10 Movie "Plot Holes" You're Getting Completely Wrong

5. Prometheus - How Did Fifield And Millburn Get Lost?

Prometheus Trilobite
20th Century Studios

It cannot be argued that the characters in Prometheus make some insanely dumb decisions at times (just run sideways, Vickers!), but not everything bad that happens to them can be attributed to their own poor judgement.

Early in the film, the titular ship lands on a seemingly deserted rocky planet, before the crew heads off to explore a nearby structure. While inside, two members of the team - Fifield and Millburn - get spooked and decide to head back to the ship, but they end up getting lost instead, and are subsequently attacked by a vicious alien Hammerpede.

Considering that the two are well-educated men (Millburn is a biologist and Fifield is a geologist), their behaviour here seems completely nonsensical, and while it was definitely foolish of Millburn to try and pet the Hammerpede, the fact that they both got lost in the first place isn't the big issue that a lot of people make it out to be.

The common perception of this sequence is that Fifield and Millburn somehow became stranded inside the structure, even though the advanced gear they were carrying included a map to help them out. Plot hole!

But here's the thing: they didn't have a map.

When the team first enters the structure, they throw a few "pups" into the air, which fly down a corridor and begin the process of mapping the area. This data is then sent back to the Prometheus, but it isn't sent to each individual crew member's gear. To put it simply, Fifield and Millburn got lost because they were in uncharted territory with no idea which way to go, not because they forgot to read a map.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!