10 Sci-Fi Movies That Broke All The Rules

It goes without saying that most sci-fi films feature at least a few scientist characters, and more often than not, we as audiences expect these characters to be smarter than your average person, right?

Then there's Ridley Scott's Prometheus, which treats most of its scientists like they're the clueless, bumbling fools you'd expect to see in, say, a slasher movie.

In particular there's Fifield (Sean Harris) and Milburn (Rafe Spall), a geologist and biologist respectively who not only get high while on manoeuvres, but also get lost despite being the ones responsible for actually mapping the alien planet.

Further in the case of Milburn, he even wilfully engages with an alien creature which, predictably, attacks and kills him.

That's not to ignore archaeologists Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) arrogantly believing the ancient cave paintings to be an invitation to humanity, and everyone basically doing the exact opposite of what their survival instincts should have them do - above all else, removing their helmets.

The idiocy of the supposedly smart characters was one of the most pervasive fan complaints about the movie, an issue which inexplicably continued into sequel Alien: Covenant.

At least most of the Covenant's crew were colonists rather than scientists, so it was slightly more excusable.