[trailer] Oblivion

MrShoop wrote:
Duoae wrote:

I agree! It's not like Tom Cruise is Nicholas Cage...

;)

Tom Cruise Nicholas Cage buddy cop pic please! (or not)

Not. Cage and a zombie Klaus Kinski, though? I'd Kickstart it.

MrShoop wrote:
Duoae wrote:

I agree! It's not like Tom Cruise is Nicholas Cage...

;)

Tom Cruise Nicholas Cage buddy cop pic please! (or not)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/ClVotGo.jpg)

Lethal Weapon Reboot!

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/jhbDJaQ.jpg)

MrShoop wrote:
kexx wrote:

Movie Bob over at the escapist tore it a new one. My tastes align with his probably at 70%, and there are some tremendous disagreements (he thought Captain America was not only good, but one of the best in decades...seriously, WTF).

Still though, I agree most of the time, and from the impressions I got from the trailer, to what Tom Cruise has reduced himself to in the past years, plus Movie Bob's review....yeah, I think I'll pass. Not even a rental. I'll wait til this either hits TV, or I'm stuck at an airplane watching it.

It is very frustrating, but if you saw the trailer, you didn't just get an impression of the film, you got a summary. The art of the trailer as a tease without revealing too much seems to be mostly lost.

The trailer may reveal that the setup is a lie, but it doesn't tell you what the truth actually is. I enjoyed the film, and am rather enjoying the soundtrack.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

The trailer may reveal that the setup is a lie, but it doesn't tell you what the truth actually is. I enjoyed the film, and am rather enjoying the soundtrack.

Did you see the second trailer? It covers most of the major plot points up to the end of the second act. While it doesn't explicitly reveal the twist, it gives enough clues that if you didn't figure it out, you probably will have at least have considered it within the first 10 minutes of watching the movie.

Don't watch this if you haven't seen the trailer, and plan to see the movie.

I saw it and enjoyed it. And I still think highly enough of it now that I have had a moment or two to go "Hey wait a minute."

But honestly I am scratching my head trying to think of this of something other than a love story. And please don't let that turn you off from the movie because it shouldn't.

Spoiler:

The kicker for me is there are several places they could have ended it but they chose to continue and the ending they chose to end it with him finding the house with his wife.

Even the ending speech was leaning like it was going towards some historical relevance but ended up with romantic notions of the soul and love conquers all.

Okay so problems that are oozing through the cracks post viewing:

Harper encounters himself and that triggers a will for 52 to uncover the truth. The problem with that is according to Morgan Freeman, the invading dropships contained 1000's of Harper soldiers to mop up the human resistance. Don't you think 1000's of them would be just as confused and perhaps disruptive or non functional? The wife said the #49 was different but we find out that isn't true.

Also, how does 52 find the scrav resistance. Why does the scrav resistance trust 52?

Why does 49 take the flight recorder (the only unbiased account of what happened) on the suicide run? I also didn't know that flight recorders had play/pause/rewind controls on them or that said controls would survive atmospheric reentry and crash landing.

What was the Tec planning on using the millions of Harper and Varta(?) clones for? After it leaves? Why use humans at all with all those drones available? Why make weapons/vehicles that humans can use or the scavs can steal, repurpose and use against you?

Those hydrogen things sucking the ocean don't seem like there were even remotely enough to make a tiny dent in the available water on the planet.

So the Tec blew up the moon... Now even if it did cause lots of major earthquakes and tsunamis, I can't imagine the kind of devastation that we saw would be caused by them. I mean we saw the Empire State building buried in dirt up to its top floors. That is like a 1000 ft of dirt. The same thing happened to the Brooklyn bridge.

Wouldn't it just have been easier to vaporise the population with the same technology that created the drones and blew up the moon? If energy is such a commodity, why waste it on blowing up the moon?

Oh and...

Spoiler:

This movie was one big infomercial for Apple and Mac. Everything had that hip and cool iPod vibe to it and then they killed Droid at the end. (No I am not serious but I found it funny)

Tet, not Tec. As in Tetrahedron, I think.

IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Tetrahedron.gif)

I saw the movie on Saturday and I think it was excellent. All minor and inconsequential inconsistencies considered, none of them really undermine the story or the amazing visuals and exposition. Acting and action were great too. Like it or not, Tom Cruise knows how to deliver.

At the end, I had to wonder

Spoiler:

how HAL 9000 and Claptrap managed to have a baby.

@deftly

Spoiler:

And the droid mobile phone.

fangblackbone:

Spoiler:

Harper encounters himself and that triggers a will for 52 to uncover the truth. The problem with that is according to Morgan Freeman, the invading dropships contained 1000's of Harper soldiers to mop up the human resistance. Don't you think 1000's of them would be just as confused and perhaps disruptive or non functional? The wife said the #49 was different but we find out that isn't true.

That was 60 years ago, remember. The initial Harper invasion force that numbered in the would've been geriatric by now. They've been decommissioned/recycled by now.

Also, how does 52 find the scrav resistance. Why does the scrav resistance trust 52?

Irrelevant surely. Tet's destroyed, the war's over, what's he going to do to them?

Why does 49 take the flight recorder (the only unbiased account of what happened) on the suicide run? I also didn't know that flight recorders had play/pause/rewind controls on them or that said controls would survive atmospheric reentry and crash landing.

It's the future! Flight recorder's have gotten super-fancy. And also, it's a dramatic device so we can have a flashback reveal and mirror the initial approach to Tet with the suicide run.

What was the Tec planning on using the millions of Harper and Varta(?) clones for? After it leaves? Why use humans at all with all those drones available? Why make weapons/vehicles that humans can use or the scavs can steal, repurpose and use against you?

Turn them into soylent green/recycle them when it hits the next world? And it's Vika. Short for Victoria. Humans are more versatile.

Those hydrogen things sucking the ocean don't seem like there were even remotely enough to make a tiny dent in the available water on the planet.

It's been going on close to 60 years.

So the Tec blew up the moon... Now even if it did cause lots of major earthquakes and tsunamis, I can't imagine the kind of devastation that we saw would be caused by them. I mean we saw the Empire State building buried in dirt up to its top floors. That is like a 1000 ft of dirt. The same thing happened to the Brooklyn bridge.

It looks cool.

Wouldn't it just have been easier to vaporise the population with the same technology that created the drones and blew up the moon? If energy is such a commodity, why waste it on blowing up the moon?

It's a massive crippling first strike. Tet's powerful, but it can't project force over the entire planet at once. So it subverts the planet and uses it against humanity instead of going for conventional warfare and risk death by a thousand cuts.

Thanks ALG!

Spoiler:

As long as I am on a tear with nitpicking, FYI The earth has 332 million cubic miles of water as per the USGS.

So with 10 hydro-sucking units and 60 years, that would mean each unit would have to suck 553k cubic miles a year or 1515 cubic miles every day.

So I guess that is plausible but not probable. And in the CG shots of the hydro suckers, it looked like there was a lot of water left for only having 2 weeks to go.

fangblackbone wrote:

Thanks ALG!

Spoiler:

As long as I am on a tear with nitpicking, FYI The earth has 332 million cubic miles of water as per the USGS.

So with 10 hydro-sucking units and 60 years, that would mean each unit would have to suck 553k cubic miles a year or 1515 cubic miles every day.

So I guess that is plausible but not probable. And in the CG shots of the hydro suckers, it looked like there was a lot of water left for only having 2 weeks to go.

Spoiler:

I forget the specifics, but isn't the 10 units only the ones Tom Cruise has knowledge of? Given that there's at least 51 other techs, I kind of think there's more out there.

More importantly, as far as he knows, he's going to Titan in two weeks, and we know how true that is. It might be that Tet genuinely will be done with the planet in two weeks, but it's more likely that it's just the end of their tour and they'll get a memory wipe, or be replaced with new clones and Tet will keep going for another couple of years...

Considering seeing this as a double-feature with Iron Man 3 on Saturday. Sounds like it's a good one?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Considering seeing this as a double-feature with Iron Man 3 on Saturday. Sounds like it's a good one?

If you do make it a double bill, see Oblivion first. Going from ok and austere to really good and a bucket of fun seems like it'd work much better than the other way around.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Considering seeing this as a double-feature with Iron Man 3 on Saturday. Sounds like it's a good one?

If you do make it a double bill, see Oblivion first. Going from ok and austere to really good and a bucket of fun seems like it'd work much better than the other way around.

I agree. And I actually liked Oblivion alot better than to just call it "ok and austere". The various themes of the two movies work better if put together with Oblivion first before Iron Man 3.

Haven't seen Iron Man yet, But I'd imagine that the reflective pace of the beginning of Oblivion would be off-putting after what I'd assume is a spectacular and action packed climate in IM3.

Saw this last night. My favourite Sci-Fi movie since The Moon--not in the least because it gave me a similar vibe. In both movies (I didn't see much of Oblivion trailers, so didn't know what to expect), there was a feeling of pervasive dread. As if something is going to go horribly wrong any second now.

In this movie I like how people are talking about the big reveal, when I like to think of the reveal in this movie as a many layered onion. There are, in fact, quite a few reveals. Some more obvious than others.

This is also my prefered type of Sci-Fi. There are magical things that just work. Don't explain why, or how. They just do what they do.

With all that said, the ending was a bit weak. Not the love story ending. The "bad guy" ending. Found it to be very meh. But then again, it has been a really long time since Hollywood writers put together a reasonably decent story.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Considering seeing this as a double-feature with Iron Man 3 on Saturday. Sounds like it's a good one?

If you do make it a double bill, see Oblivion first. Going from ok and austere to really good and a bucket of fun seems like it'd work much better than the other way around.

I'm taking your advice. So, you know, you're to blame if it goes awry.

I ended up really enjoying this. I wasn't 100% satisfied with the resolutions for a couple of the storylines, but it was interesting, engaging, and beautiful to look at. I definitely enjoyed it more than Iron Man 3.

I watched a behind the scenes trailer the other day where is showed some of the beautiful vistas in the movie.

Spoiler:

I think his territory was at least the eastern seaboard of the US. Most of it seemed to be New York but there are some fly overs of places that have to be Florida and he definitely flies through the Pentagon.

Responding to a couple of spoilers above:

Spoiler:

52 was triggered to find the truth not by seeing 49 but by seeing Julia. At least, that was my understanding of the closing monologue.

And I definitely got the impression that the "two weeks" deadline was a false one implanted by the Tet to make the technical teams more effective. I did not get the impression it would be done harvesting the Earth in that time.

With a bit of time to reflect, my only real issue is with:

Spoiler:

The resolution of the love story. I can accept that all the Jack clones have some sort of memory of Julia built into them that's always bubbling just beneath the surface. Maybe they're not genetic clones but carbon copies that still retain some of the original neural wiring. Whatever. I can roll with that.

What bothers me is that Jack has been living with Victoria, and in love with her, all this time. They act like a happy couple with some dissatisfaction just beneath the surface. But as soon as Jack sees Julia, he is suddenly without any emotional ties to this woman he's supposedly loved for years. It's weird.

Similarly, Julia just immediately takes up with a clone of her now-dead lover. If my wife died, I don't think I'd just immediately take up with a copy of her that wandered into my home, especially if I knew that there were literally millions of copies of her just running all over the place.

It's a sweet love story, but it defies human emotions.

About Victoria...

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Spoiler:

What bothers me is that Jack has been living with Victoria, and in love with her, all this time. They act like a happy couple with some dissatisfaction just beneath the surface. But as soon as Jack sees Julia, he is suddenly without any emotional ties to this woman he's supposedly loved for years. It's weird.

Spoiler:

I'm not so sure about that. Don't forget that he attempted very hard to save her before the drone did away with her. Even Vic 52 he attempted to convince to come with him.

About Julia...

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Spoiler:

Similarly, Julia just immediately takes up with a clone of her now-dead lover. If my wife died, I don't think I'd just immediately take up with a copy of her that wandered into my home, especially if I knew that there were literally millions of copies of her just running all over the place.

Spoiler:

Again, I'm not quite connecting the dots the same way. First it's been years since the end of Tet. Secondly, even the first one was a clone. What made him her husband is the fact that he remembered and cared. After the second one remembers and cares, he's pretty much the same as the first. Furthermore, it's a rough life out there. I can imagine having her husband, even if it's yet another copy, would be a pretty good deal, compared to surviving as a single mother.

Regarding Victoria and memories of Julia:

Spoiler:

during the scene where Victoria locks Jack out and tells Sally that they are "not effective", she speaks a line: "It's about her, it's always been about her". I took that as a hint that she has been lying and that she does remember Julia to some extend. At the very least that she has some connection to Jack. Later on we find out that they were all on the same crew and that the original Victoria had a thing for original Jack which he, seemingly didn't return because of his love for his wife.

It explains why she kept brushing off Jack's attempts to talk about his dream and why she was so cold yet unsure about finding another human alive. Pretty sure she had bits and pieces of memories returning as well but was fixed on being happy with Jack and going "to Titan" together.

Really enjoyed it.

Spoiler:

It was obvious that Sally wasn't real from the very beginning, but it was a fun ride learning all the various aspects of the invasion and deception.

But there are lingering questions. How did the scavs know the sleep pods were up there? How did they know how to bring them down?

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Spoiler:

But there are lingering questions. How did the scavs know the sleep pods were up there? How did they know how to bring them down?

Spoiler:

They didn't know the pods were up there. They brought the craft down for its nuclear reactor core. Which still leaves the question of how they knew it was up there and how they brought it down.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
Spoiler:

But there are lingering questions. How did the scavs know the sleep pods were up there? How did they know how to bring them down?

Spoiler:

They didn't know the pods were up there. They brought the craft down for its nuclear reactor core. Which still leaves the question of how they knew it was up there and how they brought it down.

Sure, more of less the same question. DON'T ARGUE WITH ME!

Quintin's question answer:

Spoiler:

If you recall how it all started... once he found out that they are going into the alien ship, he separated the pod section of the ship from the command section. The pod section went back to Earth on auto-pilot. Skags did know about the whole mission. After all, it was an international space mission that was redirected to investigate the alien artifact. Presumably, they would know that the command module was separated from teh pod section. Or so I imagine.

Just saw this on HBO. Nice to have a solid Sci-fi experience. Enjoyed the score too.