"Oblivion:" A very SPOILERIFIC review

[Masami von Weizegger]

See I think this thread is a good place to talk about this kind of hostile review where it's clear the reviewer didn't pay a lot of attention and wanted the biggest list of 'flaws' possible to write an 'hilarious' review about.

The concept of "hostile movie reviews filled with nitpicking" is like an Agony Booth or Jabootu thing online, right? It seems to have come full circle. Occasional scathing movie reviews inspiring internet "comedy" writers are now helping to encourage movie reviewers to jump on a bandwagon in a desperate attempt to attention and site views. I guess trying to translate something like MST3K or Rifftrax, I guess, to a textual medium doesn't help, so there's more fuel for the fire.

It's just an easy formula for cheap e-points. You take something that's generally accepted as crap, so as to risk a minimal amount of backlash, and then tear it to shreds without examining why it's bad. Just "lol" at everything and say nothing makes sense over and over and you're good to go. It's just one of the easiest softballs you can hit online "lol the coffee cup moved between shots. what is this some sort of MAGIC COFFEE CUP???! no wonder this 1950s red scare movie seems dated and old, its not because of pertinent political allegories or what it was trying to convey at all. 2/10 would not watch" and if you manage to find an audience then holy shit, you're hilarious!

[Vendetta]

You forgot the screaming hyperbole.

You're not a proper internet reviewer unless you speak exclusively in hyperbole.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Prometheus

I'll give you the others, even A.I. which I used to love. But Prometheus is an abomination. I have been using the litmus test of gauging how people saw Prometheus last year and how they see Oblivion now. Strangely, being nonsensical (ignoring Cruise and Riseborough armies in iOblivion's case) but pretty gives Prometheus a free pass. Not so for Oblivion. And you can't say the characters were even as relatable or worth empathising with, because apart from David the Jerk, no one in Prometheus is remotely likeable, interesting or intelligent. The writing is dreck, though the cinematography and direction are class A produce of Ridley. Same for Oblivion, except it makes more sense, though making more sense than Prometheus is a low bar indeed.

There is really no comparison. In Blade Runner, there are no conventional robots that could easily do the replicants job, and replicants occasionally going bad is an acceptable problem. A few extra homicides, some additional police officers, maybe Tyrell takes a hit of 1% of annual profits paying compensation claims. The utility of legal super-strong perfectly compliant human-like slaves to other humans, and the subesquent profit margin and hence character motive, is obvious.

In Oblivion, we have an unfathomable alien robot spaceship with a pre-existing drone robot army, with the goals of (a) destroying humanity and (b) sucking up the oceans. There are so many better ways to do that than cloning armies of Tom Cruise, plus as the movie shows out-of-control clones pose a deadly existential threat.

We don't know the capabilities of the Tet or even what its chief function is. We only know that it has drones that are lethal, and yet limited in number enough to warrant great care in protecting the hydroplants and maintenance rather than replacement. We never see them in huge numbers, and given the Tet has been in orbit for at least several decades, raping Earth, we can surmise that there is a limit for the drones that we don't see. It could be, as others have thought, that the Tet is a berserker and possibly a malfunctioning one at that with limited capabilities to be surgical in operations (think Inhibitors from Revelation Space), but the power to literally blast the moon to pieces. That Sally, the machine intelligence, has a god complex is interesting as well.

It wanted to absorb all it could from Odyssey no doubt, when it was approached. What it did learn from the two astronauts it did capture, must've been enough to warrant heading to Earth to either remove a future threat, take easy pickings liquid water or any number of reasons. It really is quite open and the original graphic novel doesn't elucidate the rationale either, I believe (but we'll see when they publish it now).

[Connor MacLeod]

The concept of "hostile movie reviews filled with nitpicking" is like an Agony Booth or Jabootu thing online, right? It seems to have come full circle. Occasional scathing movie reviews inspiring internet "comedy" writers are now helping to encourage movie reviewers to jump on a bandwagon in a desperate attempt to attention and site views. I guess trying to translate something like MST3K or Rifftrax, I guess, to a textual medium doesn't help, so there's more fuel for the fire.

Rifftrax and MST3K are bad examples because they don't even pretend to be criticism of any kind.. they're literally just pointing and laughing. Agony Booth is a better example, and while its been ages since I read any reviews, I always got the impression it was more akin to (for example) Chuck's Star Trek reviews (which I still consider good) rather than his 'non-trek' reviews (which are invariably a mixed bag.) The thing about a review is, especially a satirical one... you really need an in depth knowledge of the material (not just the how and what, but also the why), and be willing to do the research. It should be as much about informative (if not more) as persuasive.. you cover the high points, the low points, and WHY you think they don't work, which enables the viewer to make their own judgements based on the available material. If you don't go for that kind of depth, and if you don't have familiarity with the material, it won't work, pure and simple, and it ssimply 'one guy's opinion on the internet.'

I suppose in that respect an actual 'review' is as much an analysis as anything I do in 40K, or have done for Star Wars, just with far fewer gigatonnages.

[NecronLord]

Moved Nari's thread into this one because this one has more posts. Anyways...

How can we be on page two with people talking about the Tet's name without anyone remarking that it is named for the Tetragrammaton - YHWH? While it's is obviously tetrahedral in shape, I thought about by the time it said "I AM GOD" on the screen, that was pretty obvious that this is the intent.

Naturally this film is an extended metaphor of the book of Genesis - Jack Harper is Adam, while Julia is Eve (Victoria might be Lilith, dubious though the provenance of Lilith is in general, it's likely the writer knows of the received version) - while obviously the exact story is different, Adam eats of the tree of life when he takes the book from the library, obtaining the knowledge of good and evil, rather than merely being an ignorant servant of the YHWH, at least symbolically, he begins to learn on his own, while he takes that which is forbidden from the Garden. The Tet wishes humanity to be uniform and obedient, while the scavs "clothe themselves" to hide their nakedness (from its scanners) and so on.

Then they nuke god, while Morgan Freeman says 'fuck you' and Jack Harper is effectively resurrected, symbolizing man's triumph over ignorance/obedience to god.

Naturally as an atheist I am okay (TM) with the message of nuking the god of ignorance and rejoicing.

[Nari]

We don't know the capabilities of the Tet or even what its chief function is. We only know that it has drones that are lethal, and yet limited in number enough to warrant great care in protecting the hydroplants and maintenance rather than replacement. We never see them in huge numbers, and given the Tet has been in orbit for at least several decades, raping Earth, we can surmise that there is a limit for the drones that we don't see. It could be, as others have thought, that the Tet is a berserker and possibly a malfunctioning one at that with limited capabilities to be surgical in operations (think Inhibitors from Revelation Space), but the power to literally blast the moon to pieces. That Sally, the machine intelligence, has a god complex is interesting as well.

It wanted to absorb all it could from Odyssey no doubt, when it was approached. What it did learn from the two astronauts it did capture, must've been enough to warrant heading to Earth to either remove a future threat, take easy pickings liquid water or any number of reasons. It really is quite open and the original graphic novel doesn't elucidate the rationale either, I believe (but we'll see when they publish it now).

This is similar with what I was trying to say in a new thread (including the Prometheus similarity) but since I'm on noob probation it was merged into this thread as now the first post.

What you've written above is what we got to see, but it just seems so tenuous to me. We have to accept that the Tet can clone the two astronauts (complete with memories!) but can modify them sufficiently to train them for their new roles but insufficiently to avoid the need for the entire ruse. And that it can't create enough clones or deploy them to basically obviate the need for the drones (after all, the scavs can presumably only reproduce through conventional means) and just win through attrition. The best explanation I can come up wth is that the Tet is a mad god allegory, which is a bit of an unsatisfying god-of-the-gaps filler.

Like I mentioned above (and we seem to be in agreement) the screen work for Prometheus was first class. It wasn't until I left that the theatre that I went "huh?" for that film.

However I was at that point roughly during the Crescendo music (why?) in the sex in the pool scene and unfortunately it didn't recover for me. I don't particularly have a problem with Cruise or his character in Oblivion, it's the entire premise that didn't work for me.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Moved Nari's thread into this one because this one has more posts. Anyways...

How can we be on page two with people talking about the Tet's name without anyone remarking that it is named for the Tetragrammaton - YHWH? While it's is obviously tetrahedral in shape, I thought about by the time it said "I AM GOD" on the screen, that was pretty obvious that this is the intent.

Naturally this film is an extended metaphor of the book of Genesis - Jack Harper is Adam, while Julia is Eve (Victoria might be Lilith, dubious though the provenance of Lilith is in general, it's likely the writer knows of the received version) - while obviously the exact story is different, Adam eats of the tree of life when he takes the book from the library, obtaining the knowledge of good and evil, rather than merely being an ignorant servant of the YHWH, at least symbolically, he begins to learn on his own, while he takes that which is forbidden from the Garden. The Tet wishes humanity to be uniform and obedient, while the scavs "clothe themselves" to hide their nakedness (from its scanners) and so on.

Then they nuke god, while Morgan Freeman says 'fuck you' and Jack Harper is effectively resurrected, symbolizing man's triumph over ignorance/obedience to god.

Naturally as an atheist I am okay (TM) with the message of nuking the god of ignorance and rejoicing.

That was pretty much my thinking too, though I forgot Tetragrammaton as a word you could use; it would fit quite well. It also helps that M83's soundtrack has tracks like "Temples Of Our Gods" and "Revelations".

This is similar with what I was trying to say in a new thread (including the Prometheus similarity) but since I'm on noob probation it was merged into this thread as now the first post.

What you've written above is what we got to see, but it just seems so tenuous to me. We have to accept that the Tet can clone the two astronauts (complete with memories!) but can modify them sufficiently to train them for their new roles but insufficiently to avoid the need for the entire ruse. And that it can't create enough clones or deploy them to basically obviate the need for the drones (after all, the scavs can presumably only reproduce through conventional means) and just win through attrition. The best explanation I can come up wth is that the Tet is a mad god allegory, which is a bit of an unsatisfying god-of-the-gaps filler.

Like I mentioned above (and we seem to be in agreement) the screen work for Prometheus was first class. It wasn't until I left that the theatre that I went "huh?" for that film.

However I was at that point roughly during the Crescendo music (why?) in the sex in the pool scene and unfortunately it didn't recover for me. I don't particularly have a problem with Cruise or his character in Oblivion, it's the entire premise that didn't work for me.

It's clear there's no actual chemistry between Vicky and Jack during that scene you mention. Whether Vicky is able to better suppress her own dreams, or she just doesn't get them at all and only through Jack (and not all of them) is there a bug in the programming that keeps him ignorant, we don't really know. It is simply implied that this "Eden" is a false existence that offers no real life or meaning, like Logan's Run, just without the scope of the world in that story. Here, a Tech and his co-ordinator partner are just an "effective team" for a particular area, doing a particular task for however long the Tet deems it useful and then that's that. This metaphor wouldn't work with drones, we know that. It's a point I can take to further the thematic exploration better than the totally baffling and far less fleshed out reasoning that is behind both alien and human actions in Prometheus. I may also be a little annoyed by the subtle-as-a-sledgehammer religious aspect of Elizabeth's "scientist" (there were no scientists in that film) when basically going on her looking for the face of god quest.

In terms of story telling, I'm far happier with how Oblivion handled it than Prometheus, even accounting for the fact that it should have been far more because of the hype and pedigree of the franchise and team behind it that made a decidedly "meh" film from an otherwise potentially awesome Xenomorph origins story cum religious allegory.

[Stark]

It's just an easy formula for cheap e-points. You take something that's generally accepted as crap, so as to risk a minimal amount of backlash, and then tear it to shreds without examining why it's bad. Just "lol" at everything and say nothing makes sense over and over and you're good to go. It's just one of the easiest softballs you can hit online "lol the coffee cup moved between shots. what is this some sort of MAGIC COFFEE CUP???! no wonder this 1950s red scare movie seems dated and old, its not because of pertinent political allegories or what it was trying to convey at all. 2/10 would not watch" and if you manage to find an audience then holy shit, you're hilarious!

Even outside the 'gotta get hits for your website of high larious blog posts' thing, I think this is important for what it does to the way regular people talk about things. As I think people have said before, on the internet nobody has a moderate view of anything, because it's not interesting and won't be popular. The loudest and most extreme you can get while still having an audience is the most desirable outcome, and when you have an audience that audience will often push and encourage the message to be even more extreme.

What I think this does is devalue the actual message in favour of tone. If you look at the OP, there's probably less information in that huge (and 'hilarious') review than in many of the other much shorter posts in this thread. This is probably because the OP isn't about information - it's about the cheap jokes for likes. In particular with fiction like this, you're right and its always easy to just not engage and make a big list of things in the movie that are NOT REAL and LOOK FUNNY and OMG AN ERROR and it doesn't matter how ignorant or narrow-minded this makes you look, because people want a fun and repeatable story more than they want literate and informative criticism.

And that's fine, but I think we can see that some people have no ability or courage to do anything BUT scratch out easy crowd-pleasing fluff pieces. What does it do to your perception of value in fiction when once something isn't 'good' it is attacked by swarms of irrelevant trivia or errors? Maybe you end up like many people (and poor Jollyreaper), more interested in those elements than the fiction itself.

[Nari]

It's clear there's no actual chemistry between Vicky and Jack during that scene you mention.

There was that problem, but what really struck me was that they weren't even doing anything exciting in the pool when the music took off and the big reveal out didn't follow for a least a good 10 seconds or so!

In terms of story telling, I'm far happier with how Oblivion handled it than Prometheus, even accounting for the fact that it should have been far more because of the hype and pedigree of the franchise and team behind it that made a decidedly "meh" film from an otherwise potentially awesome Xenomorph origins story cum religious allegory.

I'll give it this - in Oblivion the main question I have is "why does the Tet deem this useful?". I think the great parade of characters in Prometheus just opens up a Pandora's box. Why can't a corporation like Weyland assemble a team of people who can get along? Why does the geologist brought along for his exploratory skills get lost in an artificial structure despite his fancy floating laser theodolite. Why doesn't the biologist recognize hostile behavior? Why does Stringer Bell maybe go to bang the maybe cyborg after seeing unexplained movement in an area where two of his crew are trapped (and so on).

At least in Oblivion we know the Tet made them so but apparently imperfectly and actually that largely worked for me. It's the why the Tet made them thus in the first place (when there appear to be plenty of preferable alternatives) that loses me. But I know, that's what we got, so that's what we have to work with.

[PeZook]

The simple and obvious explanation is that it simply can't produce AI good enough to maintian the drones. Maybe it needs materials that are unavailable to it, or a production process that has tolerances outside of its ability to replicate or blah blah blah, but it really is as irrelevant as the question of why The Corporation needed a clone to run the Moon mine in "Moon".

[Replicant]

Watched the movie and it was entertaining if you turned your brain off but lots of holes if you did not.

First off it is obvious that Jack requires much more skills than the Victoria does. She mans a console and acts as a liaison, and makes Jack happy. He, on the other hand flies his ship, repairs parts sometimes with improvisation, explores for downed drones, fights "scavs", and makes more extensive repairs to drones that are brought back to their residence.

This would seem to indicate that more of Jack's memories were retained in the clones than in Victoria who has much less of a skillset and would explain why he is more curious, has dreams, etc.

The part I have not really figured out is what the Tet's final goal is. If its a pure Beserker then why not just drop 2 or 3 more of the weapons used to blast the moon onto the Earth and move along. That wouldn't destroy the planet permanently but it would certainly end humanity. If it is prepping for colonization then why blow up the moon, which will make the Earth a target for massive numbers of meteors for a very long time, and why drain away so much of the Earth's ocean.

My best guess is that the Tet is a berserker but one with limited programming that is designed to destroy civilizations it finds with minimum effort. Nuke the moon to cause havoc on the planet, clone an army and send it down so as to use minimal resources, then stick around and drain the planet of what the Tet can use to effectively rearm itself.

I also noticed that the Tet itself I not very bright. It has a rather narrow programming that one can get around pretty easily. Taking prisoners for cloning is important but it never noticed the rest of the Odyssey (how the hell did that pod survive in orbit after the Moon was blasted?) nor did it grab anyone else to clone. It could detect voice stress for lying but not notice the most obvious deception like answering with vague truths. It also never noticed that Tech 47 was flying up in Tech 52's ship.

But then Victoria 52 never noticed that the Jack who met her was Tech 47. She didn't notice the number on his suit, that he probably stank to high heaven, was filthy dirty, nor that he had multiple bruises on his face. As long as he talked to her the way he normally did none of the details hit her in the least. Then there is the massive plot hole where for some reason Victoria 52 was not monitoring Tech when he went down for repair, was not watching him through the cam so for some reason conveniently missed the fight between 47 and 52.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It's Tech 49, just to nitpick. I would think the Tet has an issue with dealing with the humans as a whole, given the way it emulated Sally to an extent and basically worked off transmissions sent to Odyssey prior to first (and final) contact with the Tet. I presume whatever tractor beam or other device latched on to the approaching ship, was only able to target one object at a time, so the main body of the vessel was missed.

It's a totally alien machine intelligence and we have no idea what it was doing around Titan in the first place (notice how the lie about a colony there for the rest of humanity was what the Tet used. It seemed to dupe its clones by sticking to things they would know about from memory, rather than get really complex with lies). When Vicky basically said Jack was no longer with the program, she was eliminated as well, probably so they could be replaced fully, rather than the Tet try and weave a web of further lies to keep Vicky on side. So it probably didn't learn much from humans given it likely arrived, nuked the moon and that pretty much took care of the species until the landing craft appeared. Sally never struck me as being all too human in the film (I guess I just hate southern drawls), so I had an inkling she was either holding a lot back on purpose, or was just not equipped with being more adept at lying. We won the war, but lost the planet. Scavs still around, so kill them until we have enough fusion fuel to get to Titan. End orders. You get the same stonewalling/limited explanation thing happening in Moon too.

[Atlan]

But then Victoria 52 never noticed that the Jack who met her was Tech 47. She didn't notice the number on his suit,

In all honesty I'd like to point out that we can clearly see that his rifle strap is obstructing her view of his suit number.

[Replicant]

But then Victoria 52 never noticed that the Jack who met her was Tech 47. She didn't notice the number on his suit,

In all honesty I'd like to point out that we can clearly see that his rifle strap is obstructing her view of his suit number.

Entirely possible, but the number on his suit should have been the LEAST obvious reason why she should have asked questions. The fact that he just for a simple run and showed up beat to hell, filthy, and stinking should have raised a few questions.

[Spoonist]

Just saw this and its a fancy peace of crap. A younger version of me would have loved this to bits, but the jaded old me just goes - nice visuals too bad about dropping the ball.
I really love the effects and some of the sets etc. But boy did they blow most of the hollywood production tropes. Like the "lets take off the helmets otherwise they wont see our actors" or "filth is distributed everywhere except around the eyes" stupid shit which breaks the magic.

Upthread someone said that this movie didn't write on the nose or made things too obviuos... huh? It was screaming hints and broadcasted twists way ahead of time. With obviuos zooms/plants to hint you ahead of time where to look or what items will become important later.

Its too slow not enough action for teens and its not smart enough for oldies. I have trouble seeing why the intended target audience is?

[Admiral Valdemar]

I don't know why "oldies" are the smart ones (whatever that means), because I've seen nothing but cluelessness from all age groups, as evidenced in this very thread itself. You could say the same criticisms of Moon, for that matter, which has almost exactly the same plot and dropping of hints at what's going on, yet it is still a masterpiece. I don't really get why taking helmets off breaks the magic when it would also make actually acting bloody difficult. It's not like they did it when such stealth would be needed i.e. out in the open when undetected.

As for action, the teens can go see what Hasbro has out or Olympus Has Fallen. I think we all appreciate that even action films only have a handful of action set pieces and that it's the drama between them that engages as much as the actual shooty shoot scenes themselves. Anything more than what was in the film would seem forced.

I don't get people thinking there's a huge twist that's not telegraphed, though. The whole promotional campaign for the film is about the idea that something is not right, and one could only assume it's likely down to that big floating polygon in the sky. Doesn't make it any less interesting in its execution of the ideas any more than knowing how a film ends removes pleasure from repeat viewings.

[Spoonist]

I don't know why "oldies" are the smart ones (whatever that means), because I've seen nothing but cluelessness from all age groups, as evidenced in this very thread itself.

oldies=having watched a lot of scifi, ie, higher expectations on consistency within the setting.

You could say the same criticisms of Moon, for that matter, which has almost exactly the same plot and dropping of hints at what's going on, yet it is still a masterpiece.

Yes? But you claimed it didnt when you now agree that it did. How come?

I don't really get why taking helmets off breaks the magic when it would also make actually acting bloody difficult. It's not like they did it when such stealth would be needed i.e. out in the open when undetected..

First, acting with a helmet isn't "that" difficult. Lots of memorable characters have made the helmet part of their characters. Then, its a trope because it is production driving it, not the movie or the script, it kills the magic because it is not self consistent to its universe. The stealth stuff has saved them for 60 years, it is key to why Jack didn't id the humans right away, but it is not used AT ALL after the reveal. That is stupid and a magic killer.
And you are simply wrong about the part not needing it, and about the out in the open. Both which featured directly after the reveal. For instance in the at the entrance scene right after with the "ambush" type of deal.
If they could just as easily fight the drones without helmets the whole premise of the movie fails as they should have revealed themselves sooner to see how Jack 49 would react.

As for action, the teens can go see what Hasbro has out or Olympus Has Fallen. I think we all appreciate that even action films only have a handful of action set pieces and that it's the drama between them that engages as much as the actual shooty shoot scenes themselves. Anything more than what was in the film would seem forced.

Too slow and with too little action. Those films you are probably talking about that is action movies with a few action scenes probably was 80-100min. Then that works out fine. But when you have this long a film with that much build then a couple of action scenes isn't enough to build tention or release before new tention.

I don't get people thinking there's a huge twist that's not telegraphed, though. The whole promotional campaign for the film is about the idea that something is not right, and one could only assume it's likely down to that big floating polygon in the sky. Doesn't make it any less interesting in its execution of the ideas any more than knowing how a film ends removes pleasure from repeat viewings.

Agreed, but this simply isn't a movie that I personally will ever see again. I'd rather see Moon an extra time, and I could, in half the time of this one.

[Admiral Valdemar]

oldies=having watched a lot of scifi, ie, higher expectations on consistency within the setting.

In which ways was it not consistent?

Yes? But you claimed it didnt when you now agree that it did. How come?

Did what? Have the same plot? It has a similar revelation to it, but the overall way that is arrived at is different. That is, the themes are similar to an extent with respect to the protagonist, but not the story that they're revealed in. The same, but different, so to speak.

First, acting with a helmet isn't "that" difficult. Lots of memorable characters have made the helmet part of their characters. Then, its a trope because it is production driving it, not the movie or the script, it kills the magic because it is not self consistent to its universe. The stealth stuff has saved them for 60 years, it is key to why Jack didn't id the humans right away, but it is not used AT ALL after the reveal. That is stupid and a magic killer.
And you are simply wrong about the part not needing it, and about the out in the open. Both which featured directly after the reveal. For instance in the at the entrance scene right after with the "ambush" type of deal.
If they could just as easily fight the drones without helmets the whole premise of the movie fails as they should have revealed themselves sooner to see how Jack 49 would react.

It was redundant at the ambush, because a) the drones already knew where they were, in an enclosed area no less, b) in order to fight them at all, you'd be denying your stealth bonus anyway, which is why getting cover or distraction was all that saved what few soldiers they had. They also didn't seemingly expect any such ambush, hence it being one, because they didn't know the Tet had sent all those drones from defence purposes to go and attack what was otherwise not a target for the Tet (it never considered going out of its way to find human resistance and kill them off when it had dominance in the open).

There are instances where acting with masks works, but since they were trying to convince Jack they were human and given their... obliviousness, to the coming ambush, I can't see the removal of those helmets being an issue. They didn't work when the drone saved Jack in the library, so they're clearly only meant for scouting in areas not being actively monitored. Think camouflage on a soldier that is okay, so long as no one is actually looking for heat/sound signatures in your vicinity once alerted.

Too slow and with too little action. Those films you are probably talking about that is action movies with a few action scenes probably was 80-100min. Then that works out fine. But when you have this long a film with that much build then a couple of action scenes isn't enough to build tention or release before new tention.

I honestly didn't see any time in the film being laboured or wasted. There are films that are a good half hour less and with far more or larger action scenes in them where I got positively bored (Taken 2 as one random example). I don't think you can really cut anything from the run time, rather, it would be better having the last act being expanded a bit into the second, so that it didn't seem as rushed. It's the midway point where things slow down somewhat and doesn't mesh as well with the more frantic ending.

[JLTucker]

I think I may actually agree with spoonist on something. it really does bother me when actors have pearly white teeth while mucking around in dirt. It destroys the moment.

[Connor MacLeod]

That sort of thing is entirely subjective though. There's all sorts of shit in sci fi that bother ssome people that doesn't bother me. that doesn't make it inherently bad.

[Spoonist]

I think I may actually agree with spoonist on something.

Scary isn't it...
Must be one of the signs of the end of times...

In which ways was it not consistent?

Don't know what difference such a discussion would make? You liked it and will thus chose to ignore stuff which I who didn't like it will chose to nitpick.
But it is simple stuff like the DNA tracing ability of the drones shown prominently in one scene, which wasn't used before or after. They could have explained that in so many ways which wouldn't render other scenes suspect or flawed. Like finding and following the visual tracks left by the vehicle. They do such things throughout, introduce something to the audience which renders a different scene inconsistent to that premise when they could have been smarter and explained it differently.
If the movie had sold itself as a popcorn muncher, turn off your faculties and be entertained kind of deal then such stuff doesn't matter. But it tried to sell itself like something smarter which it simply wasn't.
Lots of those things seems to be production>consistency, the DNA tracing scene looks good on its own but creates problems to unrelated scenes. This is something which you see a lot in TV between episodes, but with big budget beautiful extravaganzas like this it simply kills the magic.

That is, the themes are similar to an extent with respect to the protagonist, but not the story that they're revealed in. The same, but different, so to speak.

Ah, sorry. I think we lost eachother there. I thought you were adressing the writing stuff on your nose comment.
To clarify I got confused when you upthread said "It's more a film along the same lines of 2001 or Solaris, a slow burning, not-explaining-all-like-you're-five kind of affair. A lot is left open, which seems to confuse the hell out of people," then in response to my writing on the nose stuff said "which has almost exactly the same plot and dropping of hints at what's going on" and "I don't get people thinking there's a huge twist that's not telegraphed, though.".
But reading it through again it seems that related more to similarities with Moon or Solaris than anything else, right?
Me I thought it was a weird mix of trying to be smart but still trying to explain everything over and over and over again with hints and clues etc.

It was redundant at the ambush, because a) the drones already knew where they were, in an enclosed area no less, b) in order to fight them at all, you'd be denying your stealth bonus anyway, which is why getting cover or distraction was all that saved what few soldiers they had. They also didn't seemingly expect any such ambush, hence it being one, because they didn't know the Tet had sent all those drones from defence purposes to go and attack what was otherwise not a target for the Tet (it never considered going out of its way to find human resistance and kill them off when it had dominance in the open). There are instances where acting with masks works, but since they were trying to convince Jack they were human and given their... obliviousness, to the coming ambush, I can't see the removal of those helmets being an issue. They didn't work when the drone saved Jack in the library, so they're clearly only meant for scouting in areas not being actively monitored. Think camouflage on a soldier that is okay, so long as no one is actually looking for heat/sound signatures in your vicinity once alerted.

I think we are talking about different scenes. At the reveal they present the sergeant Coster-Waldau and the captured drone, spliced to that is Vicky getting Tet to send in a drone (185?) to investigate which follows the DNA trace to the entrance. The drone is spotted by a masked sentry which is the last point we see a mask in use, the alarm goes off and the scavs react by using the two side bunkers as ambush points.
Now I think your point about cammo is valid, it shouldn't work up close, but that it is not an excuse for not wearing such helmets in that combat. The premise until the reveal shows that the scavs are so indoctrinated that they always wear their helmets even when confronting techs on their own. After the reveal the helmets are useless due to outside of universe production values.
Such stuff adds up to things like dirt applied in circles

I honestly didn't see any time in the film being laboured or wasted. There are films that are a good half hour less and with far more or larger action scenes in them where I got positively bored (Taken 2 as one random example). I don't think you can really cut anything from the run time, rather, it would be better having the last act being expanded a bit into the second, so that it didn't seem as rushed. It's the midway point where things slow down somewhat and doesn't mesh as well with the more frantic ending.

There were lots of cuts possible. The endless repetitions of the dream sequence, even in scenes where nothing new was revealed. The sports stuff which took lots of time but established less character than other stuff like Bob, the plant and the house did much better in less time. Then lots of scenes had a delay in the cut to the next after the key of the scene was done, like the whole thing with dinner ending in the pool. etc etc
However I agree that such cuts wouldn't have made a better movie, it would just have shortened it. Instead that would require some rewrite of the scenes themselves.
My point was simply that it wasn't a short popcorn action flick but neither was it a smart reveal/twist movie necessitating two hours of key scenes. For instance Inception which was about 25min longer felt shorter because the scenes were tighter, while Prometheus felt really toooooooo long.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Scary isn't it...
Must be one of the signs of the end of times...

Count me in with this too. I didn't know what you meant, but I agree. Pearly whites or immaculate skin on people left behind in a post-apocalyptic world is annoying.

Don't know what difference such a discussion would make? You liked it and will thus chose to ignore stuff which I who didn't like it will chose to nitpick.
But it is simple stuff like the DNA tracing ability of the drones shown prominently in one scene, which wasn't used before or after. They could have explained that in so many ways which wouldn't render other scenes suspect or flawed. Like finding and following the visual tracks left by the vehicle. They do such things throughout, introduce something to the audience which renders a different scene inconsistent to that premise when they could have been smarter and explained it differently.
If the movie had sold itself as a popcorn muncher, turn off your faculties and be entertained kind of deal then such stuff doesn't matter. But it tried to sell itself like something smarter which it simply wasn't.
Lots of those things seems to be production>consistency, the DNA tracing scene looks good on its own but creates problems to unrelated scenes. This is something which you see a lot in TV between episodes, but with big budget beautiful extravaganzas like this it simply kills the magic.

I agree with the DNA tracker. Either it isn't technically working as it was shown to, or it never was implemented to search for Scavs. Although we could maybe have had it being used, but the Scavs being underground meant the drones often found a dead end. I presume it worked like a pheromone detector and had limited longevity for other searches.

]Ah, sorry. I think we lost eachother there. I thought you were adressing the writing stuff on your nose comment.
To clarify I got confused when you upthread said "It's more a film along the same lines of 2001 or Solaris, a slow burning, not-explaining-all-like-you're-five kind of affair. A lot is left open, which seems to confuse the hell out of people," then in response to my writing on the nose stuff said "which has almost exactly the same plot and dropping of hints at what's going on" and "I don't get people thinking there's a huge twist that's not telegraphed, though.".
But reading it through again it seems that related more to similarities with Moon or Solaris than anything else, right?
Me I thought it was a weird mix of trying to be smart but still trying to explain everything over and over and over again with hints and clues etc.

My bad. Yeah, it could have kept some stuff off screen or limited things (the repeated dream sequences you mention).

I think we are talking about different scenes. At the reveal they present the sergeant Coster-Waldau and the captured drone, spliced to that is Vicky getting Tet to send in a drone (185?) to investigate which follows the DNA trace to the entrance. The drone is spotted by a masked sentry which is the last point we see a mask in use, the alarm goes off and the scavs react by using the two side bunkers as ambush points.
Now I think your point about cammo is valid, it shouldn't work up close, but that it is not an excuse for not wearing such helmets in that combat. The premise until the reveal shows that the scavs are so indoctrinated that they always wear their helmets even when confronting techs on their own. After the reveal the helmets are useless due to outside of universe production values.
Such stuff adds up to things like dirt applied in circles

The dirt thing bugs me too, though I don't recall it being prominent in this film. I'll have to rewatch, it's been nearly two weeks since I saw it and, for that matter, I'm going to show my girlfriend Moon and see how that goes.

There were lots of cuts possible. The endless repetitions of the dream sequence, even in scenes where nothing new was revealed. The sports stuff which took lots of time but established less character than other stuff like Bob, the plant and the house did much better in less time. Then lots of scenes had a delay in the cut to the next after the key of the scene was done, like the whole thing with dinner ending in the pool. etc etc
However I agree that such cuts wouldn't have made a better movie, it would just have shortened it. Instead that would require some rewrite of the scenes themselves.
My point was simply that it wasn't a short popcorn action flick but neither was it a smart reveal/twist movie necessitating two hours of key scenes. For instance Inception which was about 25min longer felt shorter because the scenes were tighter, while Prometheus felt really toooooooo long.

You just reminded me of that stadium scene. I remember thinking "This is so American. Could we not dwell on it too much here?" and just wanting the inevitable "Yeah, civilisation was good once" point to be done with. We got that from all the other instances where Jack was pining for the lost times of old and the American football thing just fell flat. I'm sure had it been at Wembley, I'd still not care for it.

As for the extended ambience scenes, I think that's the same as with TRON: Legacy or films like Drive where more emphasis is put on the visual and audio direction than moving along to the next plot point. I know some people who've seen Drive and thought it boring as hell and hated the pseudo-'80s feel, which I thought only made it more awesome. Those same people probably didn't like Heat either, come to think of it.

For that reason, I wish to see this at IMAX, if I can get the time. I'm fed up with most films going on the big, big screen having horrible visuals or jerky cinematography which ends in neck pain.

[Nari]

The simple and obvious explanation is that it simply can't produce AI good enough to maintian the drones. Maybe it needs materials that are unavailable to it, or a production process that has tolerances outside of its ability to replicate or blah blah blah, but it really is as irrelevant as the question of why The Corporation needed a clone to run the Moon mine in "Moon".

Just to keep debating irrelevancies, I don't know if that's a fair analogy.

In "Moon", the use of a clone is pretty believable assuming the resources required to generate a clone are less than those required to train, transport and compensate someone from earth. Heck, most employers today would love to be able to clone their skilled staff and just regrow one if they burned them out even before factoring in the rather dangerous work environment the moon represents.

In comparison, why does the Tet need the drones? Just release a horde of cloned Jacks. But the film requires that we accept that the Tet can clone Jack, either complete with his existing skills but sans some memories or imbuing the clone with skills the Tet needs, but it's so bad at the job that it both needs to maintain this vast charade and can't just use the clones to wipe out the scavs once and for all.

After all, other than in the close confines of the cave (which, to be fair, is likely to be where you're going to find fugitive humans) Jack appeared to be able to handle the drones with just a sidearm and his copter thingy.

Or that, despite all appearances and the speed with which it discards apparently malfunctioning copies, it can't produce enough Jacks for the job.

Just struck me as wildly implausible in a way that I don't remember Moon doing.

[Stark]

Dude, the reveal of the clone basement in Moon was so ridiculous and implausible that it is the moment the movie comes closest to failing. I think it was handled such that people are happy to deal with it because the movie was otherwise very successful, but when I first saw the movie I was staggered. Enough clones for centuries for ... some... reason!

[Spoonist]

I agree with the DNA tracker. Either it isn't technically working as it was shown to, or it never was implemented to search for Scavs. Although we could maybe have had it being used, but the Scavs being underground meant the drones often found a dead end. I presume it worked like a pheromone detector and had limited longevity for other searches.

I think the best explanation would have been the helmets+suits. If the scavs above ground are always suited up then they should leave no such trail. Especially since there were scavs on the vehicle but they didn't produce trails.
But that doesn't work due to them totally not needing the helmets later on...

Scary isn't it...
Must be one of the signs of the end of times...

Count me in with this too. I didn't know what you meant, but I agree. Pearly whites or immaculate skin on people left behind in a post-apocalyptic world is annoying.
....
The dirt thing bugs me too, though I don't recall it being prominent in this film. I'll have to rewatch, it's been nearly two weeks since I saw it...

Well the thing is another production>consistency choice.
Whoever did the makeup for Jack/Cruise did a wonderful job, like when he has back after getting the crack on the nose and dirtied down etc. That looks great even in closeups.
But... when it comes to the scavs they clearly didn't spend as much time nor effort. Especially those who didn't have a name.
So it is probably two different makeup teams, one for Cruise/stars and a different one for the extras.
That is a typical hollywood thing which makes total sense from a production perspective but doesn't make it a better experience for the audience. Things like that you don't see in smaller productions since they wouldn't have the budget to have two different makeup teams.

You just reminded me of that stadium scene. I remember thinking "This is so American. Could we not dwell on it too much here?" and just wanting the inevitable "Yeah, civilisation was good once" point to be done with. We got that from all the other instances where Jack was pining for the lost times of old and the American football thing just fell flat. I'm sure had it been at Wembley, I'd still not care for it.
...
As for the extended ambience scenes, I think that's the same as with TRON: Legacy or films like Drive where more emphasis is put on the visual and audio direction than moving along to the next plot point. I know some people who've seen Drive and thought it boring as hell and hated the pseudo-'80s feel, which I thought only made it more awesome. Those same people probably didn't like Heat either, come to think of it.

Ambiance can be great.
But one needs to be thinking about what you are trying to show. The stadium scene was there for a lot of different reasons, ambiance wasn't in the top at all. Instead we got - backstory - drones malfunction a lot - we are an effective team clue:Vicky is very concerned about management- Jack is reckless and doesn't necessarily take orders clue;this scares Vicky - Jack is a good tech clue;excuse for premise of the movie - spare parts are scarce clue;something isnt right - scary caves with crawlies clue; isn't scanned by the fixed drone - Jack is a Jock clue; its 60 years ago but youngish Jack seems to remember - etc etc etc.
So they needed some filler for the scene to prolong it to get in all those clues and hints and notes etc etc - which is the sports talk. That is why the scene doesn't work, the stadium and sports talk is just an excuse to keep the scene going and cram in all the info and clues in the background in an attempt to be smart. Its not there for ambiance. So it feels like a "get on with it" scene when it really is filled with stuff they wanted to be smart about.
While a lot of the extention of scenes in movies like Tron:Legacy or 2001 or Solaris or Bladerunner etc are there specifically for ambiance - they are there specifically to set the theme and the mood.

For that reason, I wish to see this at IMAX, if I can get the time. I'm fed up with most films going on the big, big screen having horrible visuals or jerky cinematography which ends in neck pain.

Ah, IMAX is a treat. I hate the fact that the 3D fad removed the incentive for further investments in IMAX theatres.