Story highlights Sci-fi flick wades into a firestorm of controversy over poster

Promotional posters show Hong Kong's skyline with Shanghai's Pearl Oriental Tower

(CNN) For a movie whose plot is all about trying to communicate, Paramount's upcoming film 'Arrival' did a horrible job of getting its own message across.

The sci-fi flick waded into a firestorm of controversy when newly-released promotional posters showed Hong Kong's skyline but with a very alien addition -- Shanghai's Oriental Pearl Tower.

The movie, starring Amy Adams, Forest Whitaker and Jeremy Renner, centers around a team of experts who are trying to communicate with aliens who visit earth. The image was part of a series that showed hovering spaceships around the world.

The poster blunder miffed many. Was Hong Kong's famously dense and soaring skyline simply not impressive enough that it needed to borrow a tower from Shanghai -- 1,226 kilometers ( 762 miles) to the north?

One person tweeted: "Why don't you put the Eiffel Tower in Rome too?"