History Fridge / Pandorum

* A portion of the ''Elysium'' is shown to be above the water at the end. If there were any Hunters in that part of the ship when the hull was breached, they're still alive, and likely to follow their food source out onto Tanis's surface...

* Apparently, the mutants were the result of genetic manipulation which would allow the people to adapt to living on Tanis, but instead was wasted on adapting to scavenging on a spaceship. Does this mean that the survivors now might mutate themselves to live on Tanis? While they probably won't end up as cannibalistic albinos...
** However, it was revealed that they had been aboard the ship for 923 years, and at least 900 of those years were after Gallo had gone AxCrazy - which means almost a millenia of evolution/psychosis and breeding had occurred - just think [[Series/{{Firefly}} the Reavers]], and that's about what you have for those on the ship.

* A single hull breach (albeit a large one) causes all the cryotubes to eject. Shouldn't there be some sort of blast door that seals off the affected area instead? Come to think of it, why did the Elysium have a cryotube eject system ''at all'' after the first Pandorum incident? Ejecting in deep space would be suicide; even if Earth WAS still around, rescuing the colonists in time would be impossible.

*** The ship may have detected it was under water and was waiting for someone from the flight crew to make the call - and we know how well the flight crew was doing...
** Actually, the ending proves that the cryotubes ejection system is useful outside of deep space. Plus, the ejection of the cryotubes would make sense in this case, as the flight deck was destroyed. And it most probably did detect that they were on Tanis, because it did land itself. All of the systems are based on the assumption of an operating flight crew, thus they would wake everyone up. The flight deck being destroyed was simply the GodzillaThreshold where the ship's systems would eject the pods without the crew authorizing it because the crew is assumed to either be incapacitated or in no position to control the ship.

*** There certainly were other deep space missions, the Eden flight was one after all. But there's no mention of other self-sufficient colonies. Tanis is described as unique. Hence, it's possible that the final message that reached Elysium came from one of these ships, where people could survive potentially for months or years, but would be doomed because there was nowhere to return.

* Why did the cannibals mutate as they did? Once woken a person doesn't ingest any more accelerants (if you pay attention there's a warning sticker on the cryo capsule '''not''' to ingest any more of the paste). ...Then it occurred to me. What did the cannibals eat? The hybernating crew... chock full of said accelerants, so they've ingested ever more of the stuff with each and every meal.

* Throughout the film, there is shown to be some kind of algea growing on the walls of the ship, foreshadowing that the ship was actually submerged.

* Corporal Gallo tries to convince Commander Payton to AbandonShip, using the cryotubes as {{Escape Pod}}s. Payton of course rejects this as being little better than suicide. [[spoiler: As the finale demonstrates, that would actually have resolved the plot a fair bit sooner. Either Gallo was RightForTheWrongReasons or he had figured it out on some level but was too AxCrazy to put it all together.]]

* The implications of the scene where Leland shows Bower's group the "cave paintings" and explains what happened to the ship, as he's pieced it together: [[spoiler: Gallo went crazy after learning that Earth was destroyed and the ship's crew was all that was left of humanity. As the only surviving flight crew member, he had total control of the ship's systems. Nihilistically believing that morality died along with Earth, and started waking up crewmembers from cryosleep to play sadistic "games" with them. Exactly what the "games" were isn't stated, but it's alluded that he drove the passengers mad like himself (the drawings show them with electic sparks around their heads and blood running down their noses) and convinced them to cannibalize each other. He tries to do this with Bower when he catches Pandorum with his "life eats life" speech. The Fridge Horror part is...compare how old Payton is in flashbacks/hallucinations to how old he is in the present; he was tormenting crewmembers for ''decades'' before even he got bored with it and froze himself again.]]

** Actually, the ending proves that the cryotubes ejection system is useful outside of deep space. Plus, the ejection of the cryotubes would make sense in this case, as the flight deck was destroyed. And it most probably did detect that they were on Tanis, because it did land itself. All of the systems are based on the assumption of an operating flight crew, thus they would wake everyone up.

* We know the technology to accelerate humans' evolution exists. The Earth seemed to be a CrapsackWorld, presumably because it's running out of resources and/or too polluted. Depending on just how bad the conditions were, it may actually be ''a merciful thing'' that the planet vanished, because if civilization is falling into a death spiral and a starving humanity gets reduced to savagery, any survivors with the chance to use such accelerants could have wound up ''evolving into Hunters '''deliberately''' to save their own hides''.

* Corporal Gallo tries to convince Commander Payton to AbandonShip, using the cryotubes as {{Escape Pod}}s. Payton of course rejects this as being little better than suicide. [[spoiler: As the finale demonstrates, that would actually have resolved the plot a fair bit sooner. Either Gallo was RightForTheWrongReasons or he had figured it out on some level but was too AxCrazy to put it all together.]]

* FridgeLogic:

* FridgeBrilliance:

** The accelerant's effects obviously stayed in their systems and was passed on over generations. It was stated to jump start evolution which is a change in a population over the course of generations. Plus they clearly lived off the feeding tubes in open hyper-sleep which Bower was shown doing in a deleted scene. There wasn't enough humans to live off of for 900+ years.

** Simple: It had a cryotube eject system in case The ship crash landed on Tanis]], right? The real question is, ''Why wasn't the space ship capable of detecting that [[EarthAllAlong they were on Tanis]] in the first place, unless a hull breach occurred??

** Where was it stated that that ships and colonies throughout the solar system at the time?

** Even ordinary airplanes have black boxes that record everything that happens in the cockpit. Why on earth would a spaceship with the crew of 5000 lack this simple feature?

* Why did the cannibals mutate as they did? Once woken a person doesn't ingest any more accelerants. (If you pay attention there's a warning sticker on the cryo capsule '''not''' to ingest any more of the paste) ...then it occurred to me. What di the canibals eat? The hybernating crew... chock full of said accelerants, so they've ingested ever more of the stuff with each and every meal
** The accelerant's effects obviously stayed in their systems and was passed on from generations. It was stated to jump up start evolution which is a change in a population over the course of generations. Plus they clearly lived off the feeding tubes in open hyper-sleep which Bower was shown doing in a deleted scene. There wasn't enough humans to live off of for 900+ years.

** That water was seen dripping from the ceiling in the hallways.
* Seems awfully convenient that Bower of Team #5 woke up just in time to [[spoiler: fix the nuclear reactor]] until you remember what he tells Payton at the beginning - Since nobody else was in the room, the only way he could've woken up was if the flight computers did it. The same flight computers that could [[spoiler: detect a problem with the reactor and, because Gallo stopped the original rotation at Team #4, would know that Bower was the next person available to fix it.]]
* Corporal Gallo tries to convince Commander Payton to AbandonShip, using the cryotubes as {{Escape Pod}}s. Payton of course rejects this as being little better than suicide. [[spoiler: As the finale demonstrates, that would actually have resolved the plot a fair bit sooner. Either Gallo was RightForTheWrongReasons or he had figured it out on some level but was too AxeCrazy to put it all together.]]

* Seems awfully convenient that Bower of Team #5 woke up just in time to [[spoiler: fix the nuclear reactor]] until you remember what he tells Payton at the beginning - Since nobody else was in the room, the only way he could've woken up was if the flight computers did it. The same flight computers that could [[spoiler: detect a problem with the reactor and, because Gallo stopped the original rotation at Team #4, would know that Bower was the next person available to fix it.]]