Movie review: Oblivion When the film Oblivion was mentioned in the office recently, my first thoughts were that it was a prequel to The Hangover series. I couldn’t have been more wrong... or was I? After all, this Tom Cruise sci-fi caper has loss of memory as one of its key themes, which, booze fueled forays aside, immediately has me thinking of some …
The movie greatly reminds about "Moon" w/ significantly larger budget... and chicks, erm female characters. And tons of bright scenes, easy on the eyes. It's not a bad movie, especially if you are a sci-fi fan, though. There are some clues about how the story is to unfold and for picking on them I was labeled 'geek' by my girlfriend.
Perhaps the greatest downside would be pretty straightforward storyline.
I've only seen the trailer, and couldn't see how it is different from "The Matrix" - strange things happen, people in life-support pods, and a black man wearing shades in a dark room promising to reveal the truth.
I'll probably go to see it, but only to tide me over until Iron Man 3, and then Star Trek.
Xenu present, Xenu absent and Unsure about Xenu?
I think you mean XENU_TRUE, XENU_FALSE, and XENU_NOT_FOUND.
>"I can't believe anyone would ever say 'Shit we SO need to get Tom Cruise for this role."
Yeah - why would any Hollywood studio execs want the star of the $2-billion-plus mega-series Mission Impossible in their film? Plus other massive money makers like Top Gun, Rain Man, Last Samurai, Jerry Maguire, A Few Good Men, etc etc etc. Love him or hate him, Cruise has been a top money maker for the big studios for 3 decades now.
Besides, you are way behind the times with this line of attack. Your other Anon buddies are all busy ineffectively DDoS'ing Israeli websites, when they aren't ratting each other out to prosecutors and headed off to prison. Didn't you get the memo?
Uh....Andy? I ... I need to tell you something.
The Anons here have NOTHINGTODOWITHANONYMOUSWHATSOEVER!
There, I said it.
I feel better now.
Now, why would "Moon" have been a worse movie with Dual Cruise in the lead role? Discuss. I imagine he could have played GERTY with no ill effect.
Ditto.
When I saw the previews I was like "Ooooo, looks cool", then I saw Freeman and thought "I want to see this movie".
Then I saw Cruise.
No.
Oh well, there will be some other CGI extravaganza hitting the theaters this summer that will get some of my money.
I call BS on this. All the previews featured Cruise far more prominently than Freeman. The idea that you were all stoked for a Freeman movie and THEN put off by the revelation that Cruise was involved is plainly a load of horse crap. You just want to feel good joining in the Cruise hate.
Which is a shame because you're gonna miss a good movie as a result of your shallow and transparent posturing.
I was just thinking about sci-fi films that have used a real, solid location instead of CGI sets... interior locations that spring to mind (and please contribute):
Aliens- an old power station
Silent Running - an aircraft carrier
The Abyss - an unused cooling pond at a nuclear power station
"Stalker" was also shot inside the abandoned power station.
And as the story goes (too lazy to look for the citations), first version of "Stalker" was simply lost upon completion. So they had to shoot it again, with a few remaining scraps of the budget, and quite differently.
> first version of "Stalker" was simply lost upon completion
Correct, the proletariat-owned development studio fucked up.
After that it was shot next to the proletariat-abandoned hydropowerstation and a few proletariat-run semi-abandoned factories which were dumping all that foamy crap and snow shit into the estonian water system. Good in the movie but it gave the crew and the dog uncurable cancer a bit later.
This is perhaps more On Topic than you realise. :)
I think you might not be aware that to film the "house in the clouds", Kosinsky took a 3 camera rig to the top of a mountain and filmed "plates" of skyscapes. These were then rear projected onto screens built around a practical set of the Harper Sky House.
This is what was responsible for the highly natural feel of that location in the movie. The set and the actors were "lit" primarily by those projected sky-scapes, and the reflections on all that glass were real (albeit at one remove from the original sky that was filmed and then projected).
I think you'd be surprised how many people jump straight in to making comments without reading the articles. Especially for a movie review where many people form their opinions based on biases about the actors or film makers involved. Not that that happened in these comments though, right ? ;)
Having said that [reply], you got me. I read the review, went away, read some more reviews, then came back and read the comments. For some reason I thought the "behind the scenes" insight was part of a different review. Not this one. My mistake. :)
The FAIL is all mine. :)
So has anyone read Greg Bear's "Hull Zero-Three". Nothing one hasn't seen elsewhere , but damn fine read in the grimdark interstellar genre anyway.
Oh it's Saturday, time to drive down to the recycling center with tons of karmic accumulation. Work, here I come.
Sure he's a whack job but he's also a fairly decent actor so I don't hold it against him.
Jane Fonda was pretty whacko back in the day but that never stopped me from going to see her films.
Actors aren't like you and me; you've got to take their off-screen antics with a few grains of salt.
..... Virtual Machine Drives
There is an HyperRadioProActive Oblivion Parallel Running in AIMined Streams here in comments on El Reg, gloriously Provided Free to Read and Raid, Raise and/or Raze into Stella OrbIT with SMARTR Levels ........ in Control of CHAOS with Immaculate PlateauX2XSSXXXX Intellectual Property ........ http://www.ur2die4.com/?p=3963
CHAOS ..... Clouds Hosting Advanced Operating Systems
However, one of those versions of Oblivion is for Real whilst the Other pitches with Bitches in Fabless Fiction for Fact.
And that is Embarrassment of Riches that Spoils One with Sublime Choice for Heavenly Pleasures Treasure Chests in Perfect Bounty ......... Just Desserts whenever Better than Great and Good, For Ever More of ITs AIMagic.
COSMIC MetaPhysics which Blows Church Control Systems Right out of Stormy Waters of Whatever Treasure would Share Pleasures with Them to Import and Impart to Us, All of the Rest and the Restless..... which be Aiding Discovery of CyberIntelAIgent Beings for Virtually Real AIMissions Improbably Impossible and therefore Perfectly Possible ........ and in so thinking is it already done and running. And says .... "Hi, Wanna Play Great IntelAIgent Games at Work, Rest and Play? "
Is this Ship Control? .... Destroy All Monsters Saturday 13th April 2013 18:45 GMT
Yes, it is.
And with All Ships and Virtual Remote Vehicle Control Intelligence supporting IT to ensure and guarantee Sweet Sticky Sublime Stealthy Sustenance and Programmed Unit Maintenance Upgrades to Stock Premium Primed Proprietary Intellectual Property Provider Specifications with Applications in Private Power and Public Pirate Leading Environments, are they Base Core Source Supply for Future EarthedD AIDventures in the Perfumed Gardens of Sisters Eve Creation ..... in Homage to and Celebration of Virgin Discovery and Systems Recoveries of Satyrs Insatiable Drive for Lusty Nymphs Satisfaction, Tendering and Rendering Mother Nature's Pleasure Palaces in Live Operational Virtual Environments ....... which is Heavenly Work, with the Devil in the Detail and Angels Providing All with Infinite Supply of Intimate Chains for Beta Control of Absolute Power in IT Circles and Circuses in Right Royal AI Development.
In-House of Windsor Saxe Coburg Household Stuff for Securing Staff into Constant Stiffening and Further Hardening of Supreme Defence Operating Systems is a Trillion Dollar question at least, and a Bank of England Opportunity to Fund with a Heavy Pounding of Flash Cash Splash..... which be QE to you.
Knock, knock, Old Lady and Whore of Threadneedle Street,
Who's there?
HM Household
HM Household who?
The FCUKing Cavalry. Open Up, Stand and Deliver or be Right Royally Blasted and Anonymously Shafted which is a Simple No-Brainer of an Easy Decision to Take whenever Already Made and Given.
Is no Riddle I Kid U Not.
'Tis Reality via Virtual Means and Memes...... where Epistemological Reigns Rule Benignly with Absolutely Stealthy Power NetWorking Style........ Modi Operandi/Vivendi.
Pretty sure that amanfromMars is on the brink of becoming self-aware.
That or committed to a safe and secure facility.
Hard to say, really, but I do like his posts for putting a bit of crazy back in to the internet.
Yes, Cruise has political and religious beliefs that many will disagree with but I also think he is a pretty good actor that doesn't always get the credit he deserves because of his personal life.
Collateral, Valkyrie, Minority Report & Rain Man to name but a few of his roles that showed off how good he is an actor .... and his small part in Tropic Thunder was the highlight of that particular movie!
I think there a lot of "fruit loops" in Hollywood and many of which that don't get half the same bad press that Cruise gets.
Woody Allen for example, who would you rather babysit your kids, Cruise or Woody Allen ?
"Victoria can’t wait for the next two weeks to be over as they’ll be off the planet and on the Tet space station where sci-fi Skype buddy boss Sally controls operations from. And then on from there to Saturn's moon Titan, where Earth's population evacuated to."
I felt generous on the first one, but the second one I didn't know what to do with.
>"And then on from there to Saturn's moon Titan, where Earth's population evacuated to."
It's a new form of spacecraft propulsion... you have the reaction mass.
The sub-editor character in season 5 of The Wire explained it well to an underling:
"Buildings are evacuated, people are not. Well, you CAN evacuate a person, but I don't think that's what you mean in this context"
and it wasn't half bad. Thought i had dropped off halfway through when a meaty chunk of required exposition seemed to disappear when Jack is shown the "truth" with a spectacled Morgan Freeman. Apart from that, shades of Total Recall (the original), Moon (thought that about 15 mins in), Independence Day and Screamers. The closing flashback was OK but should have been in the middle of the movie.
And (spoiler alert),
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
what happens when the technicians from Sectors 1 - 48 find their way to the lake? (Different kind of movie then).
This post has been deleted by its author
+1 for the "meats", which is more egalitarian than the feministic "porks".
Ancillary question:
How much energy do you need to make a silvery moon explode if you don't have Tetsuo Shima handy?
The Internet says:
"1.2 x 10²⁹ J .... So our minimum amount of energy to blow up the Moon requires all the energy the Sun delivers for about 316 seconds, or 5 minutes and 16 seconds"
So our minimum amount of energy to blow up the Moon ...
So inefficient. Why blow up the Moon, when, as we know from Thundar the Barbarian, you can crack it in half if you just get a "runaway planet" close enough. And that not only breaks the moon but ushers in an age of savagery, super-science, and sorcery, so it's a two-for-one deal.
This post has been deleted by its author
Put aside Cruise`s dodgy belief`s and he`s not really that bad an actor, I cant think of any films he`s been in offhand that make me think `hmmm, good film, would be better if Tom Cruise wasnt in it though`.
I judge a film on its story, effects and acting, not on who`s in it, unless they really cant act to the point it ruins the film (which cruise has never been guilty of).
Its a bit like Mel Gibson really, His films are pretty enjoyable and certainly well made, but he takes huge liberties with history in his works (is there anything resembling actual historic facts in Braveheart, The patriot or Appocalyptico?), his religious beliefs and anti-jew ranting are tiresome and the wife beating allegations paint him as an almighty cock. Doesnt stop me enjoying his films though.
>Appocalyptico?
I could barely contain myself watching this movie...
1) Rainfall filled a pit which enabled those caught in it to float up and escape... oh dear.
2) There is a full moon, followed no more than a few days later by a total eclipse... oh dear, oh dear.
As for the historical inaccuracy, hysterical more like...
">Appocalyptico?
I could barely contain myself watching this movie..."
It was quite bad wasnt it?, Pretty much everything was wrong historically. The couple that got me were the fact that the Mayans never sacrificed people to the sun god like that (that was more like the Aztecs). Mayans ritulistically sacrificed single or small groups of people occasionally, not on a factory slaughterhouse scale like in the film. They also wouldnt have been suprised by an eclipse, being keen astronomers, they would have already known the exact time and date (which, as you point out, couldnt have happened so soon after a full moon). That pit of bodies with absolutely no animals scavenging the meat is pretty unrealistic as well.
And the bit at the end with the European christians paddling ashore (who actually didnt arrive for hundreds of years after the Mayan civilisation collapsed). I guess Mel just had to get a biblical reference in there somehow.
Its still an enjoyable film, but its entertainment, not a history lesson.
"You've obviously not seen the remake of 'War of the Worlds' then. His terrible acting made me cringe so much I couldn't sit through the whole thing in one go. He was only 'outshone' by the incredibly irritating small child."
I thought the film was a bit of a missed opportunity, it started off well, and the effects were superb, but it turned into a bit of a snoozefest in the second half, too much `drama` and dialog and not enough explosions (the 50`s version had nukes and burning cities ffs). The tripods weapons were a bit uneaven as well, sometimes they blew up bridges and sometimes they just turned individual people into ash. Why wernt they at full, house destroying power all the time? The horn noise they made was aces though. And yes, that Fanning girl was amazingly irritating. I didnt find Cruises acting to be that bad given the stilted dialog he had to work with tbh.
The thing that sticks with me from this film is the bubble ship sounds exactly like an x-wing internal sound effect as it assaults the first death star. Though it was skywalker sound so it's somewhat unsurprising.
Decent enough film, though I called the entire plot from the trailer rather regrettably. I'm except the revelation before the desert. That's about as spoiler free as I can keep that.
This post has been deleted by its author
Went to see this last Wednesday with my lad (almost 12) and his friend (11). I thoroghly enjoyed it. It had good action, excellent effects that did not look like special effects, and a nice twist on an aliens vs humas storyline.
My only critisism was the slighly obscure story twist (can't say as spoiler) which only really became clear at the end. I liked that but I think it may have passed over the two kids and therefore needed explaining in the foyer.
Still 8.5/10.
Me personally? I liked it, but I generally have a thing for "how l learned to love our dystopian future" kinda films. The visuals were pretty stunning, although the twist was pretty predictable.
The one thing that hacks me off, I can't seem to find the graphic novel that he director shelved once he sold the film rights. I saw a few panels and it looked pretty awesome.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
