- I wish we saw more of the physicist's contributions. He didn't really do anything on-screen. I know they mentioned some things he did but I would have loved to see some actual physics being problem-solved

- They skipped over how they decoded the language in detail, instead covering it in a quick montage with voiceover, so the way they figured it all out didn't really feel convincing, instead very arbitrary. Somehow they were completely fluent within a few months... considering even some old Earth languages were never able to be decoded without the Rosetta Stone it was hard to believe

- I'm not sure what the rogue military people were thinking when the decided to blow up the ship (and how they got their hands on the explosives so easily in the first place). I know they watched that conservative guy going on about blowing the ship up on the internet but I found it hard to believe some military people - who are clearly trusted enough to even be around this thing in the first place - would decided to try blowing up a ship they already saw defied gravity and was way ahead of current technology

- Very little political involvement; I would have imagined more orders would have been coming from the White House rather than all decisions seeming to be made by the lone military post at the ship