SPOILER WARNING: I will spoil the entire plot to Passengers as I dissect how I think it could be told more effectively from a different perspective.

I feel like this film has gotten a fair amount of criticism due to the way it handles the character of Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) and his decision to end his loneliness by waking up one of his fellow passengers. He will no longer be alone, but he will be sentencing her to death aboard the Avalon.

“Say you were trapped on an island alone and you had the power to wish someone there with you, but you were sentencing her to a life on the island, too. Say you found a way to make your life 100% better, but it was wrong and you couldn’t take it back.” ~ Jim Preston

Skip the collision

The film should have saved all the answers to the origin of their situation for the third act. Everything with the asteroids and the damage to the ship should be saved for Gus (Lawrence Fishburne) to explain once he accesses the bridge.

The Pledge

The film should have opened with a close up of Aurora, and then Jim, both waking up in their individual pods and experiencing the disorientation of coming out of stasis. We would follow them to their rooms and watch them come to the realization of their predicament. We would follow them separately back and forth until they eventually cross paths at the fountain.

Jim introduces Aurora to the Avalon.

The Turn

Jim would be honest with Aurora that he awoke first and has already explored some of the ship. He would introduce her and the audience to the ship. They would slowly come to grips with their new reality and begin to embrace their life together on this ninety year journey. This creates a trust with the audience that these two lovers are both trapped together through no fault of their own.

The Prestige

On the night of Jim’s proposal when the android bartender, Arthur (Michael Sheen), innocently reveals Jim’s deception to Aurora, she and the audience would realize the horror of what Jim has done. That he had not actually awoken at the same time as Aurora, but a year earlier. And, he made the selfish choice to end his loneliness by wishing her onto his desert island.

Aurora asking for answers

The audience would receive the gut punch that is realizing what you had witnessed in the opening was actually two separate stories taking place one year apart. We wouldn’t have to spend so much time with Jim in his year of loneliness, because he is no longer the hero of our story.

Jim is actually the villain. Maybe a villain who is partially redeemed by saving the ship in the end, but Aurora should have been our protagonist from the beginning. She is the innocent in this story, and the one for which the audience will empathize.

Everything with Gus being woken by the ship and explaining how it has to be repaired is adequate. It creates a small opportunity for Jim’s redemption, and provides a way for Aurora to make a heroic decision to stay awake with Jim and save him from his loneliness.

These changes don’t fix the inherent flaw of the story which is the creepiness of Jim stalking a sleeping girl and waking her up for his own satisfaction, but I feel it would have narratively improved the story in a way that raises the shock and horror of that act to a more satisfying level.

This film tries so hard to justify to the audience that Jim’s decision wasn’t THAT bad, when the horror of him choosing to condemn her to death is so much easier for the audience to understand.

Making Aurora the main character would have made Jim a villain in need of redemption, instead of a hero no one really wants to like.