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Oblivion (2013)

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2015 9:53 pm    Post subject: Oblivion (2013) Reply with quote



* This post assumes you've seen the movie and I'm not spoiling it for you. If you haven't, watch the movie while I grab a cup of coffee, then come back and read this post.

I'm really glad this movie has a great story, because with all the beautiful production designs so reminiscent of Forbidden Planet the movie is just begging to be loved.





The house up in the sky is something I can't get tired of looking at, not to mention the fun of speculating about how the structure could be made strong enough not to sway in the wind and cause its occupants to puke all over the futuristic furniture.









The special effects are dazzling, too, and if any of us older sci-fi fans had seen this movie when we were twelve years old, our enthusiasm for some of the less-than-perfect classics might have been tough to maintain. This movie is such a dazzling glimpse into the future that it just makes you yearn for this kind of quality in more movies.



When the red-haired gal sits down at that magnificent console and watches Tom lift off to zoom around in the coolest aircraft ever to grace the skies, I get tingly all over. Very Happy







This aircraft is one of the most magnificent vehicles ever designed for a science fiction movie, and when Tom flies it around shooting at the pursuing drones, we get a real sample of just how versatile the design is. I hope someday we'll actually be able to build this flying work of art.









The story is so focused on the handful of human survivors of the alien invasion, we never even get a description of the aliens themselves, which is a little frustrating. But I guess that's one way to avoid criticisms concerning the design of the aliens. And since the story wasn't about them anyway, I guess it's best just to leave the matter of their physical appearance out of the film all together.





I like the way the story is slow and thoughtful when it's giving us a lot to think about. And when it's time for action, the movie cuts loose like a Brahma bull at a rodeo.





Watching Tom Cruise wrestle with the slow revelation that the "history" he's been told is a lie and his identity is false is what keeps the movie interesting from start to finish. I admire the fact that there are no evil villains or sneaky turncoat characters, just people facing hard truths and making tough decisions.





The first time I saw it, I was surprised that Tom Cruise died at the end, but because of the story's unique nature, his character can actually die and get the girl — in that order! Very Happy





The Blu-ray of this movie is available on Amazon for only $5.00. What a deal.



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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 23, 2015 6:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

As a further piece of evidence of the Forbidden Planet similarities look at the ship approaching the space station door:



Look familiar? Mirror the picture vertically and you get a very close approximation of the Krell archway!



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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 23, 2015 2:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

___________________________________

Great point, Butch! (Great screen shot, too. Very Happy )

Today I read an item in the Wikipedia article and realized that there is actually another wonderful similarity between Oblivion and Forbidden Planet.

In Forbidden Planet the filmmakers created Altair 4 with a huge cyclorama that surrounded the sound stage and created the illusion that the ship rested on the planet's surface.

Ditto for the Morbius home, which was designed to afford ample views of the surrounding landscape, much of which was a painted backdrop.

Something very similar was done in Oblivion to created the illusion that the Sky Tower (with it's profusion of picture windows) was looking out on the surrounding clouds.

Here's what Wikipeidia about it.
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For the Sky Tower set (built on a soundstage in Baton Rouge), Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda worked closely with visual special-effects house Pixomondo to establish both environment and lighting by the use of 21 front-screen projectors aimed at a huge wraparound backdrop to form one continuous image, rather than blue screen backdrops.

The backdrop consisted of a single seamless piece of painted white muslin, 500 feet by 42 feet (150 by 13 meters), which was wrapped around the set for 270 degree coverage.

This enabled the full environment to be captured in camera, and assisted in lighting up to 90 percent of the set. If they had used blue screen on a "glass house" set like the Sky Tower, the glass would literally have disappeared into the blue lighting, and the VFX people would have been forced to reconstruct most of the set in post-production.

Naturally, "the actors loved being in it" since unlike blue screen, they could look outside and actually see a sunrise or sunset.


__________________________________________

When I read this I realized what a brilliant idea that really was. Not only can the camera and the actors look out at the clouds as if they were real —







— the camera could even look back at the house from the outside and see the reflections of the clouds on the windows!





And that amazing shot in which Andrea Riseborough dives into the swimming pool is all the more impressive because (a) the swimming pool is the iridescent blue Plexiglas object we see suspended beneath the aircraft landing pad —





— and (b) the sky in the background of the scene below is not blue-screened into the shot! The scene actually looked just like this when the lovely naked lady dove into the water!





All the sets, props, and special effects in this remarkable movie demonstrate the same artistic brilliance that makes Forbidden Planet so incredible. Everything from the Sky Tower's control panel —





— to the drones and the Bubble Ship —







— and the Krell-like power generators —







— and even the composite shots like this one.




Would somebody please watch this movie with me in the chat room sometime soon? I'm just itchin' to share it with a group of fellow science fiction fans.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Custer
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 9:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm glad you recommended this movie - and I'm glad I didn't read past the "spoiler warning" above, as things do move on to unexpected happenings, proving that all is not how it seems.

Maybe I wasn't paying full attention, but does our hero get killed in a crash early on, to be almost instantaneously replaced by a new version, who doesn't realise that there's been any problem? The action is indeed frantic at times, and the revelations are suitably shocking. I wonder when he found the time to put together his cabin in the woods...

The blu-ray's four deleted scenes were pretty short, but a couple of them would have been good to see in the movie itself, if they didn't hurt the flow.

Like, Vika Olsen healing a bad cut in Jack's leg with a spray and then the painful mender-tool would have pre-explained what was going on later when Jack himself had to use it on a badly-injured Julia, while walking through the "archive" of the resistance, having it explained to Jack how they'd managed to save and preserve the books and paintings etc, was good - and adding a little more Morgan Freeman to the mix has to be good, right?
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 12:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

___________________________

Yes, indeed, this movie is phenomenal. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Custer wrote:
Maybe I wasn't paying full attention, but does our hero get killed in a crash early on, to be almost instantaneously replaced by a new version, who doesn't realize that there's been any problem?

Actually no, the Jack we see at the beginning is the "main Jack" all the way through, until the climax aboard the orbiting ship.

Custer wrote:
The Blu-ray's four deleted scenes were pretty short, but a couple of them would have been good to see in the movie itself, if they didn't hurt the flow.

I don't remember the deleted scenes, so I'll have to watch them again (or for the first time, if I haven't seen them yet). Thanks for pointing that out. Very Happy
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Custer
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 2:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's a strange sequence - only about 8 minutes in, we cut between Jack having big trouble in what could be a sort of lightning storm and Vika at her board chatting with "mission control." Jack's Bubble Ship plummets into a canyon, and vanishes from our sight... and then, apparently moments later, the ship comes back out, unharmed. "What happened? I lost you for a second," Vika asks. "Really?" is Jack's only response.



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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 6:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Custer wrote:
It's a strange sequence - only about 8 minutes in, we cut between Jack having big trouble in what could be a sort of lightning storm and Vika at her board chatting with "mission control." Jack's Bubble Ship plummets into a canyon, and vanishes from our sight... and then, apparently moments later, the ship comes back out, unharmed. "What happened? I lost you for a second," Vika asks. "Really?" is Jack's only response.

Right. Only gone for a few seconds. Let's think about that.

Creating a replacement "Jack" required having one prepared (up in the spaceship) with the memories of the training he'd need to perform the job. Routinely, the old "Jack and Vika" would go up to the spaceship (thinking they were joining all the happy folks up there), and they would either be destroyed on just "recycled" (the memory wipes Jack refereed to a few times.)

So, there was certainly no time for the aliens to prepare a new "Jack", put him into a bubble ship and . . . then what? Fly it down into the canyon just so it could zoom back up and pretend to be the one that crashed?

There would be no need to fool Viki into thinking he was the same one that crashed, because she didn't even know he'd fallen into the canyon!

Nope, the scene was just intended to show us how cool Jack was under pressure. He simply regained control of the ship and then bravely pretended the life-threatening situation hadn't happen so that his sweetie pie wouldn't be worried.

You know. It was a guy thing.
Very Happy
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Custer
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 9:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You're probably right - though it is a strange sequence. We have no evidence in the movie that the aliens could immediately teleport/clone a new bubble ship and Jack-pilot, Jack with all his memories up to that second. The aliens may be pretty sneaky and technologically advanced, but that would almost certainly be beyond them.

Jack and Vika man their house in the sky for a few weeks at a time, with their past memories wiped "for security purposes," always believing that this is the last tour of duty before they leave for Titan's moon where humanity is building a brave new world. Pretty clever of Jack to build that cabin in an idyllic spot in the woods by a lake, complete with a green-generated power supply for his record player and household stuff. Just part of a package of memories that he is allowed to keep?

I must say that the original Jack's mission reminds me of NASA's last deep space mission, launched in 1987, which sent Captain William Anthony "Buck" Rogers towards the stars, before some unknown disaster cut off communication. Maybe he's still out there, frozen in a dream...
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 3:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

_______________________________

Wow, I'd love to break the seal on the Blu-ray I bought of this movie and watch it again with you. I'm puzzled why you consider the lightning strike scene to be a "strange sequence". It was actually just a way of showing what a gutsy pilot Jack was, plummeting straight down in a disabled ship while he kept his cool and worked out a solution to the problem. Then —

Zoom!

— back up out the canyon, thrilling the audience with this heroic feat while he calmly pretended he didn't know why he'd dropped off Vika's radar. (Ethan Hunt, eat your heart out! Very Happy )

Custer, I think a second viewing will clear up some of the other things you might be puzzled by. For example, you said:


Custer wrote:
Jack and Vika man their house in the sky for a few weeks at a time, with their past memories wiped "for security purposes," always believing that this is the last tour of duty before they leave for Titan's moon where humanity is building a brave new world. Pretty clever of Jack to build that cabin in an idyllic spot in the woods by a lake, complete with a green-generated power supply for his record player and household stuff. Just part of a package of memories that he is allowed to keep?

The tour of duty for Jack and Vika was five years — not repeatedly "for a few weeks at a time", with memory wipes in between.

And this was their only tour of duty, unless clones are recycled and they don't know they've been there before. But in view of the scene towards the end, when Jack sees thousands of clones in stasis, I don't think the "memory wipes" really happened at all. The clones were given their memories when activated, and then replaced after five years.

The "memory wipe" idea was just the alien's way of tricking the clones into thinking they were normal people who had lives prior to their activation, along with the lie that they would be joining a happy human population aboard the ship in orbit after their "tour of duty" was complete.

I think they were only allowed to live for five years.

And they were just two weeks from completing their five year "tour of duty". So, Jack had plenty of time to build the cabin and stock it with rescued artifacts found during his excursions into the ruins.

It was something he did because he yearned for a more natural, "green" environment than the sky house provided, and he desperately wanted Earth to recover and be like it used to be — the way it was in the dreams that the implanted memories from the original Jack were causing him to have.

As for the aliens' method of replacing cloned couples, there are several aspects of the story that indicate what the aliens could and couldn't do. Transporting people back and forth clearly wasn't one of them. Consider this excerpt from the Wikipedia plot summary.
_______________________________

Jack communicates with the Tet via Sally, agreeing to turn over Julia to her. The Tet wants Julia because it believes that, as Jack's wife, a new set of clones based on her will make a more effective team than the Jack and Vika clones. After saying goodbye and placing Julia in a stasis chamber, Jack flies to the Tet.
_______________________________

If the aliens could just beam up the clones whenever they wanted to (and beam down replacements), they wouldn't have to convince the people that their "tour of duty" would end with them flying up the "Tet" and joining the surviving Earth people.

Also, if the aliens had transporter technology then the entire climax would make no sense. The aliens wanted Julia, but they needed Jack to bring her up in the bubble ship. They couldn't just beam her up.

Obviously the aliens were dependent on the brainwashed and deluded clones to maintain the power generators and the maintenance drones. But whenever a clone didn't follow orders (like Jack), they ordered him to come up to the ship — or they had a drone kill him, along with anybody else who was a threat to the operation, like the astronauts in stasis who came down in the escape pod.

If the aliens had transporter technology they would have simply beamed Julia right off the escape pod when it approached Earth, or just beam the astronauts into space before they ever reached the ground, if they didn't want them to live.

One thing the story avoids mentioning is the fact that the aliens could have used drones to intercept the escape pod before its reentry, capturing all the astronauts in space. But we're not supposed to notice that little omission. Very Happy

Yes indeed, I'm eager to watch this movie again. So, when are we going to meet up in the chat room some weekend and watch it together? I really hope we can arrange to do that, because we both have such a keen appreciation for how enjoyable and intelligent it is.
Cool
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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 23, 2018 10:38 pm    Post subject: Re: Oblivion (2013) Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
The story is so focused on the handful of human survivors of the alien invasion, we never even get a description of the aliens themselves, which is a little frustrating. But I guess that's one way to avoid criticisms concerning the design of the aliens. And since the story wasn't about them anyway, I guess it's best just to leave the matter of their physical appearance out of the film all together.

Which is why we don't see the Krell in FORBIDDEN PLANET.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

An awesome trailer for an awesome movie, one of my all-time favorites. Very Happy
________________________________



___________ Oblivion Official Trailer #3 (2013)


__________

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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 11:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A well-done project! Whatever your opinion of Tom Cruize, this film is wonderful!
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

__________________________________________________

I know there are people who dislike Tom Cruise for reason that concern his personal life.

I realize that Cruise is a flawed person in some ways, and he's not well respected in Hollywood. If Tom Cruise were something like a wife beater or a child molester I would NOT be able to enjoy his fine movies (many of which I own on DVDs and BDs). But the things he's done that many people object to haven't bother me enough to spoil my enjoyment of his acting — so far — mostly because I don't know about them, and don't really care. Very Happy

I guess it's a case of "ignorance is bliss. Rolling Eyes

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