10 Dumbest Decisions In Sci-Fi Movie History

7. Breaking Quarantine - Life

The first rule of sci-fi movies is you don't break quarantine, but it's one that so many thoughtlessly break to the frustration of emotionless science nerds everywhere.

Ridley Scott's Alien memorably has Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the smartest person in the room, refusing to admit Kane (John Hurt) and the other crew members back into the ship without going through quarantine first, but of course, she's overruled by Ash (Ian Holm), who has other, more malevolent interests at heart.

2017's Alien-aping sci-fi romp Life doesn't have quite the same excuse for the doody hitting the fan, though, as once the extra-terrestrial lifeform Calvin attacks crew member Hugh (Ariyon Bakare), engineer Rory (Ryan Reynolds) brashly decides to flout quarantine procedure in an attempt to rescue him. Spoiler: Rory dies, Calvin grows bigger as a result and is then able to escape confinement.

This has the knock-on effect of allowing Calvin to munch his way through most of the remaining crew until, in the film's climax, he makes his way to Earth and we're left to imagine the havoc he'll wreak.

Astronauts are supposed to go through rigorous mental health checks to ensure that, among other things, they won't make emotional, illogical decisions over pragmatic choices in panic scenarios.

Yet in this film, nobody listens to the quarantine officer (Rebecca Ferguson) and everybody bites it as a result.