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Kat
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Posts: 2,394
RE: The movie "Oblivion"
on Monday, June, 24, 2013 7:56 PM
MANY SPOILERS LIE AHEAD, mmkay? Getting tired of the damn "spoiler" tags. Consider yourselves warned.




Oh, good, I'm glad you got around to mentioning Total Recall. Except, y'know, at least this wasn't as mind-bendingly ridiculous (although I would've totally overlooked a three-breasted hooker).


Also, did you mention Space Odyssey anywhere? Evil computer-thing-- check. People in deep sleep betrayed by their gov't-- check. Etc.


And, Avatar, if you want to go with the "organic-in-the-forest = good, Big-Technology = bad" idea.


It would seem, with the "technology rejection" you mention, that they're playing to the "OMG all these kids and their technology and soon they won't even READ!" fears...


I am still trying to figure out WTF is up with Vika. How much does she know? She clearly has some inkling of who Julia is, as she's insanely jealous of her the second she lays eyes on her, and even says "it was always her" as if she remembers all perfectly. Does she know precisely what happens when she says she and Jack are no longer "an effective team"? I mean, her demeanor isn't one of a woman who just thinks somebody's getting a transfer. Is her reward for playing the game that she gets to be with Jack (who she clearly has a thing for even in the flashback)?

Or is she just a crappily-written semi-villain? I find it really difficult to believe she's just perfectly happy to spend years on end in one little house, has no curiosity about the surface, is a big rule follower. The woman's a damn *astronaut*; she's not even happy to stay on one *planet*, FFS, so why the big personality 180? (and if she DOES know all, being "the bad guy" who totally sells out humanity just to get with a guy doesn't seem to fit with what we see of her in the flashback, either.)


J Wrote:The way they took out the Big Bad AI? Independence Day, complete with the improbability factor.
See also: Signs. Improbability, I mean. But don't get me started on that movie.


You're right, though. "Good luck to humanity" was my thought, too. Ah, well. I suppose we can assume a little purge probably already took place, and those not fit to be survivalists died out a good time ago.


Also, my earlier question of whether it was even ethical for him to decide FOR Julia that she was going to live, as if he's a parent and she's a little kid who can't decide what she wants to do for herself and needs him to step in and do what he feels best for her. Hell, he afforded Vika more respect than that in the flashback...


I'm... not even going to get going on the "kickass chick is left behind and OF COURSE it has to be to pop out a bay-bay and pine for a dude and yada yada" thing. This film really wasn't that kind to the female characters. Both are alleged to be strong and smart and adventurous, but in practice that's not quite what happens; one ends up a shrewish, goody-two-shoes pawn whose former personality we wouldn't recognize, and the other will take any guy who looks like another and ends up a solitary single mother in a house in the woods (cause one of the guys who looks like another wouldn't even let her choose to die with him) and is totally cool with that.



What do you want? I'm busy.


Program, please!


Chaos.... good news.
 
DrP
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Posts: 242
RE: The movie "Oblivion"
on Saturday, September, 14, 2013 7:52 AM
Just saw Oblivion on Blu-ray this past week. I was actually very impressed. The first things that struck me was that the visuals and overall design of the sets were amazing. Second, I really liked the music. A lot of the elements reminded me of Tron: Legacy, but not in a negative/copied way. Overall, I think it was a fresh movie with a unique story and although I am not a big Tom Cruise fan, I thought it was one of his better performances and really carried the movie. I think that says a lot when most of today's big budget movies are the same story over and over again.

I liked the music so much on this one I even sat through the credits with the volume turned up! This is definitely a movie you want to watch in a nice home theater.
END OF LINE
 
Argent
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Posts: 274
RE: The movie "Oblivion"
on Saturday, September, 14, 2013 2:58 PM
Kat Wrote:And, Avatar, if you want to go with the "organic-in-the-forest = good, Big-Technology = bad" idea.


It would seem, with the "technology rejection" you mention, that they're playing to the "OMG all these kids and their technology and soon they won't even READ!" fears...

That seems to be a recurring theme with Kosinski, I've noticed. First in Tron: Legacy, where there just seems to be this pervasive undertone of "analog=good, digital=bad", and then again in Oblivion. It's why I'm kind of ambivalent about his long-term involvement with the Tron franchise. Visually, he's capable of some fantastic things, but the themes at the heart of his movies seem to be at odds with what made me fall in love with Tron in the first place.

 
LORD_Z3DD
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Posts: 120
RE: The movie "Oblivion"
on Sunday, October, 13, 2013 5:45 AM
Just saw the film on Blu-ray, and it was AMAZING, I can't believe I didn't go to see it at the cinema.

I thought it was a flawed film, but less so than Legacy.

J Wrote:This movie was a patchwork of about...six or seven better-done sci-fi films. Cruise plays almost the same guy in every film he gets.


Yeah! his role was practically the same as Ray from the War of the worlds, or his role in mission impossible or....oh wait.

J Wrote:
The underground refugees? Mad Max, The Matrix, some of the Star Wars expanded universe, Solarbabies, even Tank Girl.


I just LOL'ed at the fact that you believe some of the star wars expanded universe, solarbabies and frigging tank girl are better than Oblivion

J Wrote:
The memory tampering, false lover versus real, and divided loyalties? Total Recall. Solaris if you want to go obscure and even more trippy (the filmmaker was trying to fly a lot past the USSR censorship board)


It's similar, yes, but they go in different directions

J Wrote:
The way they took out the Big Bad AI? Independence Day, complete with the improbability factor.

So, you are honestly telling me that you thought the execution of the ending was better in the movie were they hack a spaceship using windows 95? Oblivion's ending had a lot more depth and emotion.

J Wrote:Seeing it was the same director as Legacy, I started checking for things that might point to a signature style developing. Joss Whedon has witty banter, and can't tie his shoes without killing off a third of the cast. J. J. Abrams has his love affair with lens flare. Michael Bay has a lot of "America, hell yeah!" and explosions. So what does Oblivion have in common with Legacy?

Both of them seem to love the look of technology - the chrome, the sterile white plastic, the colored neon trimmings, the sharp lines and inorganic curves. But the love seems to end at the look. Scratch the surface, and technology in both films turns out to something dangerous, treacherous, inherently hostile, something never to be trusted. In Legacy, there was not a single Program that wasn't trying to get the Flynns killed.


That's kind of funny, I could had sworn there was a rebel legion of programs somewhere on the end of line club...

J Wrote:
They all hated humanity and the not-quite-Program-or-Human Isos. Flynn Sr's final attempt to make peace with his creation is brutally rejected and when Clu tries to murder again, Flynn has to kill them both while Sam takes Quorra (the only thing implied to be worth saving), hauls ass, shuts down the whole thing, and leaves to go see a sunrise (which reverses the sunset/fade to night in the first film and the implied "we are not so different")

In Oblivion, all the technology is still very pretty, but it is still just a trap. The modern home of plastic and glass with internet connection, computers, medical equipment, high-tech vehicles...it's a trap. Vika's apparent function is to keep Jack in that trap, her responses scripted and flat like badly done video game dialogue trees. The drones he fixes, the ship he flies, they are all tools of hunting his own kind, making him an unwitting pawn in genocide. His mission control is an insane AI who claims godhood. The technology is using him. It's shiny, it's pretty...it's pure evil. The movie shows he's a "good guy" by his explicitly rejecting higher technology. It's shown with Jack's low-tech hideaway. Freeman's character even says it openly when talking about the book and the highest technology the scavengers use are the stealth suits and scavenged industrial equipment.

SO yeah, the scavengers suits , pure technology is what kept them alive, it was also a
piece of tech what saved jack's wife.

What both Legacy and Oblivion share in common is that they both use nature to symbolize peace, that's why after defeating CLU Sam and Quorra go to see the sunrise and why the Scavs lived in an underground bunker but then moved to jack's house after defeating the TET


By the way, is it just me or does Kosinky love to create HUGE , ENORMOUS backstories and then tries to explain them in seconds? in Legacy, it was the creation of the grid, the arrival of the Isos , Clu's betrayal and then Flynn's fall, all explained in a matter of seconds and Kosinski just kind of hopes that the audience will make something out of that mess.

In Oblivion, that huge backstory seems to be the arrival of the tet, the army of jacks and the war on the probes , while this backstory was much more explored that the one in Legacy , some parts still feel rushed.

 
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