Oblivion Vs. Elysium

It was an American Author, damn it.

But the title was right.

Ok dammit, let me slide I made a mistake on THE MATRIX not being based off a book,
and I’ll let you slide you thought the author was a fuckin’ Nazi.

Proving once again books rule anyway, because an author has total control of his story, as opposed to
movie adaptations where so many people are involved that too many cooks usually spoil the broth.

I tell people that if you’re sick tired of the lack of true suspense in movies…start reading books,
thrillers, horror, whatever…as the years go by you come to slowly outgrow the ‘juvenile’ sensibilities
in most movies now…so you either go ‘old school’ for your movie entertainment, because Hollywood used
to make a lot of good intelligent shit, or you go to books…there are OPTIONS people, lots of options.
lol.

District 9 had a Mech suit which had a gravity gun.

They then proceeded to include a part where a pig was picked up with said gravity gun and used as a weapon on a merc.

The director who had that in his film gets 5 stars from me on any of his films.

[quote]optheta wrote:

[quote]IFlashBack wrote:
Just curious, have any of you guys read the plot for Oblivion? [/quote]

Doesn’t that like ruin the point of going to go see the movie? lol[/quote]

Lately I find that “ruining” the plot actually leads to a better movie experience. You don’t have to worry about the turns and twist and the big stuff, and can actually appreciate the finer parts of the plot-line. That’s why a lot of movies are better on the second watch.

There is a lot of anxiety and stress built up regarding the actual ending that you just want to get to the end to see what happens. When you know the ending you can calm down and watch a movie, the same way you listen to music.

[quote]Big Kahuna wrote:

[quote]IFlashBack wrote:
Just curious, have any of you guys read the plot for Oblivion? [/quote]

Yeah, Drone engineer is stationed to repair mining drones that will retrieve the last remaining natural resources from a since barren Earth, Cruise gets captured by rebel forces and saves some lady he sees in his dreams, but has no memory of, and spends the rest of the time not knowing who to trust and trying to find out who she is. It sounds like an actiony and not so promising version of Duncan Jones’ “Moon” with a few tweaks here and there.[/quote]

Well, you know that the plot will have these elements:

  • Cruise is good at his job
  • He reaches a critical event that changes on the outlook of his job (no longer sees it as “the right thing to do”)
  • The critical event will use the woman, as she will make Cruise question the morality of his job
  • Based on the Trailer, he gets captured and switches sides after learning the truth about earth
  • The people that making him do the drone repair job (his “employers”) will now be seen as the bad people
  • Explosions and CGI
  • Cruise, the Woman and Freeman will emerge victorious, but one of them will be a casualty in the fight

Bam, blockbuster movie

[quote]IFlashBack wrote:

[quote]optheta wrote:

[quote]IFlashBack wrote:
Just curious, have any of you guys read the plot for Oblivion? [/quote]

Doesn’t that like ruin the point of going to go see the movie? lol[/quote]

Lately I find that “ruining” the plot actually leads to a better movie experience. You don’t have to worry about the turns and twist and the big stuff, and can actually appreciate the finer parts of the plot-line. That’s why a lot of movies are better on the second watch.

There is a lot of anxiety and stress built up regarding the actual ending that you just want to get to the end to see what happens. When you know the ending you can calm down and watch a movie, the same way you listen to music.
[/quote]

I can agree with this, sometimes I run through so many films on a day to day basis that I purposely read through a summary of some of the lesser important ones that I’m just focused on critiquing, as opposed to one that looks very promising and I’d probably come back to regularly, so I could get a unique and memorable first time round experience. When I see something that looks run of the mill, and I get a relative idea of how it holds up in reviews, if it’s mediocre I’ll pre-spoil it.

Oblivion is a film I’ll watch with the intent of critiquing and then mostly forgetting about, Elysium seems more like the latter, but of course that depends on whether it is as good as I expect it to be.

[quote]IFlashBack wrote:

[quote]Big Kahuna wrote:

[quote]IFlashBack wrote:
Just curious, have any of you guys read the plot for Oblivion? [/quote]

Yeah, Drone engineer is stationed to repair mining drones that will retrieve the last remaining natural resources from a since barren Earth, Cruise gets captured by rebel forces and saves some lady he sees in his dreams, but has no memory of, and spends the rest of the time not knowing who to trust and trying to find out who she is. It sounds like an actiony and not so promising version of Duncan Jones’ “Moon” with a few tweaks here and there.[/quote]

Well, you know that the plot will have these elements:

  • Cruise is good at his job
  • He reaches a critical event that changes on the outlook of his job (no longer sees it as “the right thing to do”)
  • The critical event will use the woman, as she will make Cruise question the morality of his job
  • Based on the Trailer, he gets captured and switches sides after learning the truth about earth
  • The people that making him do the drone repair job (his “employers”) will now be seen as the bad people
  • Explosions and CGI
  • Cruise, the Woman and Freeman will emerge victorious, but one of them will be a casualty in the fight

Bam, blockbuster movie [/quote]

It’s a shame how it gets to be so predictable like this, I almost feel like that’s the slow-acting poison formula that gets injected into these scripts and eventually brings it down to ruin. I want to feel the way normal, ignorant audiences do when they go to a movie with this shtick and actually end up enjoying it, just to see what it’s like on the other side of the fence for once.

This may end up being kind of presumptuous on my part though, for all we know Elysium could hit some of the same notes, but make it work far better.

Yeah, 'sounds like the proven general formula, as Hollywood is not much on risk taking with a
WAY ‘out there’ kind of plot.
Cruise was on Jimmy Fallon last night BTW, and Fallon who’s already seen the film confirms there’s
a big twist in the middle of the movie that pretty much blew him away.

[quote]Karado wrote:
Yeah, 'sounds like the proven general formula, as Hollywood is not much on risk taking with a
WAY ‘out there’ kind of plot.
Cruise was on Jimmy Fallon last night BTW, and Fallon who’s already seen the film confirms there’s
a big twist in the middle of the movie that pretty much blew him away.[/quote]

Lol at “blew him away”

Morgan Freeman is the good guy disguised as the bad guy
Through the woman, Tom Cruise will realize he’s the bad guy disguised as the good guy

I just realized that the plot involved an Alien war, and that’s what caused the destruction of earth. So my guess is that Cruise is some half alien half human type thing designed to either bring the two races together or wipe one of them out (depends on who gets marketed as the “bad” one).

There is only one movie that I have ever seen were the Plot twist “blew my mind”.

Memento.

inb4 this thread becomes a circlejerk of people posting movies they thought that blew there mind.

I know this is a thread about Oblivion and Elysium, but whilst you are all on the subject of good/great sci-fi… I think an adaptation of Metro: 2033 would make for a great movie if done correctly and not made in to an action/jumpy horror flick, but instead keep to the sinister, psychologicaly creepy impending sense of doom that runs throughout the whole book, (plus some awesome action scenes)

PS. I think both films look great but in my mind Elysium will be better, seems that little bit more “realistic” and grim whereas Oblivion just looks a little bit too shiny and polished for me.

[quote]pgtips wrote:
I know this is a thread about Oblivion and Elysium, but whilst you are all on the subject of good/great sci-fi… I think an adaptation of Metro: 2033 would make for a great movie if done correctly and not made in to an action/jumpy horror flick, but instead keep to the sinister, psychologicaly creepy impending sense of doom that runs throughout the whole book, (plus some awesome action scenes)

PS. I think both films look great but in my mind Elysium will be better, seems that little bit more “realistic” and grim whereas Oblivion just looks a little bit too shiny and polished for me. [/quote]

I can see Metro taking on form in a good horror sci-fi. I like the kind of, I hesitate to say Steampunk, vibe that it gives from living in a secluded underground network filled with poverty and improvised technology. Now that the games have come to fruition, let’s hope Uwe Boll doesn’t get his hands on it. Besides, if it comes out brilliantly, we could look forward to an adapted 2034 as well.

[quote]Big Kahuna wrote:

[quote]pgtips wrote:
I know this is a thread about Oblivion and Elysium, but whilst you are all on the subject of good/great sci-fi… I think an adaptation of Metro: 2033 would make for a great movie if done correctly and not made in to an action/jumpy horror flick, but instead keep to the sinister, psychologicaly creepy impending sense of doom that runs throughout the whole book, (plus some awesome action scenes)

PS. I think both films look great but in my mind Elysium will be better, seems that little bit more “realistic” and grim whereas Oblivion just looks a little bit too shiny and polished for me. [/quote]

I can see Metro taking on form in a good horror sci-fi. I like the kind of, I hesitate to say Steampunk, vibe that it gives from living in a secluded underground network filled with poverty and improvised technology. Now that the games have come to fruition, let’s hope Uwe Boll doesn’t get his hands on it. Besides, if it comes out brilliantly, we could look forward to an adapted 2034 as well.[/quote]

I think it would make a great horror, especially if CGI and mutant special effects were kept to a minimum, because for me, the scariest part of reading the book was the sense that something was always around the corner or behind you or above or under you and you could not do anything about it, you didn’t even know what it was, I loved the rumours, making all the scary things seem bigger and worse than they were. I’ve always been more afraid of that creeping fear of somehting terrible just being on the horizon and theres nothing that can be done to stop it. Also, the other scariest part for me was the fact that everything was so scarce and ammunition was hard to come by, and wars ravage the only haven humans have left.

I think Del Torro could do a good job of this.

Have you played the games? they were pretty fun, although they had a different YET similar feel to the books. I just can wait for the second book to be translated.

[quote]pgtips wrote:

[quote]Big Kahuna wrote:

[quote]pgtips wrote:
I know this is a thread about Oblivion and Elysium, but whilst you are all on the subject of good/great sci-fi… I think an adaptation of Metro: 2033 would make for a great movie if done correctly and not made in to an action/jumpy horror flick, but instead keep to the sinister, psychologicaly creepy impending sense of doom that runs throughout the whole book, (plus some awesome action scenes)

PS. I think both films look great but in my mind Elysium will be better, seems that little bit more “realistic” and grim whereas Oblivion just looks a little bit too shiny and polished for me. [/quote]

I can see Metro taking on form in a good horror sci-fi. I like the kind of, I hesitate to say Steampunk, vibe that it gives from living in a secluded underground network filled with poverty and improvised technology. Now that the games have come to fruition, let’s hope Uwe Boll doesn’t get his hands on it. Besides, if it comes out brilliantly, we could look forward to an adapted 2034 as well.[/quote]

I think it would make a great horror, especially if CGI and mutant special effects were kept to a minimum, because for me, the scariest part of reading the book was the sense that something was always around the corner or behind you or above or under you and you could not do anything about it, you didn’t even know what it was, I loved the rumours, making all the scary things seem bigger and worse than they were. I’ve always been more afraid of that creeping fear of somehting terrible just being on the horizon and theres nothing that can be done to stop it. Also, the other scariest part for me was the fact that everything was so scarce and ammunition was hard to come by, and wars ravage the only haven humans have left.

I think Del Torro could do a good job of this.

Have you played the games? they were pretty fun, although they had a different YET similar feel to the books. I just can wait for the second book to be translated. [/quote]

Yes, we can only hope it goes the way of “Alien” or “Aliens” and not “Alien3”, I would much prefer not seeing the creatures for most of the film until it culminates in a showdown, maybe just hearing the sound of claw on metal in the background or a quick shot of a tail moving into darkness or the glimmer of eyes unreferenced in the rest of the scene, I’m a sucker for that kind of horror when it’s expressed well.

I second the opinion of Del Toro, the creepiness of the monsters in Pan’s Labyrinth mixed with the horror of something like Landis’ An American Werewolf In London would be beautiful.

The ending to [REC] jumps out to me as the type of scene I might like to see from a film like that, when the creatures are shown for the first, or almost the first time. I loved this scene and it’s one of my favourite horror scenes of the decade, the American remake did no justice to this part, or any other part really. I like the tense, unknowing of the characters, that’s what I’d like from 2033.

For anyone who saw Quarantine but somehow didn’t see [REC], I thoroughly recommend this. But not the subsequent sequels, they’re both terrible.

Edit: Forgot to mention this but I have played Metro: 2033, I didn’t own it so I never got around to completing it, but I played it a lot at my friend’s house and got up to a few chapters from the end I think. A bit that jumps out at me from the game was the tunnel area with Khan and the Dark Ones, I loved that part, if there’s any part that the game really creeped me out, it was there.

I plan to keep my eye out for Last Light to come out, I might not buy it, but I’m sure I’ll have a chance to play nonetheless.

Updating the thread. Oblivion is not a great film. It’s pretty enjoyable, I guess, and the effects are respectable, but it is not anything more than that. My prediction and my review are pretty much in agreement, the story is pretty barren and worn out, and it loses a LOT of what it has going for it once you pass by the mid-way mark. If you want a fun action movie for explosions and Tom Cruise running really fast away from things, then go ahead. Otherwise, you won’t feel that good about seeing it.

[quote]optheta wrote:
There is only one movie that I have ever seen were the Plot twist “blew my mind”.

Memento.

inb4 this thread becomes a circlejerk of people posting movies they thought that blew there mind.[/quote]
Watch Jacobs Ladder

[quote]Big Kahuna wrote:
Updating the thread. Oblivion is not a great film. It’s pretty enjoyable, I guess, and the effects are respectable, but it is not anything more than that. My prediction and my review are pretty much in agreement, the story is pretty barren and worn out, and it loses a LOT of what it has going for it once you pass by the mid-way mark. If you want a fun action movie for explosions and Tom Cruise running really fast away from things, then go ahead. Otherwise, you won’t feel that good about seeing it.[/quote]

Great Form/10

[quote]Big Kahuna wrote:

[quote]pgtips wrote:

[quote]Big Kahuna wrote:

[quote]pgtips wrote:
I know this is a thread about Oblivion and Elysium, but whilst you are all on the subject of good/great sci-fi… I think an adaptation of Metro: 2033 would make for a great movie if done correctly and not made in to an action/jumpy horror flick, but instead keep to the sinister, psychologicaly creepy impending sense of doom that runs throughout the whole book, (plus some awesome action scenes)

PS. I think both films look great but in my mind Elysium will be better, seems that little bit more “realistic” and grim whereas Oblivion just looks a little bit too shiny and polished for me. [/quote]

I can see Metro taking on form in a good horror sci-fi. I like the kind of, I hesitate to say Steampunk, vibe that it gives from living in a secluded underground network filled with poverty and improvised technology. Now that the games have come to fruition, let’s hope Uwe Boll doesn’t get his hands on it. Besides, if it comes out brilliantly, we could look forward to an adapted 2034 as well.[/quote]

I think it would make a great horror, especially if CGI and mutant special effects were kept to a minimum, because for me, the scariest part of reading the book was the sense that something was always around the corner or behind you or above or under you and you could not do anything about it, you didn’t even know what it was, I loved the rumours, making all the scary things seem bigger and worse than they were. I’ve always been more afraid of that creeping fear of somehting terrible just being on the horizon and theres nothing that can be done to stop it. Also, the other scariest part for me was the fact that everything was so scarce and ammunition was hard to come by, and wars ravage the only haven humans have left.

I think Del Torro could do a good job of this.

Have you played the games? they were pretty fun, although they had a different YET similar feel to the books. I just can wait for the second book to be translated. [/quote]

Yes, we can only hope it goes the way of “Alien” or “Aliens” and not “Alien3”, I would much prefer not seeing the creatures for most of the film until it culminates in a showdown, maybe just hearing the sound of claw on metal in the background or a quick shot of a tail moving into darkness or the glimmer of eyes unreferenced in the rest of the scene, I’m a sucker for that kind of horror when it’s expressed well.

I second the opinion of Del Toro, the creepiness of the monsters in Pan’s Labyrinth mixed with the horror of something like Landis’ An American Werewolf In London would be beautiful.

The ending to [REC] jumps out to me as the type of scene I might like to see from a film like that, when the creatures are shown for the first, or almost the first time. I loved this scene and it’s one of my favourite horror scenes of the decade, the American remake did no justice to this part, or any other part really. I like the tense, unknowing of the characters, that’s what I’d like from 2033.

For anyone who saw Quarantine but somehow didn’t see [REC], I thoroughly recommend this. But not the subsequent sequels, they’re both terrible.

Edit: Forgot to mention this but I have played Metro: 2033, I didn’t own it so I never got around to completing it, but I played it a lot at my friend’s house and got up to a few chapters from the end I think. A bit that jumps out at me from the game was the tunnel area with Khan and the Dark Ones, I loved that part, if there’s any part that the game really creeped me out, it was there.

I plan to keep my eye out for Last Light to come out, I might not buy it, but I’m sure I’ll have a chance to play nonetheless.[/quote]

Yea, not seeing the creatures is what gets me pooing my pants.

Pans Labrynth is one of my favourite films and I think Del Torro would portray the mutated creatures and general dank vibe perfectly. I’ve never seen American Werewolf in London, might have to rent it out.

REC was pretty good and the ending was freaky as hell, much better than Quarantine in my opinion.

As with the unknowing of the characters, I think that could be done really well, have you seen Valhalla Rising? (Looks like it would be a Viking action film, but instead its some dark kind of mindfuck with some grim violence chucked in) The film is pretty much silent dialogue wise and I think those periods of silence would suit metro 2033 perfectly.

I love the game, had loads of fun playing it. My favourite chapter was when you had to sneak through the station plus the multiple endings.

[quote]pgtips wrote:

[quote]Big Kahuna wrote:

[quote]pgtips wrote:

[quote]Big Kahuna wrote:

[quote]pgtips wrote:
I know this is a thread about Oblivion and Elysium, but whilst you are all on the subject of good/great sci-fi… I think an adaptation of Metro: 2033 would make for a great movie if done correctly and not made in to an action/jumpy horror flick, but instead keep to the sinister, psychologicaly creepy impending sense of doom that runs throughout the whole book, (plus some awesome action scenes)

PS. I think both films look great but in my mind Elysium will be better, seems that little bit more “realistic” and grim whereas Oblivion just looks a little bit too shiny and polished for me. [/quote]

I can see Metro taking on form in a good horror sci-fi. I like the kind of, I hesitate to say Steampunk, vibe that it gives from living in a secluded underground network filled with poverty and improvised technology. Now that the games have come to fruition, let’s hope Uwe Boll doesn’t get his hands on it. Besides, if it comes out brilliantly, we could look forward to an adapted 2034 as well.[/quote]

I think it would make a great horror, especially if CGI and mutant special effects were kept to a minimum, because for me, the scariest part of reading the book was the sense that something was always around the corner or behind you or above or under you and you could not do anything about it, you didn’t even know what it was, I loved the rumours, making all the scary things seem bigger and worse than they were. I’ve always been more afraid of that creeping fear of somehting terrible just being on the horizon and theres nothing that can be done to stop it. Also, the other scariest part for me was the fact that everything was so scarce and ammunition was hard to come by, and wars ravage the only haven humans have left.

I think Del Torro could do a good job of this.

Have you played the games? they were pretty fun, although they had a different YET similar feel to the books. I just can wait for the second book to be translated. [/quote]

Yes, we can only hope it goes the way of “Alien” or “Aliens” and not “Alien3”, I would much prefer not seeing the creatures for most of the film until it culminates in a showdown, maybe just hearing the sound of claw on metal in the background or a quick shot of a tail moving into darkness or the glimmer of eyes unreferenced in the rest of the scene, I’m a sucker for that kind of horror when it’s expressed well.

I second the opinion of Del Toro, the creepiness of the monsters in Pan’s Labyrinth mixed with the horror of something like Landis’ An American Werewolf In London would be beautiful.

The ending to [REC] jumps out to me as the type of scene I might like to see from a film like that, when the creatures are shown for the first, or almost the first time. I loved this scene and it’s one of my favourite horror scenes of the decade, the American remake did no justice to this part, or any other part really. I like the tense, unknowing of the characters, that’s what I’d like from 2033.

For anyone who saw Quarantine but somehow didn’t see [REC], I thoroughly recommend this. But not the subsequent sequels, they’re both terrible.

Edit: Forgot to mention this but I have played Metro: 2033, I didn’t own it so I never got around to completing it, but I played it a lot at my friend’s house and got up to a few chapters from the end I think. A bit that jumps out at me from the game was the tunnel area with Khan and the Dark Ones, I loved that part, if there’s any part that the game really creeped me out, it was there.

I plan to keep my eye out for Last Light to come out, I might not buy it, but I’m sure I’ll have a chance to play nonetheless.[/quote]

Yea, not seeing the creatures is what gets me pooing my pants.

Pans Labrynth is one of my favourite films and I think Del Torro would portray the mutated creatures and general dank vibe perfectly. I’ve never seen American Werewolf in London, might have to rent it out.

REC was pretty good and the ending was freaky as hell, much better than Quarantine in my opinion.

As with the unknowing of the characters, I think that could be done really well, have you seen Valhalla Rising? (Looks like it would be a Viking action film, but instead its some dark kind of mindfuck with some grim violence chucked in) The film is pretty much silent dialogue wise and I think those periods of silence would suit metro 2033 perfectly.

I love the game, had loads of fun playing it. My favourite chapter was when you had to sneak through the station plus the multiple endings.[/quote]

American Werewolf in London is a brilliantly made film, there are so many creepy parts to it, I’ll post two of them at the end of this post.

Oh I’m sure everyone would agree Quarantine is the worse movie, it’s not even negotiable.

Yes I’ve seen Valhalla Rising, have you gone back to see Winding Refn’s other films? The Pusher series is brilliant. I like how artistic it is that the characters are largely nameless and the dialogue is so vacant, I enjoyed it a lot. Sadly I never got to the ending, but the sneaking area was a good part, I love stealth in games, a lot of my friends aren’t patient enough for it but I could spend hours finding a way to get through an area flawlessly. I took maybe a full year learning how to speedrun all of the Metal Gear Solid games from beginning to end, and get all the difficulty/time unlocks.

The beauty in this scene is not knowing what the werewolf looks like yet, it’s a hell of a lot scarier because you hear the sounds, and you know the guy has seen some horrific shit down in the underground, even towards the end you never see anything gruesome, but it’s terrifying all the same.

This is all around a favourite scene of mine in film, without the use of CGI I admire how well Landis was able to oversee this scene. I love how intensely painful and the bone-shattering sounds he shows to the audience in this scene, gave me an entirely new look on the Lycan transformations from there on out. Blue Moon playing in the background makes this a fascinating and unforgettable scene in film.