Oblivion (Post-release)

[Chicagovader]

Saw it yesterday with the wife and we both loved it! Visually stunning and a solid story and good performances all around. I really want to see it in IMAX now. Hope this starts a trend and we start getting more Sci Fi films again if you exclude the comic book stuff there hasn't been much as of late.

 

[SuperFLY]

saw this last weekend, very good film

a very well realised movie was the phrase i think i used at the time, although funnily enough i was getting a real tron legacy vibe in the mannerisms throughout and my mate was certain the ship sounded like an x-wing so we made sure we watched the credits and sure enough, done by the same guy that did tron and sound was re-recorded by skywalker sound

 

[Riceball]

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.

 

[Hfuy]

Duplicate, for some reason.

 

[Hfuy]

Saw it at the Burbank AMC 16 in "Imax", whatever Imax means this week.

Visually beautiful. Thought the writing was absolute drivel. As someone said above, this is a post-release thread, so this will be the only spoiler warning.

1) Isn't this just Moon, only not nearly as good?

2) Why is cloning Tom Cruise and Andrea Riseborough and maintaining an elaborate charade involving lots of hardware and deception the most expedient way of maintaining an otherwise straightforward fleet of military attack drones? It would be much, much easier in terms of both work and resources to simply replace the drones.

3) Cruise's character witnesses kills made by drones. Why, in nearly five years of doing this job, has he never realised, upon viewing the bodies, that they're human?

4) Isn't there a massive risk for the alien intelligence that the underground resistance could contact the maintenance people at any time? Couldn't they just have left Harper a note, or something? Isn't the whole charade just laughably easy to circumvent?

5) Why do the human survivors use sound effects in order to sound like aliens? The only people they might hope to fool are a) an alien intelligence which knows exactly what they are, and b) the tower technicians, who they have no reason to deceive (see above).

6) Why does Harper's craft have the capability to reach orbit? The alien intelligence has no reason to have him actually visit, other than in exceptional circumstances, and this gives the humans the capability to reach and perhaps attack the alien, a capability they should never actually need. For that matter, why do the drones have the capability to reach orbit?

7) Why do they live in that tower thing?

8) Harper's craft can easily reach orbit. Why can't everyone live on the "space station" and deorbit for work, or at least maybe go back on weekends? Why the five year mission? Well, we know why, but why wouldn't the alien expect the humans to query this?

I could go on, but the level of stupid really is quite offensive.

 

[Bryancd]

#7- Because it keeps them from interacting with the human survivors.

Other then that, I got nothing, all your points are valid.

 

[ddocvjm]

#7- Because it keeps them from interacting with the human survivors.

Other then that, I got nothing, all your points are valid.

I loved the movie. Tom Cruise put a lot of work into it and really entertained.

#5 Morgan Freeman states the voice changer is used to confuse the drones

 

[ddocvjm]

I don't remember this, but did Jack say how he knew the details of the Superbowl? At the end of the movie, while he is listening to the flight recorder, he tells mission control not to tell him anything about the Superbowl and that he will watch it when he gets home.

 

[ddocvjm]

Also, at the end of the movie, Jack's final speech seems to be from the point of view of Tech 52. However, in one part he mentions their daughter and says something like "when you look at her do you see me?" Tech 52 did not know she had a daughter, as Tech 49 is the father. For that matter, neither did Tech 49, as he died soon after he was with his wife.
From listening to the entire speech, I interpret this as his soul is "all knowing and not affected by time and space".

 

[Stormy320]

I don't remember this, but did Jack say how he knew the details of the Superbowl? At the end of the movie, while he is listening to the flight recorder, he tells mission control not to tell him anything about the Superbowl and that he will watch it when he gets home.

I loved the film. Very refreshing.

In regards to the Super Bowl, perhaps he read about it or saw it on a video. I got the feeling he snooped around during the day as that is how he acquired all the records.

In regards to HFuy -

2) We don't know anything about the alien invaders. Perhaps everything was being handled remotely from some other galaxy and the most efficient way to maintain the drones was to get a living intelligence who believed there was a real enemy to keep them running. Cruis was a pawn and obviously expendable. That pawn was extremely loyal because he didn't realize he was fighting for the wrong side.

3) Did Morgan Freeman say how long he had been watching this Cruise? Perhaps he was a newer clone who had not been on the job long and had not seen many bodies. There were so many clones in the the mother ship, perhaps they don't last long or when they start to question things the drones kill them.

4) There are "notes" and signs all over that the wrong guy is in charge, but people don't want to believe it. Hitler would be a good example, as the Germans followed him. If you lean to one side of politics you hated Bush, if you lean the other way you hate Obama. If you're a believer, then you're a believer. I think the science behind man made global warming doesn't add up and if you believe I'm wrong I can guarantee you won't be able to convince me I am.

5) I believe that was answered

6) The clones aren't stupid. The craft needs to have the ability to reach outer space so they can join the ship to go to Titan. [My answer has some holes as the clones could have believed the craft would go to outer space as it appears they never actually attempted to do it until Tom brought Morgan up]. Perhaps it gives more flexibility to the aliens in case they need the clones to bring them something.

7) Because they are protected from the radiation and the "enemy" who doesn't have ships???

8) They need to be closer to their work and it takes too much gas to go back and forth all the time????

I think it was great because it treated the audience like we have some intelligence and didn't explain every detail.

 

[3phase]

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

OK I keep hearing about the movie (Moon) but I have never seen it or even heard of it. Of all the people that will see this movie are we expecting a large % of them to already have seen the movie Moon? If anything it has made me aware of this other movie and I might see it one day and compare. Also with so many movies it will be hard to make a movie these days and be totally original.

 

[Nwerke]

I could go on, but the level of stupid really is quite offensive.

I'm starting to wonder if that was deliberate. It seems to be playing well, while TRON: Legacy was, well, hated by many. Within its kind of silly premise, the writing of TRON:L was lightyears ahead of this film and it far less derivative despite being a sequel, while Oblivion is supposedly original. So....?

 

[JOATRASH FX]

You can poke holes in ANY story. There is nothing completely original in any modern creative or cultural endeavor. Everything is derivative of what has come before in some fashion. The trick is to come up with an interesting combination of things.

I went into Oblivion knowing almost nothing of the plot. As an experiment, I consciously forced myself to not start picking it apart or analyzing things and had a fantastic experience.

 

[Fir3bird]

@ 3 phase, go and see moon NOW ! It's very good. It completely blindsided me when I saw it. Oblivion is very similar in concept but Moon pulled it off better... I don't wanna ruin it for you by going into details though.

 

[Hfuy]

You can poke holes in ANY story

Well, not if it, you know, makes sense.

 

[CutThumb]

I wish this constant referencing to "Moon" would stop. Any film that includes cloning as a key plot element is always going to look like the previous one.That's the whole point of cloning,person or idea, its not too original.Its a duplicate.
To be honest while I really enjoyed "Moon", I felt Duncan Jones had lifted a lot from that old Arnie chestnut "The 6th Day" and that had stolen the idea from Stallones "Judge Dredd" and that had ripped off "Westworld" etc. See what I mean. There is VERY little new in sci fi these days of so many futures past (and copied!!!) just how they are treated, and Oblivion did a really good job of polishing up several very old and well trodden routines.
If you want to look for influences the newer version of "Solaris" feels like it could be a closer companion piece to "Oblivion" than "Moon", in fact you could almost make the case that its its older less excitable brother.

 

[Riceball]

I wish this constant referencing to "Moon" would stop. Any film that includes cloning as a key plot element is always going to look like the previous one.That's the whole point of cloning,person or idea, its not too original.Its a duplicate.
To be honest while I really enjoyed "Moon", I felt Duncan Jones had lifted a lot from that old Arnie chestnut "The 6th Day" and that had stolen the idea from Stallones "Judge Dredd" and that had ripped off "Westworld" etc. See what I mean. There is VERY little new in sci fi these days of so many futures past (and copied!!!) just how they are treated, and Oblivion did a really good job of polishing up several very old and well trodden routines.
If you want to look for influences the newer version of "Solaris" feels like it could be a closer companion piece to "Oblivion" than "Moon", in fact you could almost make the case that its its older less excitable brother.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. What's more is that there's been a lot of pissing and moaning in the past here about the lack of original movies in Hollywood with nearly everything begin a reboot, remake, sequel, or prequel to something else and when we do get a decent movie that's not a reboot, remake, sequel, or prequel they're still not happy because they dared borrow elements from other movies.

 

[Father]

Saw it today... definitely a cool flick. Added bonus... I saw it at one of the remodeled theaters in our area that has reclining seats. AWESOME!!!

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.

I thought about that as well. I didn't notice if the bubble ship was parked at the right angle to see it. She wasn't able to move the camera so if it wasn't a head on shot then she couldn't see anything.

I think the rifle sling covered up the number on his jacket.

I was more trying to figure out why the tet didn't just blow the sleeper compartment out of orbit a long time ago. It had to know it was there, right? The drones could fly in space. Why wait until it was called back to the planet?

Also... it was said that this is what the tet did... go to planets and rape them of their resources. So why wouldn't they have a healthy supply other cloned aliens from other places that might be better at killing humans instead of creating an army of Tom Cruises.

Last, but not least, and this could be explained away by the nukes maybe but... millions of Tom Cruises were sent down to wipe out the humans. Why weren't there a bunch of Cruise corpses laying around? I'm sure at one point or another he Jack would have to come across at least one body?

 

[Riceball]

The likely reason for the clone Jack Harper army is psychological, it's far easier to steel yourself for a fight against an enemy that's totally alien to you but it's another thing when they're human and the entire army looks like one of your planet's heroes. People's first reaction, esp. in the US, will be WTF! the aliens all look exactly alike and they look just like hero astronaut Jack Harper! After that there will be people not quite willing to accept the truth of it all and will think it's some sort of trick or that because it looks like Jack Harper they can talk to them, reason and negotiate with them. With all that happening it would probably be a while before anybody tried to organize a serious defense and the initial shock and negotiation attempts would have bough the Tet a good bit of time to make significant gains in the opening days of the invasion.

As for soldier Jack bodies lying around, it has been what, 60 years since the end of the war? That's more than enough time for any corpses to completely decompose and/or be completely eaten by scavengers. Plus whatever scarred the landscape the way it did (maybe the nukes) would have also wiped out a lof the corpses.

 

[Father]

That works for me.

Now what about the part of the ship they separated.