Escape to the Movies: Oblivion

[Madman Muntz]

it bothered me that I saw this movie's trailer right before (or after idr) seeing the After Earth trailer (the one with Will Smith?) during the same film screening's previews lol...

seriously do studios just happen to come out with Armageddon and Deep Impact films at the same time or what?

Yes. Its been a long time tradition in Hollywood for the big studios to investigate what the competition is making and then just copy that. That's why we have whole decades that were filled with mostly bible epics, crime noir dramas, musicals, westerns, war films, disaster movies, space operas, slasher flicks, coming of age comedies, biographies, and comic book super hero adaptations.

 

[Skorpyo]

So, if I'm hearing this right:

It's "Moon" meets "Planet of the Apes", boring sci-fi cliche' style?

 

[Rayansaki]

I just saw this movie without seeing the trailer or reading anything about it, and the twists were really obvious. I went and watched the trailer anyway afterwards and I have to say... Could they spoil any more stuff on the trailer? Every single twist, as obvious as they were, was spoiled in the trailer anyway.

 

[Britishfan]

So it's "The Moon" done badly but with more guns?

 

[faefrost]

So, if I'm hearing this right:

It's "Moon" meets "Planet of the Apes", boring sci-fi cliche' style?

With a healthy dose of the Matrix and Battlefield Earth thrown in just to add to the mess.

I swear I saw the trailer for this one and just sat there thinking I had seen this exact movie quite a few times before. Then the trailer for AfterEarth came up and I realized it was a twofer sense of dejavu, and I would be skipping both.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

So, if I'm hearing this right:

It's "Moon" meets "Planet of the Apes", boring sci-fi cliche' style?

With a healthy dose of the Matrix and Battlefield Earth thrown in just to add to the mess.

I swear I saw the trailer for this one and just sat there thinking I had seen this exact movie quite a few times before. Then the trailer for AfterEarth came up and I realized it was a twofer sense of dejavu, and I would be skipping both.

I'd throw Elysium into that, all three look the same to me.
Anyway.
I'm glad people are aware of this,

Spoiler: It's basically straight-up Moon.

Sam Rockwell became Tome Cruise,
Lunar Industries became the Tet,
the harvesters became the giant seawater filters,
GERTY became the drones (debatable),
the outside of the operation zone became radiation zones.
If I missed anything, please tell me.

Moon is my favorite movie of all time so I'm not very pleased that they almost straight ripped it off.
Deep breaths, torno...
Still, Oblivion wasn't that bad it's just that I've seen this movie before. All that I really liked about it was the drones and the visuals. If Moon didn't exist, this movie would've been REALLY good. But Moon does exist and I'd rather watch that again.
Oh, and in Oblivion, they blow up the moon. Gee, I wonder what you're trying to say there.

 

[Pontifex]

I'd throw Elysium into that, all three look the same to me.

Elysium is by the director of District 9. It would be a mistake to write it off prematurely.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

I'd throw Elysium into that, all three look the same to me.

Elysium is by the director of District 9. It would be a mistake to write it off prematurely.

Neil Blomkamp is making Elysium?!
Oh, goodness, I didn't know that.
Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Friendstastegood]

Thanks for the insult, I'll have to write that down, it's a keeper.

OK, huge misunderstanding here: that wasn't directed at you, I was saying that one of my favourite pet-peeves in movies is when movie-writers try to write intelligent beings and or humans but aren't intelligent enough to make it believable. It was directed at the movie, and movies in general. It's why I can't stand Watchmen, because the supposedly more intelligent than any human being Dr. Manhattan is just so stupid it hurts my brain.


As for the bit about the actual movie:

Spoiler

1. What exactly did Victoria do that doomed so many and was so tragic?
2. What exactly happened at the Odyssey?
3. No... the whole clone thing is still really stupid. Especially considering that for a robotic entity with limited resources creating clones, taking care of them, feeding them and making sure they don't turn on it would take more resources (definitely more of the precious water resource), than simply having a few repair-drones maintain the fighting-drones.

 

[heroicbob]

i really didn't hate this movie that much but then all i could think about when i was watching it was that it was a bad ripoff of moon (and this was before the clones twist happened)

 

[Dr Killpatient]

Where is all this hate coming from?

Did Bob like Moon or did he hate it as well?

I mean, why is Sam maintaining the harvesters on Moon more believable than Jack maintaining the harvesters on Earth? As far as I'm concerned, those movies have the same premise.

"...having a few repair-drones maintain the fighting-drones."

I've heard this one before. But who would maintain the repair drones?

We do see Jack fixing the drone with a piece of gum. So is it really that unbelievable that they need the humans as the final link of ingenuity in that chain, instead of having an endless chain of drones fixing drones fixing drones fixing drones etc.

Or maybe they need humans to fight the remaining scavs or use them as an early warning system if the scavs would mount an attack against the machines. For example the Matrix uses Cypher (human) to get to Morpheus (also human).

What if Tet is programmed to take advantage of the indigenous species and incorporate them in the harvesting cycle?

What if fixing drones on Earth is cheaper and quicker than sending them back to Tet to be fixed?

More to the point, who the hell would want to watch a movie about drones fixing drones?

To me all these are plausible explanations, but Bob simply ignores them all together and stamps the movie as being "bad" just because he cannot make any sense of the premise. Then what about Matrix using humans as batteries? What an awful shit that was - in Bob's world.

Folks, this is a definition of bad movie reviewing. A reviewer who considers movie to be bad, simply because he doesn't agree with it's premise. Sure Oblivion has it's faults - pacing would be one of them, especially towards the end. But Bob just pisses on the efforts put into this movie by Cruise, Kurylenko, and a fantastic newcomer Riseborough, plus the breathtaking visuals of post-apocalyptic Earth by Claudio Miranda (Oscar for Life of Pi) and ethreal music by M83.

If you didn't watch Bob's review to the end, go see the movie and make up your own mind. If you did, then thank Bob for ruining one of the memorable (for me at least) sci-fi movies of the past decade.

 

[Joos]

It's not such a bad movie, I thought it was quite entertaining. Most modern sci-fi require a little bit of oversight for the plot-holes/inconsistencies anyway so I personally don't have any gripes with the few things I found in this movie.

 

[Sergey Sund]

I was worried when Bob said that this movie was "made up entirely out of twists" but then I though "Meh. If he puts it alongside Ghost Protocol and Jack Reacher it's gotta be another dumb, slightly-entertaining action movie."
So I watched.
Wat.
Twist #1 "Hey, that's not my wife, my real wife is here" is given away in the trailer.
In fact, these have got to be the most generic, lazy twists I've seen.
Maybe it's because I'm sci-fi-spoiled, or maybe it's because every single one of those twists is either predictable or there's a superior sci-fi movie out there who did it better before.
The only thing I couldn't have predicted is the clone army.
But, if you've seen Moon (2009) you basically know what I mean.
So, why only two clone-templates?
This movie expects me to believe that, in the entire time, they couldn't have obducted other humans, thrown them into the cloner, conditioned them, built an army, fed them some more clever backround story and ..... no? Not possible?
Why are those 2 first astronauts so special?
Bob's objection is very valid: You can automatize everything, except maintenance? Well, OK then, just make the retrival of the drones automatic, dismantle them, smelt the parts down and make new drones?
In fact, flood the surface with your robots.
You don't need two humans to do anything! You're an AI! From outer fucking space!

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

Well. It's a pretty looking film with an utterly unsatisfying plot. Kinda reminds me of...Tron Legacy, also directed by the same bloke. Guess I know whose career NOT to follow.

 

[Meatspinner]

It's a solid movie.

I get the feeling that Bob wouldn't be so nit picky and hard on it if someone else then Cruise, had played Jack Harper.

Or maybe I'm just a sucker for sci-fi

 

[Terminal Blue]

snip

Yeah, if you physically can't talk to women and think they have no place in "your" special man genres it's probably a safe bet that you're a misogynist.

However, you're also a misogynist whose completely missed the point.

Bob's point, which was spelled out quite specifically, is that the "two female characters competing for the affections of the male protagonist" thing is overused. It's been overused for a long time. We've seen it in hundreds if not thousands of pieces of media, and it's very rarely handled in an interesting or original way. It's always simply retreading the same tired steps over and over and over again.

In short, it's a minimum-effort way to write in some crude dramatic tension without having to put in any thought or any originality, because it's been done so many times at this point that a monkey with a supply of DVDs could figure out how to do it.

Grow up. Step outside your front door. Get over whatever weird issues you have with women and you'll start to realize that noone is complaining about these kinds of things because "the womenz" have taken over, they're complaining because they're sick of being fed wallpaper paste while being told it's caviar.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I'm having to work really REALLY fucking hard right now to not burst into an all-caps rage and get myself perma-banned as a result of my page of insults.

Alright, from the top.

1) A human repairman makes sense. Humans are extremely adaptable, extremely versatile creatures. Cruz is better at navigating the terrain then any robot and get around stuff that would beat robots.

2) Total mind wiping wouldn't have worked. They needed the ruse in order for Cruz to keep all the things I mentioned above. Mind wiped Cruze's were fine for an invasion where they just need to kill people, but not much else. Besides, it was simple enough to set up and run.

3) So what if the twists were for their own sake? They were incredibly well done and every single one made sense. The twists served the plot, not the other way around.

I'm far too mad to watch your review again to look for more things you got wrong, but I'm sure someone will give me more nonsense to rebuke.

This movie was brilliantly acted, extremely well written and is one of the most beautifully shot and designed films in recent memory. My favorite Sci-Fi movie in a long LONG time.

I was really hoping you of all people, the guy that gave 2012 a pass, could appreciate this.