Oblivion with Tom Cruise
Oblivion is a movie that was released back in 2013 featuring Tom Cruise as the lead actor. It is a science fiction action film released in 2013. Joseph Kosinski, the director, based the movie on a graphic novel he had never published. Oblivion is a mix of several movie types, including mystery, romance, and futuristic themes. The film includes beautiful visuals, a captivating score, and a complex storyline. Above all, Oblivion examines critical issues of identity, memory, and how mankind is capable of enduring hardships.
The movie casts a ruined Earth that has been devastated for decades after an alien invasion. It is quite visually impressive, and the story is slowly revealed.
Story
The movie starts in the year 2077. Humanity wins the war with an alien species named Scavs, short for Scavengers. However, the victory comes with a heavy cost. With the Moon destroyed and the Scavs winning, Earth becomes lifeless and now a war zone. The people that were once Earth natives now have to inhabit Titan. Titan is now a colonized land that people need to maintain giant machines on to extract water for Titan.
The remaining technicians, one of them Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), are partnered with a communications officer, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). Performed in a sleek sky tower above the cloudline, they continuously maintain the drones that guard the water-extraction machines against lingering Scav forces. For the Jack and Victoria, the mission to the Titan colonization is the only thing that make sense to them. They have undergone memory wipes, supposedly for security purposes, but every undocumented timeline is something they would logically fill with harsh training.
During the harsh training, Jack is afflicted with vivid recollections of a boil-ridden swamp and a shrouded woman allied with Victoria. To add to the absurdity, he collects scraps of the artifacts, humans deem meaningless and long-sunken chances at the surface. To Victoria, this would seem like nothing more than a burden, and is purely fixated on the goals at hand: turning in all the scraps of information and moving on to Titan.
The timeline blames a timer for Jack’s monotone life, assigning him vivid reminders only to loose a spacecraft. The result, abandonment of crafting dull everyday rituals. Skeletons, and in this case people, trapped in stasis pods only add to the layers of pulling the shrouded woman out of his sepia world. Overwhelmed with emotions, Jack helps to get the remaining of the stasis pods to a more secure position, only to be attacked and amidst the chaos saving to only loose the op in form of confetti drones.
With the arrival of Julia, a string of life-changing events begins. Jack and Julia have been captured by the so-called “Scavs,” who are human resistance fighters led by Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman). Beech explains how the real enemy is not the Scavs. The enemy is the massive orbital structure called The Tet, which controls the drones and the water-extraction system. Tet is an alien AI that has destroyed the moon, invaded Earth, and is systematically harvested the planet’s resources.
The most shocking twist is Jack is not the only “Jack Harper”. He is a clone; one of many created to maintain the Tet’s machinery. Julia is his war-savior wife. The memories are fragments of the true past the Tet could not erase. Along with drones, Jacks have been killing for the remnants of humanity; the drones and Jacks have been unknowingly killing the remnants of humanity, mistaking them for alien threats.
Jack, Beech and Julia resolve to stop the Tet and deliver a nuclear payload to the alien structure. In a final act of sacrifice, Jack pretends to deliver Julia, who has been sent with the bomb, to the Tet. He, however, brings Beech with the bomb. The Tet is destroyed, the drones are disabled, and Earth is no longer under alien control.
In the film’s epilogue, we see Julia with her daughter at a cabin by the lake. They encounter a surviving clone of Jack Harper who has Jack’s memories and identity. This clone’s existence hints that love and humanity are capable of surviving even through altered histories.
Cast & Crew
Tom Cruise as Jack Harper — the central protagonist, conflicted between his obligations and a growing disquiet about his mission.
Morgan Freeman as Malcolm Beech — leader of the human resistance.
Olga Kurylenko as Julia Rusakova Harper — Jack’s wife, and a bridge to his true past.
Andrea Riseborough as Victoria “Vika” Olsen — Jack’s partner and communicator who remained dedicated to the mission till the very end.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Sykes — a resistance fighter.
Joseph Kosinski, the film’s director, similarly to his work in Tron: Legacy, showcases exquisite visuals. The film’s score, an atmospheric element, is presented by the electronic band M83 together with Joseph Trapanese.
Themes and Symbolism
Oblivion intertwines the following key themes:
In the battle of AI Jack faces, his journey also includes reclaiming his identity. Dreams are his subconscious nudging memories are resilient even against manipulation, showcasing the core themes of identity and memory.
Deception and control — The Tet misdirects its human clones into believing they are combating for survival when they are actually helping in humanity’s destruction.
Sacrifice — Jack’s final mission epitomizes the mark of a traditional hero who is prepared to forfeit his life for noble undertakings.
Human Connection — Jack’s relationship with Julia illustrates the film’s perspective that history and love can endure the harshest of conditions.
Jack’s buried truth that he must confront is further emphasized by the film’s imagery. The high-tech sky tower signifies the stark contrast between reality and the isolation one faces when cut off from the world.
Oblivion’s Visual Style and Worldbuilding
Oblivion also has an emphasis on postmodern and minimalistic styles. As with many other science fiction films, the less is more aesthetic is evident in the destruction and desolation of war torn Earth. Instead, nature reclaims what humanity once built. Claudio Miranda’s cinematography showcases expansive and overgrown cities, and hydro-rigs.
To stay true to the real world and not solely rely on greenscreen, they allowed for tangible elements to be incorporated. As a result, the sky tower set put in place with 360 degree views allowed for authentic terrains to be placed into fiction.
Reception
Oblivion has received overall mixed to positive reviews. While critics noted the impressive visuals, sound design, and the overall dedication from Tom Cruise, the film’s reception was still mixed. M83’s score received praise, especially for its emotional and atmospheric quality. Some reviewers, however, mentioned the film’s narrative was too derivative of former sci-fi headliners. Plot points from Moon, The Matrix, and even 2001: A Space Odyssey were referenced.
The film commercially did respectably, grossing over its budget. Kosinski’s reputation for large-scale, visually extravagant epics was further solidified.
Legacy
Oblivion does not stand as the most culturally dominant film, however, its reputation among fans for visually arresting and character-centric science fiction has certainly carved out a niche. Its unique blend of mystery, romance, and action transcends the more juvenile offerings of the genre, seeking to offer audiences more depth beyond simply explosions.
Oblivion receives recognition as enduring part of the sleek design, emotionally stirring soundtracks, and early 2010’s science fiction trends that influenced the decade’s aesthetic.
Conclusion
Oblivion is a refined sci-fi thriller with a rich atmosphere that seeks to answer profoundly human concerns using its high concept premise. The film follows Jack Harper on his transformative journey, and throughout the film , it analyzes the attempts to alter identity, memory, and love and how those attempts are met with relentless counterforces to ensure their preservation. Oblivion is hard not to remember with its striking visuals and evocative score, and its cinematic twists and turns challenge the audience to reconsider everything they believed about the world and its premise.
Oblivion conveys a positive message on the human condition. The film is audacious in its premise, and yet profoundly moving in its message: that even in a world painfully reshaped by loss and a relentless onslaught of deception, the innate spirit of humanity has a means of pushing through it all and managing to endure.
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