"Oblivion:" A very SPOILERIFIC review

[Guardsman Bass]

I saw it today. It was a beautiful film, although the rest of it was only okay. When that worked together throughout the first act of the film (even despite all the extended voice-overs), it was good, but the film became more tedious to watch as things progressed. By the time they were in the middle of the big firefight in the rebel base, I was thinking, "Get on with it already - we know he's going to blow up the damn Tet."

I guessed the "clone" thing as soon as they mentioned the memory wipe and "five-year-tour" (that reminded me of Moon), although it was entertaining to see them use that when Jack-49 wandered into Jack-52's territory. I wonder if the Secret Valley was actually in Jack-52's territory, since he found it (or found the rebels and then found it). I don't entirely buy the Tet's plan to use Jack clones for its maintenance. It was already in the solar system when they found it, and it needed the fusion fuel from Earth - was it just screwed if it hadn't found any intelligent beings to clone and manipulate to fix its drones? Then again, maybe the drones and rigs wouldn't get damaged in the first place, considering how tough they are.

I didn't like the extended voice-overs. They always feel so heavy-handed, like a kludge-fix to deliver exposition that they couldn't work into the actual narrative as it flowed. Moon did a better job at setting up its story.

[Patroklos]

Maybe some new things, maybe some sand bags, but whatever...

1.) we see 42 tie up 59 but then that's the last we hear of himmuntil the end of the movie. Presumably he wasn't left out in the elements to die, but he is not seen being taken anywhere safe either. Honestly if he was having the same memory issues as 42 (and it appears so as he sort of stops when he sees Julia) he could have been a powerful ally.

2.) apparently at least two zones have enough human resistance to warrant at least two Jack clones to be familiar with repairing defense drones or them being present at all. I am not sure how many tech teams there are but we can guess at least 59 and there did not seem to be that much area to zones. Honestly maybe the Tet is only operating on one small part of the globe. In any case the resistance we see only references other zones once so I wonder if there are other cells and how busy the Tet is countering them. His would go a long way to explain the scarcity in new drones or even spare parts.

3.) On the availability of drones thing we have no idea what the starting resources of the Tet were after traveling through the vastness of space from its previous location, presumably using up most of its resources in the effort. We also don't know how effective the human resistance to the initial landings were, maybe the nuclear arsenal being effective was not a complete lie but rather a half truth and the Tet suffered horrendous or at least non trivial casualties leading to the shown scarcity?

4.) the lighning thing was cheap and unbelievable and it was a blatant setup for future use in a similarly cheap callback, one which would be irrelevant anyway.

5.) I find it hard to believe that the only communication the Tet could muster from low earth orbit was line of sight. Honestly this is such a low tech thing even noe there is no way that handicap should have existed. He'll, route your comms through the various ground stations, they obviously have powerful transmitters.

Eh, all in all I enjoyed the movie until the ID4 copycat ending at which point I waled out to make a phone call.

[Spoonist]

1.) we see 42 tie up 59 but then that's the last we hear of himmuntil the end of the movie. Presumably he wasn't left out in the elements to die, but he is not seen being taken anywhere safe either. Honestly if he was having the same memory issues as 42 (and it appears so as he sort of stops when he sees Julia) he could have been a powerful ally.

???
After the fight and tying 59 up 42 had to leave in a hurry for the medical stuff and when 42 returns we see the bonds that 59 had gotten out of, so there was no time to make him an ally, and which was a clear hint that he would appear again at the end.
Also, this was 59's territory so he'd probably know where to go for shelter or whatever. It would be natural after those events to seek more answers.
Then regarding the memory issues Tet mentions at the end that "Jack" has been rather rebellious lately.
We can deduce that this is a late development from dialog with the scavs. This is probably due to an increased need of a more functional "Jack" for the repairs. A guesstimate would be that the higher needs on the clone the less Tet can wipe it clean. So the soldiers who didn't need as highly functional skill sets would have less memories while the techs would have more memories as a side effect.

4.) the lighning thing was cheap and unbelievable and it was a blatant setup for future use in a similarly cheap callback, one which would be irrelevant anyway.

Agreed. The whole thing could be cut out when writing the script.

Your 2 and 5 don't work together. 5 points to there not being tet bases in other hemispheres, so 2 becomes invalid, or vice versa.

[Patroklos]

Your 2 and 5 don't work together. 5 points to there not being tet bases in other hemispheres, so 2 becomes invalid, or vice versa.

I don't know the answers to either, so the answers to either don't affect my speculation on either one individually.

The comms thing is just stupid no matter how you look at it. Apparently both the drones and the personal transports can perform trivial travel to orbit, so all they needed to do was park a drone or transport in orbit on the other side of the globe and route communications through it if they don't have a dedicated communications system (also unbelievable).

I must have missed the bindings on the ground, makes sense.

Also I really hate their use of the Sally video feed repeated in clips. I guessed the Tet was unmanned the second they showed it and its seems impossible Victoria and Jack wouldn't have thought it was suspicious. And even though I didn't guess WHY the Tet was unmanned that early it ruined the reveal a bit.

[Erik von Nein]

It's pretty obvious they do suspect it. Victoria was pretty plainly trying to deny that things were wrong, choosing instead the ignorant but, from her perspective, happy life she had. Jack suspected everything and was constantly questioning just what was going on. That's supposed to be their dynamic, they're two sides of a similar coin.

Also, Tet was able to alter Sally's video feed and voice to say whatever it needed to say. So, it wasn't identical every time.

EDIT: Sally's weirdly robotic nature and obfuscation is supposed to be off-putting. There's supposed to be something strange and unusual about the whole thing to put us in Jack's place of doubt and distrust.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Pretty much. You can tell Vicky is apprehensive over letting Jack back into the tower after he comes back with Julia when they'd been captured by the Scavs. She clearly fights with herself over basically declaring themselves no longer and "effective team". Which she soon realises is basically signing her own death warrant. If she did suspect things, like Jack, she suppressed them because she didn't want to think of the alternative.

Sally most certainly is unnerving, but not because of the feed basically being repeated from the Odyssey transmission. The Tet simply emulated Sally's image and voice as a suitable authority figure to keep the charade going.

[Patroklos]

I understand why they used Sally as far as the apeal to authority thing, but the "are you an effective team" comment is the same clip repeated over and over. Maybe it was supposed to be suspicious, but again I have a hard time believing a machine of the likes of Tet is incapable of avoiding this. Its a blatant mismatch between shown ability in different parts of the film.

I am not hung up on it though just like I am not hung up with the depiction of a basically post moon strike Earth, it was a story telling thing.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That was simply a saying used by the mission staff. It's no different to saying "Rico's Roughnecks" or something to get a response.

[Patroklos]

Obviously, the point is its the same video clip repeated every time she says it. Not her saying the same thing, but the same exact video clip played back.

[andrewgpaul]

Can't say I noticed that. However, if that's the case, I would think it's designed to induce a sense that something's not right in the audience.

[Me2005]

1.) we see 42 tie up 59 but then that's the last we hear of himmuntil the end of the movie. Presumably he wasn't left out in the elements to die, but he is not seen being taken anywhere safe either.

Wasn't there a cave within walking distance that Hero-Jack took Julia into?

2.) apparently at least two zones have enough human resistance to warrant at least two Jack clones to be familiar with repairing defense drones or them being present at all... In any case the resistance we see only references other zones once so I wonder if there are other cells and how busy the Tet is countering them.

I suspect that there is some resistance of varying effect all over the globe, warranting an army of Tech-Jack-Towers. Even where there isn't much resistance, I suspect that the drones and rigs do break down once in a while and the tech-jacks fix that.

3.) On the availability of drones thing we have no idea what the starting resources of the Tet were after traveling through the vastness of space from its previous location, presumably using up most of its resources in the effort. We also don't know how effective the human resistance to the initial landings were, maybe the nuclear arsenal being effective was not a complete lie but rather a half truth and the Tet suffered horrendous or at least non trivial casualties leading to the shown scarcity?

The scarcity of parts thing I had a couple of different theories for - the first is that the Tet is just trying to play the part for Jack & Vicky, and acting like it has a hard time procuring replacements. The second is that it's intentionally keeping a broken drone around because it needs to 'retire' this Jack & Vicky in a few short weeks - it knows that they go rampant every few months/years/whatever time period it is as they get their memories back. The third is that, as a space-faring entity with no apparent backup, it actually is running out of drone-parts and can't replace them - not without returning to where ever it came from; which requires the use of the Rigs for new fusion fuel and the drones it has left for defense of the Rigs.

5.) I find it hard to believe that the only communication the Tet could muster from low earth orbit was line of sight. Honestly this is such a low tech thing even noe there is no way that handicap should have existed. He'll, route your comms through the various ground stations, they obviously have powerful transmitters.

I suspect that the bigger problem wasn't communication, but the Tet's powerful sensors and analysis capabilities. I suspect it could have communicated if it wanted, but it's sensors couldn't be used so what would be the point?

Other misc. points:

I suspect clone-Vicky is as aware of her memories as her Tech-Jack is, but doesn't want to ruin her shot at being with him and wishes she was in Julia's shoes.

There may be a disparity in weapon power and armor strength; that white armor is basically invulnerable, but those Drone/Chopper cannons can confetti-ize an armored person. Probably why the Tet can't replace the armor for the broken drone, it's made from Kryptonite.

DNA tracking - I thought it worked on scent too, but found that an odd one. It could be that, since the Tet only has Jack's DNA, it can only DNA-trace Jack and not other people, but that seems like it wouldn't hold up to scrutiny.

Tet blowing up the moon - It probably could have done that to Earth, but doing so would also get rid of most of the water it needed for fuel. So sending in an army of recyclable clones and a limited number of expendable drones makes sense opposed to blowing up the planet. What doesn't make sense there is why go after Earth for fuel? Why not use hydrogen/oxygen from any of the gas giants without needing to filter out all the junk in the oceans and fight off a native species?

[TheHammer]

The plot holes did sort of get to me at first as well. If it were capable of cloning and programming an army of Jacks, why would it need to have the limited number of drones for guard duty? And as others mentioned, the idea as to why it did not seek easier to obtain hydrogen sources didn't make a lot of sense.

After reading some of the theories here, it would kind of make sense that the TET had limited AI. It was incapable of more complex problem solving and decision making, even such tasks as drone maintenance. The fact that the AI is somewhat stupid makes the whole thing more plausible for me now. Had the species that actually built the TET been actively commanding it, it likely would not have taken many of the actions it tool. However in lieu of that, it could only function within the limited parameters of its programing.

An extended look at the origins of the TET might actually make more people less inclined to resist the story of Oblivion, but then that may also spoil the movie for some to have everything explained.