What affinity? We didn't see him pour through the records of several women, trying to pick the candidate he clicked with the most... as if you could tell by someone's file... Instead he stalker researched the hot girl he saw...

Why would he care about her roundtrip fare? by waking her up he is already condemning her to live and die on the ship...

I think you guys are bringing a lot of your empathy for Aurora into the situation. He didn't seem to have any for her and was chasing his physical instincts...

He's putting his needs ahead of hers, whether or not he cares about her... that's clear, what is open for interpretation is what is motivations were... I think the reasons were sexual and that he went about it in a creepy way...

So you guys really think he woke her up because he was in love?

It's true, we don't know whether or not he looked at any other "candidates". He seemed to have been smitten with Aurora from the get go. But wasn't it also her writing, her ideas, her way of expressing herself that captivated him? Maybe he didn't feel he could do better with any of the other women.

Significance of the round-trip ticket? People colonize for different reasons. Some seek to escape their old lives, their debt, or relationships, some seek adventure, some seek wealth, some seek the solitude an under-populated region can provide ... any of these reasons might cause a person to be amenable to the compromise of living aboard the ship, in effect "colonizing" the ship rather than a planet. All that's really changed is the location.

Isn't that, in effect, what they wound up doing, colonizing the ship instead of Homestead?

But Aurora clearly had a plan, a precise one that Jim shredded when he woke her. That's why her round-trip ticket made her a bad choice.

Under the circumstances, surrounded by thousands of helpless, sleeping people, pretty much anything he does is going to seem creepy. I just don't have a problem with him researching & learning as much about the person he plans to waken as possible.

Putting his needs over hers? Yes. But getting back to Gus's drowning man analogy, we can hardly fault him for reaching out rather than just quietly sinking into the depths. Maybe the person he grabs drowns with him, or maybe that person manages to pull him up, to safety. I think in Aurora's case, it was definitely the latter.

Ok... let's do a thought experiment... imagine that instead of Chris Pratt, Jim was played by someone less clean-cut and who you don't know as a nice/goofy guy from other movies... Someone like a young Gary Oldman, Sam Rockwell or Cillian Murphy...

Then play the movie the same way... really imagine it... It's much clearer how creepy and sex driven his actions are, when they're not dressed up in a smily, nice-looking guy like Chris Pratt...

It's only a movie. A great movie, but just a movie.

haha... that's true... it's a lot better than I though it would be when i saw that Chris Pratt was the male lead...

@PhelpsFan said:

You have a point, but look at it this way: If you were in his situation and you had a chance to wake up Jennifer Lawrence (even if was unethical to do so) wouldn't you do it? Maybe Chris felt that he could get through his situation better with a human than a sex-bot.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.

Dang your signature! I find myself continually starting to read it every time. I've gotten better though, i usually stop at the beginning of "your" now.

Wow. I didn't think that one line from All About Eve could cause such a reaction! Thank you (I think).

@Renovatio said:

Ok... let's do a thought experiment... imagine that instead of Chris Pratt, Jim was played by someone less clean-cut and who you don't know as a nice/goofy guy from other movies... Someone like a young Gary Oldman, Sam Rockwell or Cillian Murphy...

Then play the movie the same way... really imagine it... It's much clearer how creepy and sex driven his actions are, when they're not dressed up in a smily, nice-looking guy like Chris Pratt...

Sorry, but I don't see how that really illuminates anything. I'm not that familiar with Chris Pratt to begin with. He was pretty much a new face to me in Passengers. Now I can see how another actor might have made the film something altogether different, something more suspenseful, with Jim becoming an antagonist, but that would also require a different screenplay.

As for "creepy" & "sex driven", well, yeah, sex is an issue. It's just not the only one. Would waking a woman at random have been less "creepy"? Suppose she turned out to be a lesbian, or traveling with her husband & kids?

Once you accept Jim's decision to wake somebody, then learning all he can about that person makes total sense.

If you don't accept that decision, regardless of the potential consequences, then it's always going to be wrong, be imbued with all of the worst motives.

@PhelpsFan said:

It's only a movie. A great movie, but just a movie.

But a really great & intriguing, what would yo do, premise....

@PhelpsFan said:

Wow. I didn't think that one line from All About Eve could cause such a reaction! Thank you (I think).

I found adding a bunch of dashes creates a solid line.

@Andykkk said:

As for "creepy" & "sex driven", well, yeah, sex is an issue. It's just not the only one. Would waking a woman at random have been less "creepy"? Suppose she turned out to be a lesbian, or traveling with her husband & kids?

Once you accept Jim's decision to wake somebody, then learning all he can about that person makes total sense.

If you don't accept that decision, regardless of the potential consequences, then it's always going to be wrong, be imbued with all of the worst motives.

Interesting perspective

I see creepy and sex driven as two separate things... Waking her up was motivated by sex, it's the stalker research that was creepy... You could have had the former without the latter...

I'm just arguing against the sentimental narrative that Jim woke her up for companionship, human connection and such... I don't see it, he was always more bored than lonely and contemplative... To me it seems that the guy wanted to get laid and all the research/getting to know her before he wakes her stuff is at best a rationalisation and more likely a creepy way to hedge his bets...

I'm not against sentimentality, but I find that it's used in this movie to mask what could be very interesting ideas about our morality once society disappears and about our will to survive and propagate, etc... And I include the hollywood ending as part of this veneer of sentimentality...

Also, as a romantic, if you get rid of the creepy research part then the subsequent seduction and falling in love is both more interesting, sincere and powerful... Also, you would really feel that something real would be at stake when the lie is exposed... But I'll concede that this point is subjective

I agree with you that the morality of the decision to wake her up is independent of these other issues..

@lantzn :Thanks for the advice. How does this look?

------Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night-------

@Renovatio said:

@Andykkk said:

As for "creepy" & "sex driven", well, yeah, sex is an issue. It's just not the only one. Would waking a woman at random have been less "creepy"? Suppose she turned out to be a lesbian, or traveling with her husband & kids?

Once you accept Jim's decision to wake somebody, then learning all he can about that person makes total sense.

If you don't accept that decision, regardless of the potential consequences, then it's always going to be wrong, be imbued with all of the worst motives.

Interesting perspective

I see creepy and sex driven as two separate things... Waking her up was motivated by sex, it's the stalker research that was creepy... You could have had the former without the latter...

I'm just arguing against the sentimental narrative that Jim woke her up for companionship, human connection and such... I don't see it, he was always more bored than lonely and contemplative... To me it seems that the guy wanted to get laid and all the research/getting to know her before he wakes her stuff is at best a rationalisation and more likely a creepy way to hedge his bets...

I'm not against sentimentality, but I find that it's used in this movie to mask what could be very interesting ideas about our morality once society disappears and about our will to survive and propagate, etc... And I include the hollywood ending as part of this veneer of sentimentality...

Also, as a romantic, if you get rid of the creepy research part then the subsequent seduction and falling in love is both more interesting, sincere and powerful... Also, you would really feel that something real would be at stake when the lie is exposed... But I'll concede that this point is subjective

I agree with you that the morality of the decision to wake her up is independent of these other issues..

Pondering it further, I agree that Jim was certainly just smitten with Aurora from the get go, & certainly didn't look at any other candidates. Still, if memory serves, didn't he start reading her file or whatever well in advance of any notion to awaken her? In short, I don't see there was a calculated seduction on his part, though of course once she was awake, he couldn't reveal knowing anything about her without tipping his hand. The reason I don't see it as creepy is that I think the notion of waking her evolved in his thinking. When he first started reading about her I doubt he even knew for certain that he could wake her, safely, that is.

I do think pretty much any person in that scenario would suffer the pangs of isolation, even if s/he weren't a deep thinker, or someone who normally seeks out connections to others. Putting myself in Jim's shoes I think I'd do better alone than 98% of the population at large. But I still think it would be risky. No one has ever been in quite a similar situation before. Could any of us confidently predict how we'd turn out after ten or twenty years in such perfect solitude?

yeah... tough to predict and i can see the other interpretation... solid film, but i feel it came close to greatness, but for whatever reason they pulled their punches...

@Renovatio said:

Waking her up was motivated by sex

Where did you see this in the movie? I understand that physical attraction would be part of what motivated him when seeing her, but it seems to me you viewed it as his primary motivation.

@Renovatio said: I'm just arguing against the sentimental narrative that Jim woke her up for companionship, human connection and such... I don't see it, he was always more bored than lonely and contemplative... To me it seems that the guy wanted to get laid and all the research/getting to know her before he wakes her stuff is at best a rationalisation and more likely a creepy way to hedge his bets...

Perplexed by your persistence, I began to question if I somehow missed it, so I took a few minutes to go back and rewatch the film up to the point of sexual contact to see. Here's a timeline (whited out as spoilers galore!):

13 minutes: Jim is overjoyed to see bartender.
13.5 minutes: Jim disappointed to discover it's a bartenderbot.
16 minutes: Jim tries to fix his pod and reenter hibernation.
21 minutes: Jim snuggles with a space suit, showing his loneliness.
24 minutes: Jim contemplates airlock suicide.
25 minutes: Jim sees Aurora for the first time.
26 minutes: Jim starts "hanging out with her" by her pod, starts to watch her profile.
28 minutes: Jim hears her say, "They better have coffee on Homestead II, otherwise I'm going to turn around and head back to Earth!" (somehow triggers idea of waking her)
28-30 minutes: Jim thinks and drinks, drinks and thinks, swears he won't do it, then shaves beard and wakes her.
32 minutes: Jim is physically sick because he woke her.
33 minutes: Aurora meets Jim for the first time.
42 minutes: After 7 days, Aurora approaches Jim as a "journalist."
44 minutes: Jim walks through several passengers quizzing her on who they are and correcting her when she guesses wrong. This shows at least a passing knowledge of who else is there, although he does cover the panels suggesting roles/careers can simply be read on the display.
45 minutes: First hint of sexuality when discussing another passenger who is a midwife.
Interesting Conversation Here:
-Aurora: I like her. We'd be friends.
-Jim: You think you can see that?
-Aurora: Don't you?
-Jim: I do.
45.5 minutes: Aurora's round trip plans revealed. She wants some fun. (courtship begins)
50 minutes: Jim asks Aurora on their "first date."
53 minutes: She derobes for the space walk...first hint of sex.
55 minutes: She initiates sex.
56 minutes: she initiates sex (again).

It seems to me, even more so on a second viewing, that the film makers went to great lengths to speak to a need much deeper than simply a sex drive, or even a biological need to procreate. It is clear Jim was lonely and desperate, so he did a desperate thing.

To the OP's point, I don't think he would have been placated by a VIP membership and a sexbot (although I'm sure @Megumi_Pants was being a bit silly on purpose). :)