10 Movies That Chose The Wrong Lead Character

Passengers was one of 2016's most hotly anticipated films, the star pairing of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt in a big-budget sci-fi romance having box office gravy written all over it.

And yet, it ultimately released to a fairly muted response from critics and audiences alike due to the rather contentious characterisation of protagonist Jim Preston (Pratt).

After being awoken from cryosleep 90 years early and spending a year living on his own on a spaceship, Jim decides to wake up a fellow passenger, Aurora Lane (Lawrence).

The problem, of course, is that rather than focus on this action as a product of Jim's understandable loneliness, the script tries to segue it into a genuinely affecting love story in which a selfish schmuck romances the smoking hot woman he irreversibly woke from slumber against her will.

Many critics noted that a big part of the problem is its point of view, and that having the story unfold from Aurora's perspective rather than Jim's would've positioned the empathy in a more agreeable way.

It still would've faced an uphill struggle to convince audiences that Jim's act wasn't one of total scumbaggery - even accepting his suicidal loneliness - but given that we're firmly on Aurora's side, having us experience events alongside her would've righted a lot of the script's inherent tonal issues.