ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

* 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.







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!





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


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

[Robert (Butch) Day]

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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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Bud Brewster]

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

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.

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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)

[Custer]

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?

[Bud Brewster]

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

[Custer]

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.

[Bud Brewster]

[Custer]

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...

[Bud Brewster]

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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! )

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

[Robert (Butch) Day]

[Bud Brewster]

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An awesome trailer for an awesome movie, one of my all-time favorites.
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___________ Oblivion Official Trailer #3 (2013)


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

[Gord Green]

A well-done project! Whatever your opinion of Tom Cruize, this film is wonderful!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

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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.

I guess it's a case of "ignorance is bliss.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)