Lauren WeinsteinSep 14, 2025

While "Alien" (1979) is widely considered to be among the most important sci-fi films of all time, it features an absolutely glaring, unforgivable error in its first scene.

The film opens as we slowly explore the dim bridge of the star freighter Nostromo, empty with its crew long in hibernation. We pan the creepy interior, which includes a classic bobbing duck toy busily bobbing into a small container of liquid. And ... wait a sec. Hold everything!

The crew is in hibernation. That appears to be an ordinary container of what is probably water, sitting alone, unconnected to any tubes, pipes, or other infrastructure. Any liquid in that container would evaporate completely in a matter of days. If the duck can't dip into liquid to moisten its beak, it will stop bobbing.

There's nobody around to refill that container, no sign of any mechanism to do so.

This shameful lack of realism could have ruined the entire film. Luckily, most people didn't notice this nightmarish error.

Show threadMichael GemarSep 14, 2025
@lauren Alternate theory: There is a slow drip from the ceiling, and instead of bothering to do the work of tracking it down and fixing it, Parker just put a cup under it to catch the water, and used the bobbing duck to enhance its evaporation.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinSep 14, 2025
@michaelgemar Hmm. I would think if you knew there was a water leak, given how such things can quickly get worse, you'd definitely want to fix it BEFORE going into hibernation. Yeah.
Show threadMichael GemarSep 14, 2025

@lauren Neither Parker nor Brett seem particularly conscientious.

(Funny story: the condo unit above ours was between rental tenants and thus empty, and the owner found a slow leak in toilet’s external valve. They chose to deal with this problem by putting a bucket under it to catch the drips and left it. This went on in the unoccupied unit for some time before the eventually overflowing bucket flooded the bathroom upstairs and then came through our bathroom ceiling. So yeah, people be dumb.)

Show threadLauren WeinsteinSep 14, 2025

@michaelgemar Long ago, one evening I walked into the UCLA ARPANET machine room and water was pouring down into the room near the line printer coming from the suspended ceiling. I made a call and the decision was made to turn off ALL accessible equipment in the room. Since the breakers were not accessible, I had to turn off all the power supplies from two PDP 11/45s, a whole bunch of peripherals, and the IMP. Tried to cover stuff with whatever plastic was available.

The cause? Something like two floors up, a water hose for a photo developing rinse setup had slipped, the water was following the path of least resistance until it got to our computer room and SPLASHOLA!

Show threadMichael Gemar
@lauren Water is insidious. It will get to places in a building you *definitely* don’t water to be.
Sep 14, 2025 at 9:09pmWeb
Show threadLauren WeinsteinSep 14, 2025
@michaelgemar One weekend I came in to do some work in that same computer room and the elevator I usually took was sitting there with this terrible dripping sound coming from it. I looked through the floor gap into the hoistway and it was filling with water! Ugh. I took the stairs, and when I got up to the computer room I called physical plant (or it may have been the campus police, since physical plant was probably closed during the weekend).