Oblivion – What did I think?

I loved Oblivion it’s a story with twists and turns. Full of big, powerful imagery and the sound track was amazing, it’s a real SciFi gem in my opinion. The pictures I’ve put up on this post (found on google image search) show some of the start imagery the film uses, the broken moon, ruined cities all this adds so much to the film’s ‘personality’. This isn’t a film review as such, although you would be forgiven for thinking so – this isn’t to be a film review blog – I just wanted to write about it because I liked the film.

Oblivion is a story about a post apocalyptic Earth after an attempted alien invasion leads to war, where the humans win, but the Earth is said to be scorched and mostly uninhabitable. Jack and Victoria live and work together to maintain the drones and power stations that are going to help them return to the rest of the remaining human race at Titan. This turns out to not be true at all and the story is turned onto its head when Jack realises that they are clones and there are many of them all over the Earth and that Jack and Victoria are working for the invaders – sucking the Earth dry of all it’s resources.

Jack has dreams about another life and specifically about a woman who he thinks he remembers. Victoria is like a custodian, watching over him while on his missions and back at home, their relationship is shattered almost at once when he rescues the young woman from his dreams. Her arrival throws the whole story wide open, leading to Jack teaming up with those his thought were his enemy to finally destroy the TET – a pyramid like spacecraft that was the main vessel for the alien invasion.

While watching this I couldn’t help thinking that Victoria knows more about what is really happening than shes lets on. Nothing is said, it’s all in the acting and the mood they give the character. She’s there to please, inform and maybe even control Jack without him knowing it. This rapidly falls apart when the young woman from Jack’s dreams is suddenly thrown into the mix and Victoria’s mood changes to something beyond jealousy.  This is for made what made the film entertaining, they left gaps in the plot that they let you decide for yourself, it’s not all spelled out and I can imagine different people having different views on this.

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What I liked about this film was there was no lesson or something to be learned. Many SciFi stories do this, while it doesn’t ruin them I don’t always want a story to have a lesson. What this story was about though was living in a confined world and questioning what you’re told is your existence. This has been a popular topic in Scifi for many years, especially since the Matrix. But here we have Jack unknowingly trapped in a life which is a lie. It’s one of the most powerful parts of the story (and the ‘ah-ha’ moment when you’re watching it) when he finds out what there is beyond the radiation zone.

 

If you’re into SciFi and haven’t seen it – I would recommend it, it’s powerful, clever and well constructed. The music is powerful and adds yet more dimension to the story. I enjoyed so much I hope they don’t ruin it with a second film.

 

Simon 🙂