Oblivion (Tom Cruise)

pixelburp

Goldstein wrote: »

... Stupid errors like that drive me mad because they're so unnecessary and such simple mistakes to avoid. Just look at Sunshine - a bloody masterpiece partially because they brought in Brian Cox as a consultant. And it doesn't take a professor to sort out these simple things. Gah! Elysium, Gravity and Riddick aren't too far off

Hehe, you mention the solid scientific principles of Sunshine (always makes me happy to see that film mentioned though!) and then you go and mention the new Riddick movie? Maybe my memory's rusty, but iirc Pitch Black had science even wobblier than Oblivion's. Chalk and Cheese there

Goldstein

pixelburp wrote: »

Hehe, you mention the solid scientific principles of Sunshine (always makes me happy to see that film mentioned though!) and then you go and mention the new Riddick movie? Maybe my memory's rusty, but iirc Pitch Black had science even wobblier than Oblivion's. Chalk and Cheese there

Quiet you, Pitch Black was awesome
I suppose if the story is enjoyable enough it stops you noticing the problems as much or at least lets you forgive them.

pixelburp

Goldstein wrote: »

Quiet you, Pitch Black was awesome

Absolutely; I would defend it to the hilt for being a near perfect Sci-Fi / Horror B-Movie. A lightning in a bottle production, but iirc its science made no sense

krudler

Am I alone in thinking the

cover story given to Cruise about his reason for doing what he did was better than the actual real plot

it would have worked just as well without the reveal and not opened up as many plot holes.

folan

krudler wrote: »

Am I alone in thinking the

cover story given to Cruise about his reason for doing what he did was better than the actual real plot

it would have worked just as well without the reveal and not opened up as many plot holes.

no. definatly not. and there were a lot of ways to do it.

Film was a homage to sci fi gnere. i can forgive it for that.

charlie_says

Amalgam wrote: »

Many thanks, I picked up on Cargo after your mention of it..

Cargo (2009 ) www.imdb.com/title/tt0381940/

That looks pretty interesting, thanks.

Carlos Orange

sxt wrote: »

Oblivion > Prometheus

I agree but that isn't saying much.

Mickeroo

krudler wrote: »

I was enjoying it until Freeman arrived, then any ideas it had were thrown out the window, the

multiple Cruises could have been expanded more, but nope, knocks one out, leaves him there til he randomly finds the cabin at the end after a few years wandering about, and why would the other humans even follow him? the cabin was tiny where were the rest of em going to live?! it was out literally in the middle of nowhere with nothing around, and AND, the "other" Cruise didnt know any of the whole "oh by the way those aliens aren't aliens after all they're humans. he was still on his scav hunting mission before he got knocked out he would have woke up and started battering any of the ones near him.

In fairness:

regarding them showing up at the cabin. It was the only place we saw in the whole film on the surface that wasn't a lifeless desert, in fact rather than it being the middle of nowhere it was a veritable paradise perfect for restarting civilisation on the surface. It also makes sense the survivors would go exploring the surface now it was free of drones rather than live out their existence underground and as far as we could see that was the only place that didn't look inhospitable to life near them or possibly on the whole planet.

krudler

What about the

other Cruises though? if the one we follow was number 49 and the other was 52 (or was it the other way around I cant remember) then it stands to reason there's at least 50 more of them (one for every state? maybe thats how they split up the "radiation zones" ) I thought it was the most interesting part but it was never explored like it should have been

Mickeroo

krudler wrote: »

What about the

other Cruises though? if the one we follow was number 49 and the other was 52 (or was it the other way around I cant remember) then it stands to reason there's at least 50 more of them (one for every state? maybe thats how they split up the "radiation zones" ) I thought it was the most interesting part but it was never explored like it should have been

I agree with you on that

Potentially there's thousands of them around the whole planet, and it's a shame they didn't explore it more, hell they didn't even explore 52 enough imo. They could have just made the whole film about that, even if it would just have been a slightly diferent spin on Moon. Hell they could have had all the Cruises turn on the Tet without the need for Freeman and his merry men at all.

tok9

I thought it was good. It kept me interested for the duration anyway.

I found the score to be ridiculously distracting though, probably the worst in a movie I've seen. I can't think of another one anyway. I just found it didn't match up particularly well with the majority of the scenes.

I'd also agree that the explanation at the start shouldn't have been there. It's explained 40 - 50 mins in which would have been a lot better imo.

eyeball kid

Saw this film last night. Hadn't seen or read anything about it only that it was a sci fi film. I must say, I thought it looked great. Some of the landscapes and shots looked beautiful.

However it does feel very derivative, you can spend a lot of time remembering where you saw certain parts of the film before. I also really didn't like the ending. Thought it was far too Hollywood for my liking.

But I did sort of enjoy it and it passed a couple of hours.

Sarxos

Anyone fancy a signed poster?

Neutronale

A world populated with millions of TCs :eek:

I loved it, great pic...

Amalgam

SoundWorks Collection - The sound and music of Oblivion - from Michael Coleman

In this exclusive SoundWorks Collection profile we talk with visionary Director Joe Kosinski about the sound and music of his new film "Oblivion". Also featured are Kosinski's behind-the-scenes collaborators include Composer Joseph Trapanese, M83's Anthony Gonzalez, and Re-recording Mixer Gary Rizzo, and Re-recording Mixer Juan Peralta.

Joseph Kosinski ~ 'Sound is half the story, I truly believe that..'

http://vimeo.com/64213430/

Galwayguy35

Going to see this tomorrow, heard good things about it so hopefully it lives up to the hype.

DoesNotCompute

Saw this tonight. Thought it was OK, pretty vacuous but visually stunning. The Inception style foghorns in the score were off putting and didn't suit the movie.

when cruise met his clone and returned to his place for medical supplies, why didn't the clone's missus notice that the number on the top-right corner of his suit was 42 instead of 52, or whatever?

Also if the aliens had the power to split the moon in half, why not just crash the moon into the Earth and wipe out everyone in a nuclear winter?

DirkVoodoo

DoesNotCompute wrote: »

Saw this tonight. Thought it was OK, pretty vacuous but visually stunning. The Inception style foghorns in the score were off putting and didn't suit the movie.

when cruise met his clone and returned to his place for medical supplies, why didn't the clone's missus notice that the number on the top-right corner of his suit was 42 instead of 52, or whatever?

Also if the aliens had the power to split the moon in half, why not just crash the moon into the Earth and wipe out everyone in a nuclear winter?

If you are going to go down that route:

No point over thinking it, just enjoy it for what it was. Any species, artificial or otherwise, capable of interstellar travel would surely have far easier means of gathering resources. Shacking up next to the sun maybe? Mining asteroids, etc. Going to war with an alien species, cloning some of them to carry out a lengthy stripping of resources and eradication of survivors, is clearly the wrong way to do it.

Headshot

Droids remind me so much of Half life

On another note I had the best cinema experience ever, I got to look at this movie all by myself in the cinema, not another soul came to see the movie

I wish it was always like that

Dempsey

a grand film that borrowed alot from moon, independence day, 2001, the island etc.

worth a watch but not worth nitpicking

quarryman

Headshot wrote: »

Droids remind me so much of Half life

On another note I had the best cinema experience ever, I got to look at this movie all by myself in the cinema, not another soul came to see the movie

I wish it was always like that

Nice one. What cinema?

Dempsey wrote: »

a grand film that borrowed alot from moon, independence day, 2001, the island etc.

worth a watch but not worth nitpicking

My thoughts exactly. It was like 'spot the movie' plagiarism. Luckily it borrowed from other good films

Tar.Aldarion

Worth going to see? i don't really see anything of interest in the cinema atm.

Antar Bolaeisk

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Worth going to see? i don't really see anything of interest in the cinema atm.

It's okay, bit of eye candy but leave your brain here for safe-keeping. If you were to watch it the big screen is definitely the place to do so.

Fysh

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Worth going to see? i don't really see anything of interest in the cinema atm.

I wouldn't bother IMO - it's a dumbed-down, actioned-up version of Moon with a bit of Wall-E thrown in for good measure; a couple of decent action sequences but not enough to disguise the fact that that it's basically a decent 30-minute short stretched out to a feature-length film.

It's not bad, but it's nowhere near as good as the films that influenced it, either.

Headshot

quarryman wrote: »

Nice one. What cinema?

IMC Thurles

Galwayguy35

The first hour was a bit slow but the action picked up after that, it was an ok film but not one that will stick out in my memory.

Went to see it this afternoon and really enjoyed. I think that I could actually have loved it were it not for the shower of cunts sat at the back of the cinema. The group seemed to be aged between 11 and 1 and spent the duration of the film talking loudly, running in and out of the screen and receiving calls and texts. They were repeatedly shushed and told to "shut the fuck up" and refused to. Someone even went and got a member of staff who told them to be quiet and they were, till the second she left. I really cannot understand, why anyone would pay to see a film and then not sit there quietly and enjoy it. It's been a long, long time since I've had such a poor cinema going experience and that includes the dozens of Friday and Saturday nights over the past months.

As for the film, well I really enjoyed it, even if it is pretty much a live action version of Wall-E. It's visually spectacular and there was some great action but the script is quite sloppy and let's be honest, it borrows heavily form many of the genres most beloved entries. Yet never once during the leisurely 2 hours did I mind that this moment was straight out of Independence Day or Planet of the Apes or any other. It seemed, to me anyways to be Kosinski's love letter to the genre.

Science Fiction is one of the hardest genres to get right. The most influential and loved films are idea driven rather than spectacle driven. Which is why whenever a film does something original we see that concept redone a dozen times before. And that's Oblivion's biggest problem. The script is as derivative as they come and manages during it's run-time to references 2001, The Matrix, Moon, Solaris, Tron Legacy, Wall-E, The Time Machine and so on. There really isn't a single moment that doesn't bring to mind another, superior sci-fi tale. If you can look past this then there is a lot to enjoy here.

Kosinski, much like Guy Ritchie and M. Night Shyamalan is a director who really shouldn't be allowed write his own films. Visually, he's in a league of his own. Tron Legacy impressed but free from the restraints imposed by working within an established world, he really impresses. The world of Oblivion is one of the most fully realized and jaw dropping beautiful ever put on screen. There isn't a single moment of the film that couldn't be captured and hung in a gallery. It looks and feels like a fully functioning world and every aspect of the world, from tech to environment works perfectly.

As great as the visuals are the score is rather less successful. It comes across as a less successful Daft Punk rip off by ways of Hans Zimmer's Inception score and while it has it's moments, over all it's lacking and fails to create any sense of wonder. There was a lack of synergy between the score and the visuals. Though there were a few moments where it worked such as the "fuck you, Sally" scene and the first glimpses of the world.

Oblivion is never going to be held up there with 2001 or Wall-E or Solaris but that doesn't mean it's a bad film. Taken on it's own merits it's one of the most watchable and entertainingly films of the year. It looks and sounds fantastic (the sounds of the ships, drones, etc) and there's never a lul in the pace. Sadly a few truly retarded plot holes

the recorder continuing to record even after the sleeper pod has been ejected is one of the biggest wtf? moments in many a year

and a poor script stop it from being a true classic. Yet even with that said, there's something immensely pleasurable about big budget sci-fi that no other genre can capture, even when it's all spectacle and no substance.

opr

I didn't enjoy this at all.

Firstly I don't even think for the most part that it looked as good as others have said. Some of it did look great. Lots of it though looked for what I would describe as still photo animation type stuff. That kind of thing can look quite cool but not to extent I'm going to applaud and be blown away by it with a film which had this kind of budget to play with. Many of the action sequences are narrow in scope and I felt even cheap looking in places.

It rips loads of the plot straight from Moon but removes most of the interesting elements at the point which it might be about to ask some interesting questions. Instead it's like some light bulb goes off, as it does many times in the film to cue the change in direction. It heads off on its popcorn munching save the world big explosion ending. Tarkovsky must have been rolling in his grave watching those lake cut scenes.

It pulls pieces from loads of other modern sci fiction and tries to mold it into some sort of homage. Solaris, Wall-E, Independence Day, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Matrix and a load more I'm missing.

It ends up a mess of ideas none of which are ever explored to any satisfactory length and none of which are in anyway original anyway. Honestly after writing this which has forced me to think about the film some more, I feel even more hateful towards it.

Opr

The Black Oil

I largely enjoyed this. It is competently made and generally well-executed. You might pull out a theme or two, but I don't think there is a deeper meaning that one needs to look for.

The opening narration was somewhat of an exposition dump, but the dynamic between Cruise Andrea Riseborough was good. She could easily have been utterly cold as a character, but here, I think her necessity of being so focused on the mission was also mixed with a degree of charm and ease in Victoria.

There were a few cheesy moments such as the pool scene, but nothing too bad. Sir Morgan of Freeman was his usual awesome self, though his character was a bit thin. Cruise can carry a film, of course. But each time he said his name was Jack I was expecting to say Jack Reacher..! Sometimes the trouble with films like this is that they can get up in action/talk/action/talk, and be somewhat mechanical, but I didn't really find that a problem as both the action and pauses propelled things forward with some decent tension. Landscape looked stunning.

Could have done with a few more notes of humour. Melissa Leo? Fcking awful accent.

Mickeroo

Fairly nailed it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rf5QwVAAxg