda, people who will not put the mission first, etc. Instead we've got movies where regular people seem to be thrown together in a tin can millions of miles from Earth, and then their personalities start dictating how the movie goes. I cannot believe, especially for missions so terribly vital, that they would not be EXTREMELY selective in who they send. Why would we have a therapist obsessed with the sun to the point where he's sunburning himself? Why would we have a second-in-command who puts himself above the mission? The only character in this movie that I really bought was Mace.
2) I don't think they ever adequately address their decision to divert to the Iracus I. Sure, I get that a second chance at delivering a payload is seductive. But is there any particular reason why they endangered their primary mission by diverting instead of delivering their payload FIRST, then going for the Icarus I if it didn't work?
3) Things start going wrong when Trey makes a heinous mistake in not adjusting the shields after entering their course correction. I won't even go into how unlikely it is that he would forget something so important. Human error definitely exists. But I can't believe there wouldn't be an automated failsafe that would prevent that from happening. Icraus II is so intelligent that it can detect five living humans when there should be four, and it can override Cassie when it feels the mission is in jeopardy. I can't believe they'd leave something like sun-shielding to chance.
4) When they make it over to Icarus I, they comment on all of the dust. One of the crew members says dust is mostly human skin. Which is A) incorrect...that is a common myth and B) probably impossible in the amounts they're seeing, even if it were true. Particularly since most of the crew died six and a half years ago and presumably aren't shedding skin cells anymore, and the only living person doesn't seem to have much skin left!
5) While we're on the subject of those dead crew members, and the Searle's fascination with watching the sun through the screen... Why does the screen even have the option of viewing the sun at anything more than 3.1% if it causes irreparable damage? Just seems like another one of those safety features that would've been built in.
6) Pinbacker, the crazy captain of Icarus I: Why did he go crazy? What about that rigorous selection process? Why didn't the crew of Icarus II bother counting bodies? How did he survive for seven years? We're supposed to believe that he's *beep* crazy AND sane enough to work the hydroponics section? That he's lost his grip on reality and yet somehow knows how to keep vegetables growing and oxygen flowing and to ration his water? How is all of his flesh burnt and he's surely malnourished, and yet he's stronger than every crew member of Icarus II? How does he know the codes to Icarus II? Sure, he'd probably have the knowledge on how to sabotage the ship, but surely the security codes would have changed? For that matter, in seven years probably the technology changed, too. Why was not only HIS vision all blurry and crazy when he looked at someone, but everyone else's vision was blurry and crazy when they looked at HIM? How did he get to the Icarus II? Did Icarus II not notice that the airlock had been engaged? How did he violently de-couple the airlocks from *inside* the airlock? Just...come on, already!
7) Really? There's only one suit in the airlock on Icarus I? Any particular reason there'd only be one suit on a ship full of seven people or so? Any particular reason Kapa couldn't have blown over to Icarus II, picked up a new suit, blown it back over there for someone? Or towed over an extra? Any reason they couldn't have just kept doing that until they got transferred?
8) I realize that the mainframe is probably meant to be worked on when it's not sitting down in the coolant, but I'd also have to think the designers would understand that perhaps it might become jammed at some point. You'd think they would have, at the very least, included something akin to a dry suit for Mace to wear when he's trying to fix the mainframes after putting them back in the coolant. But given that Mace is one of the few characters in this movie who I feel accurately reflects what a real crew member would be like in this type of situation, and it's a good scene, I'll allow it.
There's a lot of other little stuff, but I won't go on anymore. In general, I feel that this had potential, and was still a decent movie, but it took too many liberties and shortcuts, and embraced too many sci-fi movie cliches to really be original.