"Oblivion:" A very SPOILERIFIC review

[Nari]

(Spoilers ahead)

I'll confess to not having thought of a bunch of "why" questions until after I left the theater while watching Prometheus. There was apparently enough going on in that film to keep the 'ol brain in neutral enjoyment mode.

Unfortunately I can't say the same for Oblivion.

I've trolled around looking for some answers to the most obvious questions but was hoping someone here might have read the graphic novel and had some light to shine on the topic.

I mean there's really no point in asking why a drone whose control software can perform some reasonably impressive flying can't also effectively lead their weapons when shooting at a target. Or why our protagonist can hit a rather small venerability with a handgun but the drone completely misses him. Or why an otherwise undamaged flight recorder just stops when it enters the Tet. Or why silt & sand have collected in Manhattan to a level that buries all but the top of the Empire state building but yet some of the streets appear open. That way lies madness.

However it would appear worth questioning why the Tet needed to clone Jack and Victoria in the first place and the need for the elaborate subterfuge for beings of your own creation. In other words, the premise of the movie.

I mean, I guess it's possible that a very large number of clones (whom everyone knows is a clone) would have been effective saboteurs or helpful in the invasion. However, unless the drones we see in the movie were developed after the invasion they would seem to be vastly more effective for that purpose.

And unless the Tet is some weird Zentraedi-like thing that can't repair anything, for what purpose does it even need repair technicians? Does it only have the capacity to create organics and not just keep churning out new drones? And if so, why not just churn out a whole lot of somewhat more militant Jacks and have them wipe out the vestiges of humanity?

[Il Condottiere]

Hey, all. First time poster here. My buddy Jollyreaper has asked me to post the following review of the recent release of "Oblivion" on this board, given that he and I have chatted about it. We both feel strongly that the world really, seriously, definitely needs to be warned about what a piece of crap it is. That said, fair warning: this review contains all of the possible spoilers, as well as lots of spicy language (this was originally an email I sent to JR about 30 minutes after seeing the film, so I was in no mood to hold back while it was fresh in my mind.)

So, once again: SPOILERS AHEAD. You have been warned.

















TL;DR Summary
There are far worse sci-fi movies out there. Unfortunately, I haven't seen them.

Review:
Prologue

OK.

Well.

Where do I start with a movie like "Oblivion"? I guess I should qualify what follows by saying that at least it's a movie that looks and sounds good, except that would be disingenuous. Everything these days looks and sounds good, and even the most rudimentary TV shows display a dazzling amount of special effects, visual polish, and great casting decisions. So, within the context of big-budget, big-name actor vehicles, that should be nothing new. Everything looks shiny these days, it's just a matter of how shiny.

Which brings us to what sets one shiny apart from the other. Give you one guess what that is. If you said "writing," then congratulations! You know the truth. Unfortunately, if you rely on plot to carry you through the latest special effects extravaganza, that means you are left to stand alone against a veritable onslaught of douchebag Hollywood producers who tell unassuming directors to shoot first, and ask questions after the opening weekend bucks come in and the paycheck clears. No one gives a flying fuck about scripts, and it becomes more and more apparent with each vapid flick that hits the big screen.

But lord is it ever shiny!

The Story (a. k. a. Dear God, My Brain Hurts...):

The story of "Oblivion" takes place on Earth, in the year two thousand who gives a flying fuck, it's irrelevant. The things that you need to know are this:

1. It is quarter past TEH FUTURES
2. Humans fought a massive new-kular war against aliens called the Scavengers
3. The Scavengers blew up the moon.*
4. The humans won the ensuing war.
5. Except no they didn't, because the scavengers are still hanging out on earth in packs.

* WHY did the Scavengers blow up the moon? Because fuck you, now stop asking questions.

So pretty predictable so far. ... OR IS IT?

HELL NAW!

So there's a massive space station floating just outside of orbit called the Tet. As in "offensive." As in "this movie is...". And the Tet serves as a base for some sort of corporate effort to return the earth to its original form. The corporates do this by installing giant rigs to recycle ocean water and... do something. Never really explained. But it's supposed to be good for the planet. The rigs are maintained by drones. And so, Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise's Ladyfriend, who is essentially his mission operator who never leaves the sanctity of their home base (hereafter Ladyfriend; name omitted because no one cares) are stationed on Earth to repair and maintain the drones in case they ever go down.

[It should also be mentioned that Cruise and Ladyfriend had their memories wiped as part of their contract, except Cruise keeps having weird dreams about before the war. Except they aren't dreams, they're memories. About a hot Russian chick, and being on top of the Empire State Building.]

So, right away, this seems needlessly complicated and ultimately nonsensical. Earth is an inhospitable environment. You have a giant, self-sufficient space station that supplies pylons to convert sea water into........ something. The pylons are maintained by drones. The drones are maintained by people. Wouldn't it make sense to cut the humans out of the equation and just replace broken-down drones with new ones? Well, whatever.

Anyway, on a routine drone-maintenance mission, Tom Cruise finds a cave into which the drone fell, because the Scavengers shot it down. Yes, the defeated aliens still have enough firepower to bring down a nigh-impregnable piece of equipment. Somehow.

Anyway, inside the cave, he finds an old library, where he picks up a book about Rome. If this seems like a small detail, hold on to that thought: this becomes super important towards proving how contrived the plot of this movie is later on. He finds that the drone was stripped down by the Scavengers and set up to make a trap for him. He escapes the ambush with the help of another drone that comes to bail him out (at this juncture, it's worth noting that the drones are armed, and have weapons powerful enough to, quite literally, atomize the Scavengers)*

* So, if the drones are so efficient at tracking Scavs down, and have amazingly hardcore weaponry, WHY again are they having trouble with drones getting shot down by Scavs with such frequency as to require a human maintenance crew, or a maintenance crew at all? Also, WHY not just mobilize the drones and send them to track down and eliminate all of the Scavs? Guess what: never answered.

Moving on, Cruise goes back to his platform up in the sky, tries to tempt her to come down to the surface with him, has sex with Ladyfriend, and goes out on another mission the following morning. He goes off the grid and it turns out that he has a found a patch of non-radiated territory in the middle of the wasteland, and built a house on it, in which he collects random crap left over from before the war, like books and knick knacks. To arrive to this place, he has to go through a cave... except that the clean patch is located in plain air.*

* OK, so... how exactly does that sort of thing happen? Also, how exactly does Tet Offensive control not see it from space? Also, why did he have to go under a waterfall and into a cave to get there? Also, how much time did he spend building this place and collecting shit to decorate it with? That would mean he'd have to go off the grid A LOT. Surely, command would find that worrisome.

So, after he chillaxes at his pimp pad, Cruise heads back... except he intercepts a Scav signal that is going... tun tun tun... off-planet. He follows the signal and discovers that it's coming from the top of the Empire State Building... which somehow survived the nuclear war and the explosion of the moon. You know. Just like in his dreams, I mean memories! *

* Yeah, because that's how tall buildings work against orbital fallout, nukes, and seismic activity that no doubt follows in the wake of massive ecological and cosmological disaster. They remain standing in one piece.

Moving on, he finds the source of the signal and disconnects the wires. By the way, he knows it's a Scavenger signal because Scavs wear stillsuits decorated with feathers and shit, and they conveniently decorated the cables running from the fuse box to the antenna with feathers. Also shit. Kinda like this movie. In any event, that immediately causes some sort of capsule to come crashing from space to Earth. Cruise follows the contrail, and arrives at a crash site. He finds that the capsule contains a number of life pods, one of which contains the chick from his dreams. Well, that's cool and all except SUDDENLY OUT OF NOWHERE WOWIE ZOWIE OMG WTF BBQ a drone appears and starts shooting the life pods. It blows up all of them except the one with the hot Russian chick in it, and the only reason it doesn't blow that one up is because - and I am NOT making this up - Tom Cruise shoos it away.

Yeah.

I am not kidding. He literally fires a few rounds at the indestructible drone and yells at it, and it just goes: "Oh well, I guess I better not fuck with Cruise" and flies off.

So Cruise brings hot russian chick onto the ship to his Ladyfriend, where she wakes up and, in a completely unexpected and shocking turn of events, recognizes them both. Oh my God, could a plot twist be far behind? So, they ask her about where she's from, what her mission was, etc. etc., and she's unable to tell them anything until she collects the flight recorder from the mission.

So, Cruise and hot Russian chick fly down to the planet the following morning and are immediately set upon by Scavs. Cruise is bludgeoned on the face with a blunt object (best part of the movie), and wakes up to being forced to talk to Morgan Freeman, who, in a completely unexpected turn of events, is actually an unmasked Scavenger. Turns out, Scavengers aren't actually aliens! They're post-cataclysm humans who remained behind on Earth!

IMPORTANT DETAIL: I've left out an important detail. At the very beginning of the film, Cruise fixes a drone by inserting a new power core into it and fastening it with a piece of gum which he has for some reason. The drone's power core later malfunctions while it's running maintenance on one of the water-collecting pylons, blowing the drone and the rest of the enormous fucking pylon to bits. So that's awesome. You see how this is getting needlessly complicated?

So, back to Morgan Freeman. Freeman tells Cruise that they need to blow up the Tet Offensive. Why? Because! He doesn't explain. He simply says "we need to rig together ten power cells, and you have to reprogram a drone to send it up to space to blow the Tet Offensive." He doesn't give him a reason why, he just tells him this has to be done. Mind you, Cruise has NONE of the facts yet, so he predictably tells Freeman to go fuck himself. Freeman tells Cruise to take hot Russian chick and go back to Empire State in case something might trigger his memory.

I am not making any of this up.

So, they get to the ESB, where hot Russian chick reminds Cruise that they used to be married. And that it has no relevance on anything at all. Meanwhile, Ladyfriend sees Cruise making out with hot Russian chick, and sends a recovery unit to get them to come back to their space platform in the sky. Once Cruise arrives, she sells him out to Tet Offensive and tells them that he is no longer an effective partner for her. So, Tet Offensive command sends down a drone to wipe them all out... except hot Russian chick destroys the drone.

IS ANY OF THIS MAKING SENSE TO YOU? BECAUSE IT ISN'T TO ME! There are so many fucking conditionals here that no coherent story could ever emerge from this mess! And we haven't even gotten to the halfway point yet!

Anyway, Cruise and HRC make their way off the platform and are tracked by drones, which they shoot down, but are shot down in the process. They crash land near a downed drone, and this is where we get the big reveal. We see another technician come down to fix the drone. Cruise attempts to talk to the tech, and we find that... THE OTHER TECHNICIAN IS ALSO CRUISE! A massive firefight ensues in which HRC is critically injured. Cruise realizes that other platforms on which other Cruises and other Ladyfriends live must exist - of which he knows nothing - so he flies to Other Cruise's platform and gets some med supplies. He treats HRC at his pimp pad in the woods, and then makes contact with the Scavengers and tells them he'll program the drone to fly up to Tet Offensive.*

* OK, so... from what I gather, it turns out that the Tet Offensive is a massive space alien robot, akin to Fred Saberhagen's berzerkers. It flies from galaxy to galaxy and fucks shit up. Except while the berzerkers are smart and efficient, this machine is the berzerkers' Downs-syndrome suffering retarded third cousin. Here is its plan: flying to Earth to take our water. Why? Never explained. It builds massive pylons to absorb the sea water because... for some reason. The pylons are maintained by drones, and the drones are maintained by an army of clones that are made of Cruise and Cruise's Ladyfriend. Yeah. And also, apparently, the Cruises are left over from the Earth invasion in the year two-thousand-no-one-fucking-cares. Apparently, Cruise was a NASAhole who went up into space to make original contact with the Tet Offensive, along with Ladyfriend, HRC, and a bunch of other red-shirts. Cruise jettisoned the sleeper pods which contained HRC and the redshirts, and then Tet Offensive "ate" him and Ladyfriend and turned them into clones. Somehow. And then Cruise clones were delivered to Earth in dropships to kill Earth people. And then they had their memories wiped and were repurposed to be the maintenance slaves for Tet Offensive's drones.

Do you see how retarded this is?!?!?!?!

It gets worse. Much worse. You have no idea how much worse it gets.

Morgan Freeman explains to Cruise that he was going to kill him at the beginning of the movie, at the library, but when he saw him pick up a copy of The History of Rome, he decided that this Cruise was special, and therefore self-aware, and rife for conditioning.*

* OK, so let's take a look at this scenario. What you are basically saying is that you placed your hopes on the fact that Cruise would dig through the refuse of a library in order to find a specific book, read this book, and that this would serve as a trigger for him to take a very particular, very specific type of action that would eventually lead him to join the resistance and want to wipe out Tet Offensive. Do you see how many conditionals that requires?

1) He has to have found the book.

2) Once found, he has to have read A SPECIFIC PASSAGE from this book.

3) Once that passage was read, he has to have made the right conclusion

4) Once the right conclusion was made, he has to have figured out that the beacon the Scavs launched would bring down the ship.

5) The ship would have had to be in a particular location around its geocentric orbit, and would have had to come down in a coordinate precisely calculated for Cruise's accessibility

6) The ship would've had to splash down ON HARD SOIL in such a way as to keep all of its cryopods secure

7) Cruise would have to arrive just in time to rescue HRC's pod from the drone that was dispatched IMMEDIATELY after the splashdown.

Cruise would have to be able to get the bulletproof drone to go the fuck away.

9) He would have had to believe the HRC's story, and

10) He would have to make contact with the Scavs, who would then reveal to him that this was their plan all along.

This is crazy. There is no way any of this would work in any kind of setting, fantasy or non. Did anyone bother proofreading this script before it was adapted for screen?!?

Anyway, it gets worse. So, Cruise agrees to reporgram the drone... except the whole Scavenger compound is attacked by MORE DRONES! You know, the impregnable-to-gunfire drones. Which they then destroy. With guns. So anyway, Freeman is mortally wounded, and the Tet Offensive instructs Cruise to bring HRC to him to... I don't know, to get acquainted with her. Something. Never explained. Cruise sees this as an opportunity to deliver the bomb to Tet Offensive, and flies up with HRC in the casket.

He gets there and meets Tet, or HAL's retarded cousin, who sounds like a robot version of Janet Reno. He opens the coffin, and out comes... MORGAN FREEMAN!

http://i.imgur.com/9BlNT.jpg

So they bomb the fuck out of Tet, and we cut to HRC, who wakes up in Cruise's special pimp pad.

And then we flash forward to three years ahead, where Other Cruise, whom Cruise beat down in the middle of the film, finds the pimp pad with the help of the Scavengers. Sex is had, all is right with the world.

Unanswered: Eleven Questions that Will Haunt Your Logic

1. In the beginning, they show stills of the Capitol Building and the Washington monument, dozens of miles apart, with nothing else between them (no buildings, no anything, just flat terrain.) Leaving aside the geographic oversight, how are these major landmarks still standing after the earthquakes? I'm not architectural engineer, but my understanding is that tall buildings aren't expected to stand in the wake of massive seismic activity, let alone nukes and shit.

2. See my previous complaint about Tet --> water pylons --> drones --> Cruises. Who thought this was a good idea? Humans are fragile, and you want them to maintain machines that you literally have thousands of, anyway?

3. Why does Cruise have a piece of gum? Does Tet Offensive manufacture chewing cud for its clone technicians and then ration it out? Or did Cruise randomly have it? Or did he just pick it up out of the dirt? And how did a clone whose memory had been wiped know that a piece of chewing gum would hold an unstable power cell in place? For that matter, why did the power cell not even fit the slot it was fucking designed to fit into?

4. How is it that the drones have articulated guns when it comes to hunting Scavs, but when they fight Cruise up in his ornithopter they suddenly forget they can swivel their turrets, and can only fire straight forward?

5. Did Tom Cruise seriously just take one of the drones out through a broken canopy of his ornithopter? With a side-arm? Oh, wait, that's not a question, that's a spoiler. And yes, he did.

6. Why does Tet Offensive need water, anyway? Also, why bother taking it from Earth? Also, why even bother with humans, if you have to go to such elaborate lengths to deceive them? You're a machine, you don't need human slaves. You can just make slaves if you need them, and they will never rebel against you!

7. Why are drones assigned numbers, and why are their numbers written on their hulls? Moreover, why are there giant numbers on the outsides of the pylons? More relevantly, how does Tet Offensive know the Arabic hexidecimal numeric system? That seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to stage an elaborate deception. Wouldn't it be easier just to kill all the humans and make the extraction operation completely robotic?

8. Why couldn't the Tet Offensive scan the casket Cruise brought with him on board in the end and find out that it wasn't HRC inside, but Freeman with a bomb? I mean, it couldn't be that hard! The fucking thing even has a viewing port! You don't even need to scan it, just look into the fucker!

9. Why would Other Cruise want to find Cruise's secret pad? He has no history with HRC, and it was plainly stated at the start that the secret pad was CRUISE's pet project, not Other Cruise's. Wouldn't he just want to, I don't know, have his own life?

10. Why is it that drones, whose guns can literally atomize Scavs, only injure Morgan Freeman?

And...

11. Why was this movie ever made?


Conclusion:

As I look back on this movie, I feel like there's really very little left to say about it. It shouldn't misconstrued that the movie is poorly filmed or lacking in the field of special effects; that ain't it. The problem is that the director, producers, and promoters for this film completely failed to understand that sound and fury are meaningless if they are signifying nothing. When Metacritic labelled the film as "Visually striking but thinly scripted," they apparently misunderstood what "a thin script" really is.

This movie is the opposite of that. It is overwritten, and actually gets in its own way with meaningless details where there should be none (Freeman telling Cruise that the book Cruise found was an indicator that he is ready for the truth), and omitting important information where it shouldn't have (WHY did the Tet attack Earth instead of any of the billion other worlds in the Milky Way?) A simple storyline is beneficial because, nine times out of ten, the obvious tenth exception being "Game of Thrones," it won't confuse itself and stumble all over its loose plot threads, smacking its face on the pavement mere yards away from the finish-line denouement.

So there you go. Watch this movie only if you need to induce vomiting, or if you haven't had a good aneurism in a while.

[The Xeelee]

Dude the tet wasn't said to be there to restore the earth. It was meant to be a stopping off point for people evacuating to Titan The hydro pumps are to make fusion for the colonists.

[Zor]

Why are drones assigned numbers, and why are their numbers written on their hulls?

Because Tet's Tom Cruise clones were duped into thinking that these machines were of human manufacture and still by in large relied on Human Memories. A new paint jobs to display that these were supposed to be of human manufacture is not much of a stretch.

Zor

[Admiral Valdemar]

You know, just "this sucked and I didn't get it" would have sufficed, since you seem to have misunderstood very basic points in the film. Maybe watch ID4 again instead, yes?

Also, you don't know what ornithopter means.

[The Xeelee]

It was still awful though. Well...it was worth it to see Morgan Freeman become a Super-Saiyan of awesomeness.

[Nari]

Why was Morgan Freeman always wearing dark glasses? Underground. And in the Dark.

[Ford Prefect]

'How would he know chewing gum is sticky???????'

[The Xeelee]

He isn't retarded?

[jollyreaper]

I couldn't really comment on the movie for not having seen it. Has anyone seen it and liked it?

[Admiral Valdemar]

I loved it, saw it last week. But I saw the hate brigade out for it prior to the premier itself, because Tom Cruise + TRON nostalgia ruiner = bad film. Also, it's not original, or something.

[Stark]

The OP seems like a good example of someone who chooses not to engage with a film. The giveaway is all the 'why did this happen? I don't know or don't like the reason so movie sucks' content.

Hey Valds can you talk about how his review is wrong?

[Block]

The OP seems like a good example of someone who chooses not to engage with a film. The giveaway is all the 'why did this happen? I don't know or don't like the reason so movie sucks' content.

Hey Valds can you talk about how his review is wrong?

Having just come back from seeing the movie, about 90% of the details in his review are wrong or just missing.

It's 2070, very clearly stated, the collectors are there to gather seawater to power fusion for the new colony (whether this would actually be possible or not I haven't the slightest idea), the TET is supposedly run by whatever government remains, it is clearly explained that the Scavs blew up the moon to cause natural disasters so that the follow up invasion is easier, the drones provide security for the pylons not maintenance, and the drones can't hunt down the Scavs easily because they use stealth technology of some sort. That's just from his first paragraph, all wrong.

[Admiral Valdemar]

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, but then so do the things explicitly stated within the film (Tet? Must be like VIETNAM, not because it's TETrahedral in shape or something). I just expected this is how the reviews would go once Statesiders got it. I'm amazed it's at number one, though that may be star power and advertising, perhaps.

Anyway, the main critiques seem to be about lack of human drama, lack of originality, lack of not-Tom Cruise and space battles or that pretty and good sounding are ubiquitous (hint: they're not. This is easily one of the few films to warrant IMAX treatment, the others being anything Nolan/Pfister related).

I guess I like the fact that I've been thinking about it while listening to the gorgeous M83 score for the last week.

Half that review is really bunk. Indestructible drones? Why did they blow up the moon? NASAhole? It reads like a child who wanted more Bayaction and not something that has themes and actual cinematography. Tom Cruise clone army? STAR WARS DID THIS!

[mr friendly guy]

I stopped reading his review after the first couple of sentences when it became apparent he watched the film with as much attention as military wankers when they watched Avatar.

[TimothyC]

1. In the beginning, they show stills of the Capitol Building and the Washington monument, dozens of miles apart, with nothing else between them (no buildings, no anything, just flat terrain.) Leaving aside the geographic oversight, how are these major landmarks still standing after the earthquakes? I'm not architectural engineer, but my understanding is that tall buildings aren't expected to stand in the wake of massive seismic activity, let alone nukes and shit.

There is nothing between them in the real world - It's called The Mall.

[JLTucker]

Film criticism died with this thread.

[Stark]

I didn't read the whole thing so I missed that geography thing. The laugh is I'm not even American and I know he's wrong.

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.

Is this why Jollyreaper appears to unwilling to state his actual feelings about fiction, if he comes from a place like this?

[Tanasinn]

It's all in all a pretty enjoyable film, I'd say. The previews gave too much away, as usual.

[FaxModem1]

The film is enjoyable, but the problem is why the Security drones don't have maintenance drones to fix them or, since Cruise's character is one of thousands of brainwashed clones, why they aren't hardwired to kill everyone besides Tom Cruise. Instead, Sally(which is the name of the Tet), creates this elaborate scenario where there was this huge war between aliens and humans, an evacuation to Titan, and needing the water for fusion(which is the only part that's true.).

The film relies on Jack Harker(the name of Tom Cruise's character) believing he's on the human side and out to protect humanity. If he was like the supposed clone army that came a generation earlier and wiped out the survivors of the moon destruction and earthquake, he wouldn't care, and would try to wipe them out. It's a flawed premise, and would be more efficient of the Tet/Sally to have no odd scenario where they're the last of humanity's cleanup crew of the scavengers.

[The Xeelee]

What I can't understand is why the Tet would risk using clones of a single person.

[Admiral Valdemar]

What I can't understand is why the Tet would risk using clones of a single person.

Um, it didn't. The Tet used the only two humans it got hold of, Jack and Vicky. That's why the invading army consisted of them.

Additionally, if the drones are worth maintaining rather than replacing, they're obviously valuable pieces of kit, and having relatively easy to produce maintainers in the form of smart NASA clones makes sense in that context, rather than more drones that could go awry. Not that this point need be disputed any more than "why does Tyrell make replicants?". It just is for the sake of the free will aspect and breaking away from assumed infallibility of authority that goes with this eschatological story.

[Alkaloid]

From what I'm reading this sounds a lot like Moon but with more guns and explosions. Which could be kind of OK, if somewhat unnecessary.

The film is enjoyable, but the problem is why the Security drones don't have maintenance drones to fix them or, since Cruise's character is one of thousands of brainwashed clones, why they aren't hardwired to kill everyone besides Tom Cruise. Instead, Sally(which is the name of the Tet), creates this elaborate scenario where there was this huge war between aliens and humans, an evacuation to Titan, and needing the water for fusion(which is the only part that's true.)

Not having seen it, but from reading this, it sounds like the clones inevitably start to remember their past lives, that's what the other clone heading to his house and remembering his wife looks like it supposed to indicate to me anyway. So the clones probably do work like that for a time, and are just told their job is done and get recycled when they start to act screwy. Probably just on the verge of it in this case.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Yeah, it is basically like Moon with Tech 49 (Cruise in the first instance) being one that manages to dig deeper into memories from his dreams and show this kind of comprehension up enough for the Scavs to consider using him for their purpose.

[Starglider]

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, but then so do the things explicitly stated within the film

Solaris is quite tightly written and internally consistent. 2001 has some completely wild and open-to-interpretation elements, but it also has a lot of well-researched hard sci-fi. This is important because the later reinforces the former; after an hour plus of very realistic (for its time) space travel, the viewer is immersed and more likely to accept and search for meaning in the fantastic elements (versus rejecting them as silly).

Oblivion isn't awful but it is IMHO a wasted opportunity. The bits that it leaves open aren't the problem; the problems are that the resistance isn't very convincing (as in they are individually and as a group a generic stereotype) and the clones don't seem worth the considerable effort of making, supplying and deceiving them. All of the characters were bland including the villain; comparing to 2001 again, HAL is cold and emotionless but still creepy and fascinating. Sally is just... bleh. As a result I didn't feel any emotional response to the ending.

The basic story elements were fine, the visuals and score were good and the acting was as good as you could expect given the script. However the writer seemed to just grab the raw characters, plot points, action shots and setting exposition and throw them together with no finesse, passion, story plausibility check or detailed world-building. Thus a rather mediocre and forgettable movie; 2001, Solaris, AI, Prometheus, Moon were all better executed.

Not that this point need be disputed any more than "why does Tyrell make replicants?".

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.