Oblivion (Post-release)

I saw it twice this weekend, the second time in IMAX, which was really took advantage of the larger screen and sound.

I really liked the movie. The things Kosinski pays most attention to, are some of the things I care about the most in movies. The look, the attention to detail, his appreciation for the music. He also has the ability to select perfect women for his movies. I had not seen Riseborough before, but loved her potrayal of Victoria. It's crazy that she would be so dressed up all the time, but I enjoyed it. I also liked Kurylenko, but didn't feel for her like I did for Riseborough.

Setting aside Cruise's personal life, I liked him as Jack. He sure got a workout in the film, and him doing his stunts really shows well.

I felt there were some things that were obvious about the story, but there were also things I was surprised by. It was painful listening to the soundtrack last week and avoiding the track names. A practice I've had since the SW E1 soundtrack "Qui-Gon's Noble End" spoiled that for me.

I wanted to live in the sky tower, and if you haven't yet looked at the behind the scenes piece they released on youtube, you should. How they set that up for filming was amazing. I'm ready to build my own touch interactive large computer system now.

Oblivion 2013 Extensive Behind the Scenes Inside Look - YouTube

The bubble ship was amazing, and that it was a real 1:1 prop, along with the cool sounding drones, also played well with me. The live action integration with cgi was essentially flawless.

Kosinski used Joseph Trapanese to help with the music, having done so with Tron: Legacy and Tron: Uprising. He seems a perfect match for Daft Punk and now M83.
 
I went and saw Oblivion this past weekend with my wife and we both loved it. I loved the visuals and I thought that the acting was top par too. Aside from the very obvious Hal reference towards the end I really didn't catch any references/nods to other movies so I wasn't bothered by that The only thing that really bothered me was why the Scavs spent part of the movie scampering around on all fours and acting like animals and then once Jack Harper finds out what they really are they no longer act like animals. Aside from that I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone looking for a good sci-fi flick.
 
The part that got me was why the sleeper compartment of the spaceship didn't continue into the Tet after it was jetisoned like the command module did...

I heard a few people questioning that after the film was over too. The other groaner was fact that the Tet was extracting water from the Earth. That's a very tired and silly motive for attacking Earth considering it is much easier and cheaper to get it elsewhere in the solar system. Something I would expect in a Michael Bay flick.

Also, why didn't second Victoria see that second Jack (tech 52) was fighting another Jack through the second bubble ship using the ship and tower cameras? Her function was to monitor her clone Jack, so she would have been aware of all this when he came to her station to get meds for his wife (and he would have been expecting her to know this). The writers simply ignored it.

I can go on an on, but as I said, if you turn your brain off to those plot points, it is an enjoyable (and beautiful) B grade flick.
 
It definitely was a beautifully made film. I only joked that the ship Cruise was flying around looked reminiscent of a male organ flying backwards, but my in-the-gutter mind got over that quickly because it really was a well-made film. I will agree the visuals were amazing and very convincing. I was very surprised how they went about filming some of those shots using some practical (expensive) methods in projection screens than many don't do anymore. The sunsets and all scenery were fantastic and very believable.

On an emotional level I wasn't as pulled in by, but it was a cool story and definitely was entertaining. The music was AWESOME as well. Kosinski is going to show us some amazing things in the years to come. I can't wait for Tron 3.

Yes, Tom Cruise might be really off in real-life, but professionally, you can't deny the guy really delivers and is great as his craft. I don't think i've heard anyone say they were boycotting James Cameron movies because he's a real hard-*** with people. over 99% of the people we see on screen we really don't know what type of people they are off camera and don't know at all. We just know who's lives have been publicized more than others.

I'd recommend this film definitely!
 
I saw it a few days ago and I'm still thinking about it....That's a good sign for me (I forgot about The Avengers almost immediately after leaving the theater). Director Joseph Kosinski's architectural degree really comes into play and definately elevates the look of the film. The M83 soundtrack was perfect for the setting and the acting and action were top notch. The movie is definately a sci-fi romantic mystery and NOT a laser blasting action film like the trailers indicate (I'm glad it's a slow burn). Intelligent adult oriented sci-fi is a rare thing these days so I'll take Oblivion over Transformers 4 any day of the week! But I think 2001 is a better film than Star Wars, so what do I know? ;-)
 
I heard a few people questioning that after the film was over too. The other groaner was fact that the Tet was extracting water from the Earth. That's a very tired and silly motive for attacking Earth considering it is much easier and cheaper to get it elsewhere in the solar system. Something I would expect in a Michael Bay flick.

Also, why didn't second Victoria see that second Jack (tech 52) was fighting another Jack through the second bubble ship using the ship and tower cameras? Her function was to monitor her clone Jack, so she would have been aware of all this when he came to her station to get meds for his wife (and he would have been expecting her to know this). The writers simply ignored it.

I can go on an on, but as I said, if you turn your brain off to those plot points, it is an enjoyable (and beautiful) B grade flick.

In answer to the whole sleeper compartment not continuing on, someone previously mentioned that the likely explanation was that the tractor beam on the Tet was holding onto the command module and once the sleeper compartment was jettisoned it was no longer being drawn in and probably had some rearward momentum from the jettisoning process. It was also mentioned that Jack had programmed it so that it would go into Earth orbit which implied that it has its own propulsion and maneuvering systems so it's not like it would just float on or continue forward when disconnected from the command module.

In regards to Vicka & Jack 52, it seemed like to me that Vicka only directly monitored Jack via visuals was when she was particularly concerned about his safety. I could be mistaken though since I wasn't watching to nitpick or anything like that. It could also be that part of Area 52 had no direct monitoring equipment in place for Vicka to see what was going on.
 
For those wishing to dig further into Oblivion and the making of it.

The soundtrack is available on iTunes as a Deluxe Edition with 30 tracks, while the standard CD is just 17 tracks. Don't buy the CD like I did before learning this.

Another good video piece with interviews from these two guys:
Creating the World of "Oblivion"
Creating the World of "Oblivion" (2013) - YouTube

.work | GMUNK
Bradley "Gmunk" Munkowitz
Design Director

David Lewandowski
David "dlew" Lewandowski
Lead Graphics Animator

Oh, and I forgot this:
They made the Bubble Ship and drones.
Wildfactory
 
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Just got back from seeing this as well. Overall impression is a solid B-....

Visually it is stunning and that alone would have given it a C grade even if the whole movie was the FX shots and interiors and exteriors. They filmed in Iceland and it looks very much like Prometheus, even has what looks like the same waterfall! The first 45min. are very interesting, brooding. There's a lot of initial exposition and then as we are introduced to Jack and Victoria and there odd yet seemingly beautiful life in the clouds. The film at first seems to want to be a more introspective affair but half way through it seems it needs to be an action flick. And then it just sort of gives up. Jack is a clone, well that wasn't very interesting. The Road Warrior human survivors are generic and you don't really get behind them and Morgan Freeman is not well cast in the role he plays, he just doesn't sell it for me. It's a shame, it seemed like a really ambitious story that at the end, turned into a very blah one. But it really looks amazing and the acting in general is very good.
 
In answer to the whole sleeper compartment not continuing on, someone previously mentioned that the likely explanation was that the tractor beam on the Tet was holding onto the command module and once the sleeper compartment was jettisoned it was no longer being drawn in and probably had some rearward momentum from the jettisoning process. It was also mentioned that Jack had programmed it so that it would go into Earth orbit which implied that it has its own propulsion and maneuvering systems so it's not like it would just float on or continue forward when disconnected from the command module.
It is possible to invent an explanation for anything that seems contradictory or unexplained if you want to, but Jack just assumed it would work, without any knowledge of what was pulling the ship to the Tet or how it worked. A simple line like "this probably won't work, but I'm going to try..." would have taken care of it. The other issue of the Tet not being able to sense the extra nuclear power cells in the ship at the end of the film makes it seem the writers were not concerned with plot logic on that level though, so it is forgiven as part of its B movie simplicity as far as I am concerned.

In regards to Vicka & Jack 52, it seemed like to me that Vicka only directly monitored Jack via visuals was when she was particularly concerned about his safety.
It is pretty clear in the film that she was to (and did) monitor every sorte Jack made, inform Sally of the status, and request backup from other drones when needed. That was the point of the whole "effective team" thing. She could see his video feeds from the bubble ship as well as other video feeds that I assume were from the work tower, or possibly other drones. Jack even had to get out of sensor range to go to his little home by the river precisely because she was constantly monitoring him.

It's just another minor B movie issue though. It stood out, but not something that hampered my enjoyment of the flick.
 
Saw it in IMAX and enjoyed it. Well-crafted film. I liked how the vehicles and computer systems gave it a hi-tech "Ipod/Ipad" design look which gave it a near future look believable. I also liked the design contrast, the sterile clean white tech look vs the burnt out, dark, messy look of the survivors. This gave the cabin escape a real good colorful organic full of life look that really stood out, grounding Jack's connection to earth and his past. It also contrasted Vicka's character - formal, prim & proper, even her voice & accent which echoed her utimately siding with the Tet and betraying Jack.

The ending was a nice suprise, I totally forgot about the other clone. I guess I really got into the movie so much that I did not see that around the corner.
 
The whole film was a very beautiful mish mash of other Sci Fi stalwarts,
A certain amount of portal's design aesthetic over prometheus' landscapes.
Vicka's betrayal was just the same as Cypher in the Matrix, she didn't want to know the truth because the lie was more comforting.
The pre-ending as well as the canyon dogfight were very Independence Day.
2001's psychotic super computer with a red eye and a Galactus style M.O.
not bad in general, just a few plot holes you could drive a bus through.
Why did they have to drive the drone outside on the crawler?
Where'd the second Delta sleep pod come from (as all bar 1 were shot to hell by the drones)?
Why didn't the drones in the Tet look through the window of the sleep pod?
Why are the Hydro jobbies so close to the coast when their aim is to drain the oceans?
Why doesn't Jack question humans building a giant space station during/just after a massive world wide catastrophe/war?
Why didn't the Tet just take Europa?
 
Why did they have to drive the drone outside on the crawler?
Where'd the second Delta sleep pod come from (as all bar 1 were shot to hell by the drones)?
Why didn't the drones in the Tet look through the window of the sleep pod?
Why are the Hydro jobbies so close to the coast when their aim is to drain the oceans?
Why doesn't Jack question humans building a giant space station during/just after a massive world wide catastrophe/war?
Why didn't the Tet just take Europa?

1. Probably because there was no way for it to get outside otherwise, what would you have them do, push it on the ground or attempt to roll it?
2. I wondered about that but my wife said that there was an empty one that was visible when Jack first reached the crash site.
3. Probably because the windows were facing up and thus covered by the tail of Jack's ship.
4. Who's to say that they were always that close and that they aren't close now because of they've drained so much water the coastline is now much closer to them.
5. Probably because he's been programmed not to and has been programmed to just accept the reason given as the truth. It's not like he/they really remember what really happened and know the truth of the Tet and the war.
6. Who's to say that it didn't already do that or is doing it simultaneously?
 
Who's to say humanity ever actually escaped to Europa? I assumed that was part of the Tet's cover story for clone Jake and Vicka and that most of humanity was either destroyed or living like the survivors we saw all around the world.
 
not bad in general, just a few plot holes you could drive a bus through.
Where'd the second Delta sleep pod come from (as all bar 1 were shot to hell by the drones)?
Why are the Hydro jobbies so close to the coast when their aim is to drain the oceans?

My take on these points:

There would possibly have been 2 Delta pods unused since Vica and Jack were woke before the rest of the crew to get the ship fully operational before first encountering the Tet.

I'm guessing as far as the location of the machines draining the Earth's oceans, they say they only have 2 weeks left on their tour of duty before they join the rest of humanity. So either they (The Tet) are really close to finishing what they started and he's sitting on a cliff that used to be underwater, or this is an actual error as you're pointing out.
 
Hey guys, just came back from seeing this and I loved it! It was one of the best scifi movies I have seen in a long time. In fact, today I had one of the best movie experiences ever, saw this on Imax, got perfect seats and no one was talking or bugging me.

I was just blown by the visuals and the designs. Really happy I saw this on IMAX! The story was also great. I loved that everything was nicely explained and shown. I wasn't even expecting them to show what happened to the original Jack and it's crew. So that was nice too, it added to the emotional moment.

Also one thing that intrigued me and that I don't see a lot of people talking about is how The Tet was a synthetic life form. No alien race, just a lone machine looking to re-charge it's batteries (basically).

It makes me wonder the story behind of it. What is it, who built it, what was it's purpose? Was it created by an alien civilization and became selfware, destroying it's creators and now seeks planets to "survive"?
 
Hey guys, just came back from seeing this and I loved it! It was one of the best scifi movies I have seen in a long time. In fact, today I had one of the best movie experiences ever, saw this on Imax, got perfect seats and no one was talking or bugging me.

I was just blown by the visuals and the designs. Really happy I saw this on IMAX! The story was also great. I loved that everything was nicely explained and shown. I wasn't even expecting them to show what happened to the original Jack and it's crew. So that was nice too, it added to the emotional moment.

Also one thing that intrigued me and that I don't see a lot of people talking about is how The Tet was a synthetic life form. No alien race, just a lone machine looking to re-charge it's batteries (basically).

It makes me wonder the story behind of it. What is it, who built it, what was it's purpose? Was it created by an alien civilization and became selfware, destroying it's creators and now seeks planets to "survive"?

Yes i would have liked to know more about it.
 
Just saw this and thought it was great. Sure it borrows from well-worn sci-fi tropes but it really delivered for me on the whole.

I actually liked how the twists slowly built up from the highly predictable to the less so, to actually establish a sense of pacing to the tension.

Was I the only one though that felt the pacing and emotional beats were similar to Inception? (And some of the music) I really kept thinking "If Christopher Nolan ever made a space opera, it would be like this."

-Nick

PS: I want every prop from this film.
 
I heard a few people questioning that after the film was over too. The other groaner was fact that the Tet was extracting water from the Earth. That's a very tired and silly motive for attacking Earth considering it is much easier and cheaper to get it elsewhere in the solar system. Something I would expect in a Michael Bay flick.

It's also been done *recently* - Battle: LA did it only a year or two back.

I want to know where the water is going. Is it being teleported out to the Tet, or what?! Then what? That thing is big, but not big enough to contain an ocean's worth of water.

Presumably the thing runs on fusion power? As you say, far easier just to mine a moon or comet...

and he would have been expecting her to know this). The writers simply ignored it.

YES! Bothered me also. As did the completely random motorcycle thing. And I'd really hoped for a better explanation of the state of the world. Blowing up the moon but leaving 99% of its mass in the same location made for pretty visuals but would have almost zero effect on the Earth's tides, etc.

I can go on an on, but as I said, if you turn your brain off to those plot points, it is an enjoyable (and beautiful) B grade flick.

Yeah, that's about where I put it. I can't complain with the kind of disappointment I'd have if the film was really, seriously trying to be the next big thing; they're just observations.

The ending was a nice suprise, I totally forgot about the other clone. I guess I really got into the movie so much that I did not see that around the corner.

I was waiting for that scene and hoping we wouldn't get it. Formulaic.

Who's to say humanity ever actually escaped to Europa? I assumed that was part of the Tet's cover story for clone Jake and Vicka and that most of humanity was either destroyed or living like the survivors we saw all around the world.

We clearly lost the war. One thing I was waiting for which actually didn't happen was a scene where Tom voices that realisation. A big 'dun dun duuunnn' moment. Would have been completely redundant but the film wasn't exactly coy about telegraphing plot elements.

PS: I want every prop from this film.

Oh yes! :)
 
i saw it in cinemark xd

even though i enjoyed it....i thought it was a complete ripoff of Moon with Sam Rockwell....

it seems like they took the story from Moon and build upon it with a huge budget......

Oblivion = Moon (+huge Budget) + matrix + a few other sci fi films

im really getting tired of hollywood recycling the same **** and trying to sell it to the audience....

rarely do we see an original film in theaters....im getting tired of paying for the same story over and over
 
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