Oblivion

[keg in kc]

Post-apocalyptic science fiction starring Tom Cruise (I know, I know...), directed by Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy).

[JD10367]

Originally Posted by Silock

The ending really bothered me. It's just . . . not the same, and I don't know how she could accept that it is.

I didn't have an issue with it. She

Spoiler!

already knew that he wasn't HER Jack, that he was a clone, that all the memories of Jack were inherent in every clone and just needed (apparently) something to trigger the memories and make them come back (which, we assume, the fight with Clone #1--and subsequent destruction of the UberDroidPhoneGod--did for Clone #2). It's not like it was a twin brother who lived a totally different life, had different likes/dislikes, had no shared experiences; it's basically a carbon copy of the man she married. I think it would be pretty easy, if someone Xeroxed your loved one, for you to treat the copy the same way as the original if it had all the memories and habits and likes/dislikes, etc.,.

[keg in kc]

Enjoyed it. Had issues with 52 at the end as well, but not to the level of 'hate'; it just bothered me. Also had some issues with some of the obvious early give-aways to the supposed major plot twist (his memory's wiped every 5 years, tech seems awfully advanced for 2070, etc), but all in all it was a pretty cool movie. Oh, and it seemed odd to me that the Odyssey's sleeper units were released from the tractor beam. Too convenient. Not to mention the existence in 2017 of a manned trip to Titan. Something that would have had to be in development long before now. They should've pushed that date back at least 10 years, and probably more. But that's mostly nitpicking.

[JD10367]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Oh, and it seemed odd to me that the Odyssey's sleeper units were released from the tractor beam. Too convenient.

Well, since tractor beams haven't been invented yet and have only been seen in "Star Trek" and "Star Wars", I guess there are two schools of Tractor Beam Theory: the first would be that it's a column of some finite distance and everything in that column will be pulled towards the source; the second would be that it's more of a beam that will "lock on" to the first object it touches and, thus, anything behind it will not feel the effect. My assumption in this instance is the second case (that it locked on to the Odyssey and pulled it in, so anything behind the ship would be immune to the beam).

[keg in kc]

We're talking about an alien object so much more technologically advanced than we are that it seems god-like, yet it allows 90% of the object it grabbed to get away simply because it disconnected, without adjusting in any way? That seemed like lazy writing to me...

Forgot to mention earlier, I thought the movie fell apart a bit during the third act. Starting about at the point 49 got back to the scavs, through the attack. Just felt off pace. Particularly during Morgan Freeman's long (and I thought unnecessary) historical monologue, but it seemed to recover by the very end.

[ChiefaRoo]

Originally Posted by Wonton Prejudice

It sounds terrible. Like, worse than Prometheus.

Androids... you can't trust 'em.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Enjoyed it. Had issues with 52 at the end as well, but not to the level of 'hate'; it just bothered me. Also had some issues with some of the obvious early give-aways to the supposed major plot twist (his memory's wiped every 5 years, tech seems awfully advanced for 2070, etc), but all in all it was a pretty cool movie. Oh, and it seemed odd to me that the Odyssey's sleeper units were released from the tractor beam. Too convenient. Not to mention the existence in 2017 of a manned trip to Titan. Something that would have had to be in development long before now. They should've pushed that date back at least 10 years, and probably more. But that's mostly nitpicking.

Well, to be fair, 57 years ago was 1956.

Here was a combine from 1956 - 4 row head cutting conventional corn.


2013 combine cutting 16 rows of Genetically modified corn to fight bugs that they didn't even have insecticide for in 1956. Not to mention that it has auto steer, auto speed, tells the graincart when it is full and the operator can run the grain cart tractor from the cab.



And it is farming FFS, notoriously low-tech.

I don't think technological advancements 57 years from now require that much suspension of belief.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I don't think technological advancements 57 years from now require that much suspension of belief.

You could say the same thing about the last 20 years. But it wasn't really 57 years of technological advancement. It was just five years until the planet was devastated, and then there was a war against overwhelming forces. So while war can spur advancement, history makes that abundantly clear, I don't think we're talking about labs all over the planet anymore, and much of the population (including researchers and scientists) is dead. So how does all this development happen? The only thing I could rationalize is that we reverse-engineered alien technology. But how do they build those gigantic sea harvesters, not to mention the Tet, inside of the movie's time-frame?

It's an easy problem to fix, in any case, similar to the issues with having the Odyssey flight in 2017. Make that flight in 2037, and make the events of the movie happen in 2177. Then their plot twist is an actual plot twist instead of a "duh, that was obvious 3 seconds into the movie".

[Branden Albert's Huge Balls]

The Tet was

Spoiler!

alien...as were the harvesters.

[keg in kc]

I know. I was explaining why that was such a poor plot twist because it was so obvious from the start.

[Branden Albert's Huge Balls]

Well, it certainly didn't register with me...*shrug*

[Fish]

You have a super agile flying dragonfly craft, to navigate the dangerous terrain. So what do you do? Land the sumbitch, and hop on a motorcycle. WTF?