A Long Time Ago In A Theater Far, Far Away

Happy Star Wars Day! Star Wars (it wasn't called A New Hope back then) premiered an impossible 36 years ago on May 25, 1977.

I didn't see it on opening day, but I was there in the theater a week or two later. I remember going to see it on the last day of school. We got out at noon on Friday and a friend and I hurried to the theater to catch it. 

I knew a little bit about the film as I'd read about it in Starlog magazine. Starlog was the place to get info on upcoming movies in the dark times before the internet. I knew it was some kind of sci-fi space opera thing, but I had no idea what I was in for.

When the movie started and that Star Destroyer roared overhead for seemingly a full minute, my jaw was on the floor (among the gum and popcorn). I could actually hear audible gasps from the audience around me. No one in the theater had ever seen anything like that. 

I don't think I blinked during the entire movie. When it was over I didn't want to leave; I wanted to stay and watch it another ten times.

To say Star Wars had a huge influence on me would be a disservice to understatements. For months, maybe years after seeing it I would sit around and draw the ships and characters, which eventually got me to try my hand and designing my own ships and robots. 

I wasn't immune to the merchandising onslaught either. I eagerly bought every Star Wars reference book I could find and started collecting the action figures as well, activities that continue to this day.

You whippersnappers who weren't around in the late 1970s have no idea how revolutionary Star Wars was. I wish I could make you understand what what it was like to see it back then, and how things were before it came out. 

Nowadays there's a new sci-fi blockbuster spectacle released every other weekend. Back then films like Logan's Run were the epitome of special effects extravaganzas. Believe me when I say that before Star Wars, it's quite literally true that no one had ever seen anything like it before.

Try and imagine you're back in early 1977. Back then space ships in movies all looked pretty much like the image above. Sleek, smooth and boring.

Sure, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Silent Running bucked the trend a little with super detailed models, but Star Wars upped the ante exponentially, with utilitarian-looking ships like the Millennium Falcon and the gargantuan Star Destroyers. Finally, detailed ships that didn't look like a plain old missile.

And the way the ships moved was nothing less than astonishing. Before Star Wars you were lucky to ever see more than one space ship in a scene at the same time. Any ships you did see trundled slowly across the screen in a perectly straight line. Suddenly Star Wars came along and there were dozens of ships on the screen at once, all swooping and banking and zooming around like fighter jets. It may not have been scientifically accurate, but damn was it cool!

This freedom of movement was probably the most innovative thing about the film. Try and imagine what it was like to go from a ship on a string traveling from point A to B to seeing something like the Death Star Battle. By the time that sequence was over I couldn't summon the energy to gasp in amazement any more, as my brain had practically melted inside my skull.

The film revolutionized robots too. Before Star Wars movie robots tended to look like the one above. There were a couple of exceptions, like Maria the Robot from Metropolis and Robbie from Forbidden Planet, but by and large movie robots were all stiff, devoid of personality and dull.

Compare that to the droids of Star Wars, that not only were chock full of personality but looked like they could actually function.

Star Wars also pioneered the concept of the "lived-in" universe. Before, all sci-fi movie sets looked pristine and spotless and brand new-- which of course they were, as they'd probably been completed earlier that day.

In Star Wars everything looks old and used. Luke's landspeeder is dented and the paint is chipped. The Jawa's Sandcrawler is pitted and rusty. The Millennium Falcon has blaster marks on the hull where its gotten into scraps with other ships. Things were dirty and looked as if they'd been around for a long time, which gave even the most impractical designs a sense of realism. Whoever came up with that concept, and I have a feeling it probably wasn't George Lucas, deserves a huge pat on the back.

I will admit that some of the concepts and ideas presented in Star Wars are not wholly original. The plot and even many of the characters are lifted from Kurosawa's 1958 film The Hidden Fortress. The desert planet setting and the mention of spice mines are obviously from Dune. Obi-Wan sensing the millions of voices crying out during the destruction of Alderaan is lifted practically verbatim from Star Trek. 

Star Wars may have cribbed bits and pieces from other works, but no film had ever do so with as much style and panache.

It's really too bad that after The Empire Strikes Back that George Lucas started believing his own publicity and surrounded himself with yes men, resulting in the somewhat sub-par Return Of The Jedi and the execrable prequels. Ah well. We got two really good movies and one OK one out of the deal. 

Happy Star Wars Day! Or as Chewie would say, "ARrrrrrrRRrrrrruuuurrrrrraaarrrrrrrghhhh!"

New Acquisition For The Wall Of Tackiness

I found this a couple of weeks ago at a flea market: a lovely black velvet painting of the American/Mexican border. The colors are beautiful and the composition top notch, and the realism! Why, if I squint I can almost see an illegal immigrant making a desperate dash across the landscape in an attempt to secretly enter the country!

As you can see it fits right in with the many other exhibits on display on the Wall Of Tackiness, conveniently located in my living room.

 

Olé (That means olé in Spanish)!

I've Got A Bad Feeling About This: Adobe Creative Cloud

Last week, in a move seemingly designed to piss off 98% of their customer base, Adobe announced that they'll no longer be selling their Creative Suite software in physical form. From now on it'll be called Adobe Creative Cloud and will only be available for downloading at the low, low subscription fee of $50 a month ($30 if you just want one piece of the Suite such as Photoshop).

That's right, for just $600 a year you'll be granted the privilege of renting their software (yes, I know that according to the user agreement everyone accepts that's been the case all along, but still...)..

Adobe officials are of course touting this as a good thing for their customers. In a press release they had this to say, in a spectacular piece of MarketSpeak™:

“The urge to be creative is universal, and harnessing the creative spark – in everyone from school children to creative pros – has never been more important,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer, Adobe. “Wherever and whenever inspiration strikes, Adobe will be there to help capture, refine and publish your ideas.”

“We launched Creative Cloud a year ago and it has been a runaway success,” said David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Media, Adobe. “By focusing our energy -- and our talented engineers -- on Creative Cloud, we’re able to put innovation in our members’ hands at a much faster pace.”

Wow, how Mr. Narayen managed to say all that without bursting out laughing, I have no idea. I bet he was sore the next day! 
 
See, by charging us a monthly fee our ol' pal Adobe is doing us all a favor, dontcha know? From now on we'll never have to worry about not having the latest software because we'll be constantly forced to upgrade. It's a win-win situation!

They're not fooling anybody. The only ones who'll benefit from this boneheaded idea is Adobe. This is a cash grab, pure and simple. A cash grab so transparent you can read the newspaper through it. Now instead of a burst of revenue every time they release a new, slightly different version of their software that ain't worth the trouble they'll have a steady, monthly revenue stream from now until the end time.

Adobe knows all too well that most people keep their software for years until the day it finally stops working on their computers. Not any more! Now you'll be forced to upgrade whether you want to or not, and if you don't upgrade, Adobe will kill it. Right there on your machine! Because you don't own their software now, remember? You're only renting it. And they don't have to rent to you if they feel you're not worthy.

I'm also 100% positive they're doing this to stem the dreaded scourge of piracy. I will admit this is probably a legitimate concern for them. Everybody knows someone with a copy of Photoshop that they don't mind sharing. While I don't encourage piracy, I can definitely understand it. When your software package costs well over $1,500 motherfrakin' dollars it's only natural that some consumers are going to be reluctant to pay for it.

Many have said that the new subscription price of $600 a year will be a substantial savings over the old purchase price. That's certainly true if you rush out and upgrade every time Adobe releases a new version. The thing is, nobody does that. I don't know a single person who feels compelled to do so. Everyone I know keeps whatever CS version they have indefinitely. Even the various companies for which I've worked have done this, upgrading as an absolute last resort. When you look at it that way that $600 a year ain't no bargain.

An extra $50 a month probably won't be too big a burden for most corporations, but this is gonna kill small Mom & Pop companies.

It'll be especially painful for freelancers whose income fluctuates from month to month. I have a feeling many small-time freelancers are gonna fall by the wayside.

And what about casual users? People who aren't freelancers but just like playing around in Photoshop or InDesign for their own amusement? Screw you, that's what. Adobe just made your fun little hobby very damned expensive.

One of the many "benefits" Adobe is loudly trumpeting is that by subscribing you'll always have the absolute latest version of their software with all their brand new features and improvements that no one asked for. The thing is, the vast majority of consumers will never use any of this stuff. I've been using Photoshop since the early 1990s and there are features I've never used and never will. I have no use for them or even any idea what they do. All that these needless bells and whistles do is bloat the software and make it take longer to start up. 

Once you start subscribing, how will all these new features be updated on your computer? By downloading them, that's how. I don't like the sound of that. Do you have Adobe Acrobat on your computer? If so, did you ever notice how it'll bug you for days and days that there's a new version and you need to drop what you're doing and upgrade immediately? And then after a week of these annoying alerts, you finally throw up your hands and say , "Alright already!" and download the ferkakta thing and then it restarts tour computer and immediately tells you that there's yet another upgrade available. Get ready for even more of that.

And how long do you think it'll take to download all this stuff over even a fast connection? Minutes? Hours? I pity people in rural areas who still have dial-up.

Another annoyance: the way I understand it you'll need a working internet connection to use the new Creative Cloud. That's so the software can periodically send out a message to Adobe letting them know it's on your computer, it's the current version and most important of all that it's paid for. If you don't upgrade religiously or can't afford the subscription this month the software will tattle on you and Adobe will remotely disable it. Nice of them, eh? 

"Creative Cloud" indeed. A foul and noxious cloud that issued straight from Adobe's bum hole.

As you may have guess by now, I do not plan on subscribing to Adobe Creative Cloud for $600 a year. I'm still using Photoshop 7 and I get along just fine. It does everything I need for the kind of work I do and I'm gonna keep using it until the day it finally stops working. What are you gonna do, Adobe? Come to my house and take it back?

Good luck with your new customer-screwing endeavor, Adobe. You're not the only game in town, you know. The biggest and most popular yes, but not the only. Looks like it's time to start learning SketchBook Pro. And if that fails, there's always pen and paper.

Where No Fan Has Gone Before

Just when I think I've seen pretty much everything on the internet it once again manages to surprise me. Behold, Star Trek Fan Dating Sites!

No longer do you have to worship your favorite show alone and unloved! Now you can find your perfect soul mate, be they voluptuous Vulcan or crass Klingon. Just be sure to warn all the guests at your authentic Betazoid wedding that they'll be required to attend in the nude!

The "Set Phasers To Something Amusing" tag line seems to be pretty popular among these sites.

Mind you I'm not mocking these sites or the people who frequent them. Far from it. Lord knows trekkies need all the help they can get in the romance department, so I'm all for this idea.

It's just that I'm a bit surprised that there are so many of them. I suppose I shouldn't be; after all Star Trek undoubtably has the highest concentration of fans of any other pop culture property. It just seems so... narrowly specific.

If there are dating sites devoted just to Trek fans, what other specialized websites are lurking out there? How about Ooh! Ooh! The Dating Site For Fans Of Car 54, Where Are You? Or Pufnstufers, the H.R. Pufnstuf Dating Site? What about Hang In There, the online dating site for fans of Then Came Bronson? The mind boggles!

Personally I'm gonna be hopping over to this one. Wish me luck!

Doctor Who Season 7, Episode 13: The Name Of The Doctor

"On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked, a question that must never, ever be answered."

"The first question. The oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight: Doctor who?"

It's the big Doctor Who season finale, in which secrets are revealed and questions answered. So how was it? Pretty darned good, I thought. I've been pretty critical of Steven Moffat ever since the uneven first half of the season and the abysmal and bone-headed The Angels Take Manhattan, but he redeemed himself here.

We actually found out the secret of Clara The Impossible Girl, we didn't hear the Doctor's true name (which I think is a very good thing) and it was a nice set up for the fiftieth anniversary as we got cameo appearances from all the Doctor's previous incarnations.

Speaking of the Doctor's true name, I think I know what it is. It's... Cosmo! All you Seinfeld fans are no doubt LOL-ing right now. 

Supposedly a few lucky customers who pre-ordered the Blu-Ray of the second half of the season from Amazon received their sets about a week before the finale aired. Whoops! The BBC then had to hurriedly issue a press statement begging people to not reveal any spoilers before the episode aired. Man, it's getting harder and harder to keep a secret in this world.

Big Honkin' Spoilers, Obviously!

The Plot:
The Great Intelligence, who we met back in The Snowmen, is now possessing the body of Dr. Simeon. Joined by the mysterious Whisper Men, he/it begins killing and threatening the Doctor's friends unless he goes to Trenzalore, the one place in the universe the Time Lord must never visit.

Of course the Doctor goes there anyway. We find out that Trenzalore was the site of a great battle and the entire planet is now one large graveyard. Among the dead buried there is the Doctor's future self, which is the reason he shouldn't be there. The Doctor's Tomb is actually the TARDIS itself, grown to monstrous proportions as its infinite interior space leaks out as it dies. Simeon is determined to enter the Tomb, but it can only be opened by speaking the Doctor's true name. Simeon's Whisper Men threaten to kill the Doctor's companions unless he complies. Suddenly River Song appears, since it's a Steven Moffatt episode (or an echo of her appears would be more accurate) and speaks the Doctor's name (which we do not hear), opening the Tomb.

Once inside, the group sees a shimmering column instead of a body. The column represents the Doctor's timeline over the centuries. Simeon enters the column with the intention of going back through the Doctor's timeline and reversing every one his victories.

Clara realizes that she too can enter the column and help the Doctor all through the years. She steps into the column and is torn into a million fragments, living her life over and over throughout the Doctor's timeline, becoming the Impossible Girl.

Thoughts:
• The teaser starts off with Clara popping up Forrest Gump-like throughout the Doctor's past. We see scenes of her interacting, sort of, with the First, Sixth, Fourth, Seventh, Third, Second, Fifth and of course Eleventh Doctors. Why no love for Eight, Nine and Ten? Was the episode running long and their scenes were cut for time?

UPDATE! I'm told that the Tenth Doctor did appear in the teaser in the televised broadcast, but for some reason he was cut from the online version. Odd. The BBCs way of smoking out pirates?

That said, the teaser scene was pretty well done. It couldn't have been easy combining archive video (fifty years old in some cases!) with brand new high def footage.

• And here I thought Let's Kill Hitler took the prize for Worst Title Of All Time. But suddenly a new contender rises from the pack! The Name Of The Doctor? Yeesh. How about The Fields Of Trenzalore? The Fall Of The Eleventh? Or the most obvious one of all, The Impossible Girl? 

• The video monitor in the repair shop flashes "ALERT" as the Doctor steals the TARDIS.

Since they're on Gallifrey, shouldn't the readout look more like this? You know, in the circle-y lettering that's been established as Gallifrean?

And why did the technicians just stand there and watch him steal it? Why bother having an alert if you're not going to act on it?

• Apparently Clara was the one who told the Doctor which TARDIS to take. Hmm. In The Doctor's Wife, didn't the TARDIS tell him that it chose him? Whoops!

• After hearing about it for fifty years, we finally see the time the Doctor stole the TARDIS. As the Doctor and Susan fly off in it, we see that the default appearance of a TARDIS is apparently a plain grey cylinder with a slightly recessed door. Have we ever seen that in any episode before?

• Oy, Artie and the face-slappable Angie make another appearance. Fortunately it was brief.

• In Victorian London, Madame Vastra visits a serial killer named Clarence DeMarco in prison. He's obviously insane, but knows about the Whisper Men and has more knowledge about the planet Trenzalore than would be considered normal.

How in the heck did he get that info? Did he overhear the Whisper Men, er, whispering?

• When the Doctor and Clara land on Trenzalore, they find a lifeless gloomy world full of gravestones. I have to admit this is not how I pictured it when I first heard the Trenzalore prophecy. I expected something more like... I don't know, a green field. This is not a complaint against the episode mind you, just a personal observation.

• The TARDIS refuses to land on Trenzalore and shuts itself down, except for the antigravs. The Doctor shuts them off and the TARDIS falls violently to the surface. As it falls we hear a high-pitched woman's scream. 

So who's screaming here? Is it Clara? It doesn't sound much like her, although I will admit I probably don't know what she sounds like when she's plummeting to certain death in a space ship. Surely it isn't the Doctor squealing like a girl. So that leaves... the TARDIS itself doing the screaming. Weird!

• The Doctor says the gravestones on Trenzalore of those of fallen warriors. Do soldiers usually get buried where they fall on the battlefield? Complete with tombstones? I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. This is an alien planet though, so I'll let it go.

• Clara spots an enormous monument in the distance that looks like the TARDIS. The Doctor says it IS the TARDIS. He tells her that it's dying and all the infinite space inside is leaking out, causing it to grow to gigantic proportions. Unexpected, but kind of cool. 

So if the TARDIS really is infinite, if all it's insides were to all spill out when it dies would it fill up the entire universe? 

• The biggest question I have about this episode: Where was the Silence? What happened to them? Wasn't this their whole reason for existence; to prevent the Doctor from ever uttering his name on the fields of Trenzalore, which would supposedly destroy the universe? Yes, a couple of seasons ago the Doctor tricked them into thinking he was killed at Lake Silencio, but you'd think maybe they might want to post a guard or two by the Tomb Of The Doctor, just to make sure nothing happened.

Maybe it was a question of time. This episode was already jam-packed; bringing in the Silence to stop the Doctor and oppose the Great Intelligence would have been too much.

• Strax continues to have trouble recognizing human genders. I guess it's understandable for a member of a race of cloned males.

• Fortunately for Jenny, Strax remembers his training as a nurse. He uses some sort of Sontaran medical doohicky to shock her heart back into beating. Normally this is the part where I would rant that defibrillators do not work this way, but since Strax was using an alien device which no doubt functions in alien ways, I'll let it go this once. 

I liked the exchange between Strax and Vastra after he revived Jenny. Strax says, "The heart is a relatively simple thing." Vastra replies, "I have not found it to be so."

• A couple episodes back in Journey To The Center Of The TARDIS, Clara wanders into the TARDIS' library and sees a book called The History Of The Great Time War. She turns a page of the book and says, "So that's who!" It's implied that she read the true name of the Doctor in the book. 

However at the end of that episode the Doctor hit the reset button, rewinding time so that the events of that show never happened, effectively erasing his name from her memory.

• I was impressed that the mystery of Clara was answered as promised and was so simple and easy to follow. This is a Steven Moffatt episode after all and most of the time his plot resolutions are overly convoluted and make little or no sense (I'm lookin' at you again, The Angels Take Manhattan). Well done.

• I was kind of hoping Clara would somehow turn out to be a regenerated Susan Foreman, but this was good too.

• As soon as I found out the title of this episode several weeks ago, I was afraid they'd actually say the Doctor's true name and it would turn out to be "God" or something equally ridiculous. I'm glad we didn't actually get to hear it. Some mysteries should remain unsolved.

Everyone watching probably has an idea of what it is in their mind, and whatever name the producers chose would inevitably be a letdown.

That said I will admit that titling the episode as they did and then not actually revealing his name was a bit of a tease and a fake out.

• So a few episodes back we saw that the TARDIS apparently didn't like Clara. I figured the reason why had something to do with the mystery surrounding her. So... here we are. The mystery of The Impossible Girl has been revealed and I'm not really seeing anything about it that would upset the TARDIS. Is it because Clara is fragmented? Is that why the TARDIS' panties are in a bunch? Or does it just plain hate her guts for no reason?

• I'm sure Richard E. Grant is a fine actor, but his Dr. Simeon was a bit of let down here. In fact he was downright dull. Doctor Who needs hungry villains eager to chew the scenery until the studio's bare, not bad guys who seem like they're on the verge of nodding off.

• The Whisper Men were a bit underwhelming as well. They certainly looked cool, as all of Steven Moffatt's many bad guys always do, but in the end they never actually did anything or seemed much of a threat. What exactly are their powers? Um... they whisper. And hiss. And stick their hands into your chest. OK, that last power is kind of scary, but overall they were just as dull as their master.

And where the bloody hell did they come from? Last time we saw Dr. Simeon he commanded an army of snowmen. Now suddenly he's got a posse of dapper ghouls with pointy teeth and no eyes. Where'd he dig them up? None of our business I guess.

• Once the Doctor's back on his feet, he says goodbye to River Song's ghost, or archived image or whatever she is. He plants a big kiss on her lips, then the realization crosses his face as he says, "Since nobody else in this room can see you, god knows how that looked." HAW HAW!

• After Clara jumps into the Doctor's time stream, she lands in a foggy void, which I think is supposed to be somewhere inside the Doctor's memory. Several of the Doctor's past selves jog past her, including the First, Sixth, Fifth, Ninth, Tenth (I think) and Fourth. A bit later Clara says she's seen all eleven Doctors, but I can't for the life of me spot the Eighth one in any of these scenes. Maybe the one I thought was the Tenth was really the Eighth?

• The Doctor rescues Clara from the void, which looks different from the ruins of Trenzalore. Are they in the Doctor's memory of the Time War?

They see a man in the shadows. Clara asks who it is, and the Doctor replies that it's him, but he's not the Doctor, whatever that means. Could he be the Valeyard, the future dark version of the Doctor who's supposed to appear between his Twelfth an final incarnation? Or someone new?

Fans have always assumed that the Eighth Doctor fought in the Great Time War (which pitted the Time Lords against the Daleks, resulting in the destruction of both races). Maybe that's not what happened at all. What if THIS is the Doctor who fought in the Time War-- the true Ninth Doctor, and all the ones after him get bumped up a number, making Matt Smith the Twelfth? I think my head just exploded a little bit.

It was very odd that they felt the need to add a caption as this unknown Doctor stepped into view. Thanks, BBC, but I know who John Hurt is and I recognize him when I see him.

Whoever he is, we'll have to wait until freakin' November to find out during the Fiftieth Anniversary Special. Jesus, I hate these long season breaks. You could almost carry a kid to term between seasons. I wish there was some way to fix this, but I guess short seasons with long breaks between is just the way television works these days.

See you in November!

I've Got A Bad Feeling About This: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

It's no secret that I am not a fan of last year's The Amazing Spider-Man. I thought it was way too early to reboot the franchise, I hated that we had to sit through yet another tedious retelling of his origin that everyone knows backward and forward by now and I was very disappointed that after they spent two movies setting up actor Dylan Baker as the man who would become the Lizard, they recast the part.

So I have very low expectations for the inevitable sequel. So far nothing I've seen or heard about the production has changed my attitude towards it.

For example, last week released set photos from the upcoming sequel The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Even Amazinger. Plot details are sketchy at this time but it's known that long-time comic book supervillain the Rhino is due to show up.

The Rhino is being played by Paul Giamatti. Yeah, sorry, but that's not a typo.

This is how the Rhino is apparently going to appear in the film. Yep, he's apparently now a fat pissed off Russian ganster wearing a track suit and a barbed wire tattoo on his forehead.

This is how the Rhino looks in the comics. He's supposed to look, not unsurprisingly, like a large rhinoceros man.

In the comics his name is Aleksei Sytsevich and he agrees to undergo and experiment that molecularly bonds a super strong armored suit to his body. He then wreaks havoc in New York and encounters Spider-Man on many occasions.

Silly looking? Perhaps. But it's a comic book! It's supposed to be somewhat silly. If the director is ashamed by the way a comic book character looks, then maybe he shouldn't use him. Better yet Mr. Fancy-Pants Director, if comic books and their trappings embarrass you then you'd probably be better off directing a romantic comedy or period drama. Leave the comic book movies to people who love them and will treat the properties with the respect they're due.

Now I realize that it's way too early to start picking on a movie that isn't hasn't even finished filming yet, but... the Rhino is not supposed to be a tubby guy in a track suit. I'm trying to stay positive though and am hoping that this is just his initial appearance and that he'll show up later in the movie in his proper comic book form, donning a full rhino suit.

Because if he doesn't and these photos represent his final form then this movie can go watch itself. I won't be in the audience.

It Came From The Cineplex: Oblivion

Tom Cruise stars in the new sci-fi film Oblivion, written and directed by Joseph Kosinski. It's based on Konsinski's unpublished graphic novel of the same name. How the hell do you get to direct a movie from a comic book you wrote yourself but never published?

Konsinski also directed Tron: Legacy, which I didn't much care for. Oblivion is a big improvment in my opinion, proving he can direct a decent movie when he wants to.

The best thing about Oblivion? It's not a remake, sequel or reboot, which automatically gives it points in my book. That said, it's derivative with a capital D, which taints it a bit.

I'm of two minds about this film. Overall I liked it and parts of it were fairly intelligent and well thought out. On the other hand it's marred by some truly mind-bogglingly bad science. Science so bone-headed it would make Ed Wood blush and look away.

WARNING! MASSIVE PLOT TWIST SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

The Plot:
Get comfortable, it's complicated. It's the incredibly far off year of 2077. Earth has been virtually destroyed after a battle with aliens called Scavs, who blew up Earth's moon and were narrowly defeated when humanity attacked them with nuclear weapons, rendering the planet nearly lifeless.

Humanity flees to an enormous orbiting space station called the Tet (after tetrahedron, not the Offensive). Technician Jack Harper (Cruise) and his partner Victoria oversee a series of massive power stations that draw power from what's left of the oceans. The energy harvested from the stations is being stored in the Tet and will be used to power the new human colony on Saturn's moon Titan. They also maintain a team of robotic flying drones that help protect the power stations from the few remaining tribes of Scavs that remain on Earth.

Everything's going fine until Jack finds a mysterious female survivor from a space expedition launched before the Scav War, who seems very familiar to him. Morgan Freeman shows up and sounds somber and important, Jamie Lannister acts like a jerk, and Zoe Bell wanders onto the set for some reason. 

The mysterious woman reveals a startling truth about Jack and Vic, Morgan Freelman reveals a startling truth about the Scavs, and Jack delivers a startling surprise to the real aliens.

Pros:
• Despite Tom Cruise's nutsy cuckoo personal life, he really is a pretty good actor. Luckily I can separate him from the parts he plays and enjoy his films.

• Jesus, not another damn Tom Cruise sci-fi movie with another damn futuristic computer interface that Apple is going to try to emulate. At least this one doesn't require the user to stand and wave their arms at it like a damn symphony conductor.

• It's a great looking movie full of beautifully realized technology and some truly epic vistas.
 
• I liked that the plot wasn't spoon fed to the audience. Information was doled out bit by bit, challenging the audience to piece it all together like a puzzle. That's pretty rare these days.

Cons:
• There are voice-overs in films and then there are voice-overs. And then there are the voice-overs in Oblivion. Seriously, around ten minutes into the film Tom Cruise was still going on about how the world got this way. I was beginning to think that there would be no standard dialog at all and he'd just be narrating the whole thing.

• "Meet George Jetson!" Behold the futuristic architecture of Oblivion.

• For an "original" film it sure is derivative. There are elements of Moon, Independence Day, Inception, The Matrix, Wall-E, Robocop and even a little bit of Planet Of The Apes. Somehow it even looks and feels like After Earth, a film that hasn't been released yet! And that's just off the top of my head! There are probably even more lesser-known films from which it cribs scenes.

There were times while I was watching when I was mentally checking films off a list in my head. "Ah, people who have their memory wiped for no good reason to complete their mission, that's just like Moon. Clones, again, Moon. Caretaker on a deserted earth, saw that in Wall-E. Infiltrating a giant spaceship, that's from Independence Day," and on and on. It got to be distracting after a while.

• Oblivion contains one of my major sci-fi movie pet peeves-- it takes place way too close to the present day. The film's set in the year 2077. Jack drones on about how the Scav War started sixty years before. Than means the aliens invaded in the futuristic year of 2017.

Even worse, the events of the film are all kicked off when a NASA spaceship encounters an alien vessel during a mission to Titan. First of all, the NASA ship that's shown is far, far more advanced than anything we have now or will possibly have in the next four years. Second, we couldn't even mount an expedition to the freakin' Moon right now if our lives depended on it. Titan is between 800 to 900 MILLION miles from Earth! They'd probably have had to launch it back in 2010 or so just to get there by 2017. Would it have killed them to have set the story in 2177 for Pete's sake? I will never understand why screenwriters do this.

• As soon as I saw that the Scavs (who are supposedly remnants of the alien invasion force) were wearing full face masks, I knew they were going to turn out to be humans in disguise. Remember that, folks. Any time someone wears a mask in a movie, their true identity is supposed to be a surprise.

• Jack and Vic have been told by their mission commander Sally that most of humanity is living on a colony on Titan. They should have suspected that was a lie from the start. There's no way a human could possibly live on the surface of Titan, given our current understanding of the place. Underground or inside a dome, maybe, but not bloody likely.

• The biggest problem I had about the film was the so-called science. "Science" like they used to have in B-movies about giant ants. Now of course I don't expect 100% scientific accuracy in a science fiction movie-- there is after all "fiction" in the term-- but it should at least make a tiny bit of sense or seem like it might somehow be possible.

• So who destroyed the Pentagon, the Scavs or Humanity's nukes? Either way, it was nice of them to just blow a relatively small hole in it and leave enough of it standing so we can still identify it.

• We're told (and shown) that Earth was decimated when the Scavs destroyed the Moon. Violent upheavals apparently occurred and we see recognizable landmarks poking up out thousands of feet of dirt. At one point Jack even climbs a mere ten feet or so up to Observation Deck of the Empire State Building! What'd the aliens do, somehow drop several billion tons of soil on us?

There's no way the destruction of the Moon could have caused the surface to change like this. Don't believe me? Then check out what Larry O'Hanlon, a real life honest to goodness scientist has to say about it. If you don't want to read what he has to say or the article disappears, I'll summarize: What would happen to Earth if the Moon was destroyed? Not much.

"We'd still have tides, but they'd be weaker and caused by the Sun. There might be a few earthquakes and maybe even a grumbling volcano or two as the Earth's gravitational field adjusted to the loss. The biggest effect would be on Earth's axial tilt. Right now it's at 23 degrees and it's the reason we have seasons. Scientists believe that the Moon stabilizes the axial tilt and without it the tilt would vary, resulting in violently fluctuating seasons. Fortunately that wouldn't happen for a million years or more."

So the loss of the Moon would have pretty much no effect on Earth. It certainly wouldn't cause the ground to rise up thousands of feet and bury all our national monuments.

Besides, if you look at the scenes of the "destroyed" Moon in the film, it looks like it's still pretty much intact. Sure, it's in several large chunks with some smaller debris floating around, but it all looks like it's still pretty much in one place in the sky. So it for damn sure wouldn't have any effect based on the visual evidence!

• If the earth is ever threatened by aliens, for god's sake stay away from the Statue Of Liberty. That thing is a death magnet.

• As soon as Jack mentioned that he and Vic had their memories wiped for "security purposes" I knew that their supervisor Sally and everyone in the Tet was bad news. No one ever has their memories wiped for a good reason.

I don't even get the whole memory wipe thing in the first place. Well, I get it in terms of the plot, which can't progress without the two main characters having no memories. But what about the "in universe" reason? Why wipe their memories? In case they got captured, they can't spill any secrets? So they won't miss their families on the Tet? So they won't remember that their "mission" is total bullsh*t?

Ultimately wiping their memories makes no damn sense because Jack and Vic are clones. The originals presumably died after being captured by aliens back in 2017. The aliens used Jack as a template to clone an entire deadly army with which to conquer Earth. When that was marked off their bucket list, they cloned Jack (and Vic) to use as caretakers. But here's the thing: you can't clone memories. No matter how many clones the aliens make of Jack, they won't remember a goddamned thing about his past life. Because they're brand new copies that don't have any memories yet. There's no way in hell he could possibly remember Julia or that she was his fiance. The only way that could possibly work is if the aliens had some kind of magical technology that copied memories as well as DNA, and if that's the case, then F you Mr. Screenwriter. 

• Why the hell is stunt woman/actress Zoe Bell in this movie? I don't begrudge her a gig, mind you, but she presumably commands a higher salary than a no-name extra would. So they went out of their way to hire her, then used her in exactly one scene that lasted for two seconds.

Did she originally have a larger role that was drastically cut down?

• My favorite scene from Independence Day, er, I mean Oblivion.

• At the end of the film Jack and Morgan Freeman fly up to the Tet and destroy it, freeing Earth from the grip of the aliens and dying in the process. Before Jack died though he took Julia to his secret untouched Garden Of Eden.

No matter how badly the earth is decimated in one of these movies, there's always a verdant hidden valley.

A few years pass and we see Julia and her daughter (!) gardening in their little paradise. A group of human survivors steps out of the bushes and waves to Julia. We see that one member of the group is one of the many clones of Jack! Julia smiles knowingly at him, as her daughter asks, "Who's that, Mommy?" Julia, obviously pleased with what she sees, replies, "He's your father."

Yikes. Um, no he's not kid. The Jack that apparently knocked up your mom died a couple years ago. This is just a copy of him, a guy who looks like him if you will. He ain't your dad any more than I am. 

And shouldn't Julia be a little skeeved out by this too? Clone or not, same memories or not, this ain't the same guy you were in love with! For that matter, neither was the one who rescued you earlier in the film. The one who proposed to you died 60 years ago. I guess a copy is better than nothing, but it just seems... wrong somehow.

Don't think so? OK then, forget clones. Imagine Jack's got a twin brother. He sacrifices himself just as he does in the film and at the end, his twin shows up. Would Julia smile and immediately hook up with him? Of course not! Appearances aside, he ain't the same guy!

And when the hell did Jack ever have time to have sex with Julia during the movie? Unless I missed something, the action was pretty much non-stop the moment after they met. Julia's been orbiting the Earth in suspended animation in a forgotten spacecraft for the last 60 years-- surely to Thor they didn't send a pregnant woman into outer space back then?

Let's hope he found a tire pump in the rubble, or this is gonna be a really short game.

A reasonably enjoyable sci-fi epic that's unfortunately a bit derivative and marred by some bone-headed science. I give it a B.