The Official "Oblivion" Review Thread

[Tulin]

Obviously going to be spoilers in here so read with caution.

So after being intrigued by the previews, we went and saw this last night and it was PRETTY GOOD!

Harkened back more to seventies SF with the idea of "one man alone in post apocalyptic world" and so on. I actually liked that stark, minimalist quality to it. I had a feeling the "Scavs" would not be what you thought they were but the main twist was VERY good and came just as I started thinking "Well, if the Scavs are humans, WHY would THEY have blown up the moon?" Good writing there!

Overall I really enjoyed it(and don't listen to the Cruise naysayers - if his name could get the money for this to be made, then GOOD!)and am loving this resurgence of intelligent SF and not just having blockbusters just be about superheroes in capes and tights.

I hope "Oblivion" adds to the trend started by "Inception" and "Looper" and enables more intelligent SF to be greenlit, so we can see more. It will be VERY interesting to see how it fares at the US box office this weekend!

[trevanian]

Geez, I interviewed the director and an awful lot of the tech guys, but nobody mentioned the moon being blown up!

That kinda makes me think less of this effort. Kosinski seems very interested in making adult SF, but without the moon, you'd probably have more social upheaval than after an alien invasion. What the hell would happen with menstrual cycles, the loss of tidal action and the inability of werewolves and mad Englishman to act out every 28 days?

Seriously, the moon is not something you just throw away (like they did in that TIME MACHINE remake, or at least that is how it seemed from the bits of it I've watched) without considering consequences.

Looking at all the other moons in our system, our moon is WAY too big relative to Earth. That alone makes Earth extremely odd, and I am always surprised when astronomers talk about finding more earth type planets in other systems that they aren't talking about the fact that without the huge tidal effects of our very unusual moon, maybe you don't get any of the magic that results in life arising.

Having said that, I'll also note that Kosinski really seems serious about delivering THE BLACK HOLE as a movie respectful of science and intelligent speculation, one that deals with the realities of time travel and time dilation. My speculation was that maybe he intends to take that position Ridley Scott once said he was aiming for, to become the John Ford of sf films.

[Timelord_Victorious]

I was thinking if the destroyed moon would really have such a devastating effect as it was depicted.

It wasn't blown fully apart. The aliens just blew a chunk out of it and it remained in one piece for the most part. The rest of the debris was trailing behind it in it's orbit.
Tidal forces may have lessened actually a bit since gravity was a little more spread out around the moon's orbit.
Would that cause tsunamis, vulcanic eruption and earthquakes?
Well, I could see larger pieces of moon debris falling to earth and be basically like big meteor impacts.


The twists were mostly pretty obvious.

The low tech "aliens" which were not shown until the full reveal of their humanity.

The giant space station just 50 years in the future actually being the source of the alien invasion.

The memory wipe of Jack and his partner and the retarded control question telegraphed right at the beginning that something was wrong with "mission control"

The danger zone was introduced quite late, but it was obvious that radiation wasn't the problem there.

Can anyone tell me where Jack got the second intact life pod at the end? I thought only one was salvagable?

[Hartzilla2007]

trevanian wrote:

---

Seriously, the moon is not something you just throw away (like they did in that TIME MACHINE remake, or at least that is how it seemed from the bits of it I've watched)

I don't think they ignored the consequences of the Moon blowing up in The Time Machine remake so much as used time travel to skip over them seeing as enough time based for a group of underground humans to become albino cannibals who perfer darkness aka The Morlocks.

[trevanian]

Timelord_Victorious wrote:

---

The danger zone was introduced quite late, but it was obvious that radiation wasn't the problem there.

Given this is a Tom Cruise vehicle, was there a 'highway to to danger zone?'

[publiusr]

The bubble canopy and the cracked moon made me think of BeBop.

[Tulin]

WTF?!?

Is nobody going to see this film?

I thought it was pretty good - did people think it was THAT bad?!?

[Agent Richard07]

^ It doesn't come out in North America until tomorrow, but some theatres are showing it tonight.

[JD]

I'm hoping to see the first show tomorrow morning.

[od0_ital]

I went to see it tonight, just got home from it.

I liked it quite a bit. Yes, some of it was obvious, but some of it was surprisin', too.

Tom Cruise was still Tom Cruise, and Morgan Freeman wasn't as prominent as ya would think from the trailers, but still...I think its well worth checkin' out.

[teacake]

I saw it today. It was very visually enjoyable. I was never bored. The action scenes were minimal (this is a good thing to me). It revealed itself slowly, the plot.. but was so interesting to look at it certainly never felt slow. I loved the Iceland setting and I loved the cgi/fantasy of their living space (I want that view). It wasn't a tour de force in any way, more a tour of a post-apocalyptic world with questions slowing emerging as to what is really going on.

The negatives for me were that it got a bit soppy and went on a bit long, the silliness of Julia living on her own for several years and birthing a kid on her own.. I assume she dressed the kid in something she found since the kid appeared to be wearing very clean store bought clothes. I mean I get the sentiment of him setting her down there but if he failed it was hardly safer than living with people. Seeing the stupid Statue of Liberty torch for that brief second irritated me, just once an apocalypse I'd like that thing to be pulverized into the seabed.

Anyway.. for a very nice looking sci fi flick, nothing super original but I had no idea what was going to happen and I enjoyed it very much.

[Agent Richard07]

I saw it too. As mentioned, it was visually stunning with it's cool tech, the Iceland setting and the lavish living quarters. Everything was sharp and blended together so well that it didn't look or feel like CGI. And the story held my attention all the way through. I too went in not knowing anything and quite enjoyed watching the big puzzle unfold. In the end, the plot did feel a bit "put together" in that everything they wanted to throw in was made to work or fit somehow, but it was still an immensely fun ride.

I think the only thing that felt really contrived was when Jack entered the Tet and we saw all those incubators with clones. Why have all that out on display as ships fly by?

[od0_ital]

^

Why not? Its not really a display if no one sees 'em. Not a whole lot of ships would be goin' in & out, either.

[Agent Richard07]

^ We already got that he was part of an army of clones. Showing us that by having a station design where the walls are lined with incubators was just a bit too odd.

[The Mirrorball Man]

Genuine science-fiction movies are quite rare, and I thought this one was very well-made, ambitious and extremely enjoyable. It looks and feels like one of those great science-fiction novels from the 1970's. It's not perfect but I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who enjoys that kind of material.