Oblivion

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  • #46
    Re: Oblivion

    Originally posted by tuukka View Post
    Well, the story was written before Moon and Wall-E came out. ID4 doesn't have an original bone on its body.

    I guess I'm a bit surprised how little familiar people on this board seem to be about science fiction literature.
    Just about all the movies that have been mentioned - Those ideas were fully explored on sci-fi novels for *decades* before the movies came out.

    If I were bothered by ideas that I have seen before, I couldn't watch a single scifi movie. Moon? Derivative. Matrix? Derivative. Wall-E? Derivative. Star Wars? Derivative.

    And so on.

    This just seems like a stupid game to play. It's lazy script analysis.

    Critizising internal logic of the film, or weak characters, or weak dialogue, etc, on the other hand is fair game.
    I agree.

    And I think that what matters is if the movie entertains me, and if it does, that's what's important to me.

    I don't care if it's similar to other films as long as it's good.

    There's something else to consider-- some of the target audiences of today were barely walking when ID4 was released. Some were starting kindergarten when The Matrix was released.

    I realized this when I took my daughter to see Oblivion tonight-- she loved it. I mean really loved it, and I was so happy because she was figuring out what the director was doing to make her feel the way she did-- I swear she's got film in her blood.

    She kept saying-- "it's so suspenseful, it's so suspenseful." And when we watched the trailers she loved them, too, as much as I did-- She literally can't wait to see After Earth, Star Trek, Iron Man 3, and Man of Steel. It seems the monsters in Pacific Rim are a little too scary.

    She doesn't have a record of Superman from the seventies to taint her point of view, and they've hooked her-- she's an action junky like me. The miracle of marketing.

    It's easy to say it's derivative of this, derivative of that-- what's challenging is finding a way to elevate material beyond expectation-- or even better, to me, is offering solutions to what they see are the problems-- I'm interested in that.

    It's like sending a burger back and saying; "it sucks." When instead you might say: "the bun is soggy, the meat's overcooked, lettuce is wilted, my fries are cold and there's an eight-legged something-or-other floating in my beer."

    I mean, c'mon, the hugest movie ever was derivative of Disney's Pocahontas-- it's not about that, it's about whether or not people are entertained.

    Certainly anyone can say whatever they want, but I think it would be cool to see what writers might offer, and in doing so help us all write better stories.

    FA4
    "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy b/c you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -- Edward Snowden

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    • #47
      Re: Oblivion

      I'm just saying that Oblivion shouldn't be held as a model for screenwriters. For the money involved, it's kind of an awful script.
      "Forget it, Jake. It's Hollywood."

      My YouTube channel.

      Comment


      • #48
        Re: Oblivion

        Originally posted by Signal30 View Post
        I'm just saying that Oblivion shouldn't be held as a model for screenwriters. For the money involved, it's kind of an awful script.
        Did you read it?

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        • #49
          Re: Oblivion

          Why? The screenplay was written by a couple of dudes the director/producer hired to adapt his unpublished graphic novel. I'm guessing he was satisfied with what they handed in.
          "Forget it, Jake. It's Hollywood."

          My YouTube channel.

          Comment


          • #50
            Re: Oblivion

            Originally posted by Signal30 View Post
            Why? The screenplay was written by a couple of dudes the director/producer hired to adapt his unpublished graphic novel. I'm guessing he was satisfied with what they handed in.
            You're guessing...

            Exactly.

            Comment


            • #51
              Re: Oblivion

              I guess so.
              "Forget it, Jake. It's Hollywood."

              My YouTube channel.

              Comment


              • #52
                Re: Oblivion

                Originally posted by tuukka View Post
                Well, the story was written before Moon and Wall-E came out. ID4 doesn't have an original bone on its body.

                I guess I'm a bit surprised how little familiar people on this board seem to be about science fiction literature.
                Just about all the movies that have been mentioned - Those ideas were fully explored on sci-fi novels for *decades* before the movies came out.

                If I were bothered by ideas that I have seen before, I couldn't watch a single scifi movie. Moon? Derivative. Matrix? Derivative. Wall-E? Derivative. Star Wars? Derivative.

                And so on.

                This just seems like a stupid game to play. It's lazy script analysis.

                Critizising internal logic of the film, or weak characters, or weak dialogue, etc, on the other hand is fair game.

                You might want to note the parts of my post that were jokes about derivation, and were actually rather praising, and the part that was a criticism, and which only referenced "Tron:Legacy".

                It would also be nice if you would not presume to know my understanding of science fiction and story based on a couple of references I make in the middle of a movie that doesn't shy away from being derivative.

                Lastly, if you could refrain from clipping my posts in order to serve a narrative you'd like to criticize me for being a part of, yeah, that'd be great.

                The actual critique I wrote was:
                "A lot like "Tron:Legacy" in the way lots of ideas are just never even close to explored at all, and the plot took a lot of easy roads."

                Thanks.

                Comment


                • #53
                  Re: Oblivion

                  Originally posted by Signal30 View Post
                  Of course everything is derivative. That's the wellspring of creativity. But the obligation is to bring something unique to the process, to deconstruct these ideas and to throw them back into the mix with your own personal spin. To try and top them, even.

                  But all I got out of Oblivion was reproductions of those influences. Sort of like a spoof movie played deadly serious. That may be a heavy handed way of putting it, but a narrative is not working if you're playing Spot the Allusion the entire running time.
                  I think you're spot on. Perhaps examples would be best to help explain:

                  a) Lucas was influenced a lot by Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels. The whole space opera, future as past, fairytale in space aspect for example, but he didn't borrow plot elements. There was no Death Star to blow up in John Carter.

                  Whereas in oblivion:

                  *SPOLIERS*

                  a giant "alien locust" mothership hovering in orbit waiting for its giant daughter ships to ravage Earth, and then getting blown up in the end by a nuke being carried aboard one of its own close support fighters is an EXACT DUPLICATE of ID4's plot.

                  Imagine if John Carter of Mars had a giant steel space station blowing up planets with a superlaser as its plot. No one would be praising George Lucas for creativity here!
                  I'm never wrong. Reality is just stubborn.

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                  • #54
                    Re: Oblivion

                    It was...okay. I was vaguely entertained by it, but it's one of these flicks where you don't want to look too closely 'cause the plot holes become way too apparent.

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Re: Oblivion

                      I'll jump on the "It was OK" bandwagon.

                      As many have said, the story was nothing new but the film was well done.

                      The first half had some potential but unfortunately in the end it was just a derivative sci-fi action movie with a couple of twists that were given away in the trailer.
                      Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Re: Oblivion

                        Originally posted by MoonHill View Post
                        You might want to note the parts of my post that were jokes about derivation, and were actually rather praising, and the part that was a criticism, and which only referenced "Tron:Legacy".

                        It would also be nice if you would not presume to know my understanding of science fiction and story based on a couple of references I make in the middle of a movie that doesn't shy away from being derivative.

                        Lastly, if you could refrain from clipping my posts in order to serve a narrative you'd like to criticize me for being a part of, yeah, that'd be great.

                        The actual critique I wrote was:
                        "A lot like "Tron:Legacy" in the way lots of ideas are just never even close to explored at all, and the plot took a lot of easy roads."

                        Thanks.
                        Well, as a joke it wasn't funny, and didn't even sound like a joke. And it certainly didn't come off as praising. It sounded you were sincerely troubled by similaries to past films. This was also rather consistent with *many* other posters and posts on this thread, who similarly complained about too many similarities to past sci-fi films.

                        I also wrote my comment in plural. Meaning that I wasn't talking specifically about you, but about multitude of posters in this thread.

                        Yes, you did also write a nice word or two about the film, in the last paragraph. And compared it to Tron Legacy. But that wasn't relevant to my comment.

                        Anyway, communicating the "joke" and the "praise" was a failure on your part.

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Re: Oblivion

                          Originally posted by tuukka View Post
                          Well, as a joke it wasn't funny, and didn't even sound like a joke. And it certainly didn't come off as praising. It sounded you were sincerely troubled by similaries to past films. This was also rather consistent with *many* other posters and posts on this thread, who similarly complained about too many similarities to past sci-fi films.

                          I also wrote my comment in plural. Meaning that I wasn't talking specifically about you, but about multitude of posters in this thread.

                          Yes, you did also write a nice word or two about the film, in the last paragraph. And compared it to Tron Legacy. But that wasn't relevant to my comment.

                          Anyway, communicating the "joke" and the "praise" was a failure on your part.
                          That's cool. The joke was for my wife, I'm not sure how you determined my sincerity from it, and I'm certainly not sure how the heck you determined that "It never explores any of the ideas it brings up" counts as "a nice word or two", but hey, your lack of reading comprehension is not actually my problem.

                          Your inability to figure out that people complaining about rote repetition of plot elements and twists is not in any way, form, or manner the same thing as saying "it's not original because I saw the same idea somewhere else once upon a time sorta" is also not my problem.

                          Your assumption that because people note that nothing new was brought to any of the concepts that went into this film that it means they are ignorant of science fiction literature is just another sign of how little you seem to actually care about what anyone says, just so long as you can pretend to be smarter than them while disagreeing with it.


                          IOW, it wasn't just my last sentence that was irrelevant to your point. It was my whole post. And while I can completely accept that I could use some work on presenting the jokes I make to my wife in a format that you would somehow find to be funny, you definitely need to work on how you might want to not utilize one person's post that is not actually saying anything that you're disagreeing with as a jumping-off point for dismissing a whole bunch of *other* people. Because, as far as communicating your target goes, you suck.


                          Much like how this movie failed to actually do anything with most of the concepts it brought up.

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                          • #58
                            Re: Oblivion

                            TLDR: If you're going to complain about "lazy story analysis", you might want to take the time to actually read a five-line post in its entirety.

                            Comment


                            • #59
                              Re: Oblivion

                              Originally posted by MoonHill View Post
                              That's cool. The joke was for my wife, I'm not sure how you determined my sincerity from it,
                              Re-read your original post. It doesn't sound like a joke. It repeats the same complaints that other people have said in this thread, more than a dozen times, and they have said it in a rather a sincere manner. It's a running theme throughout the thread.

                              I assume that you have read the 6 pages of posts in this thread. Because if you haven't, then you have no clue what anyone is talking about.

                              Maybe for you it's a sweet anecdote, how you joked to your wife. But when you put those comments up on a thread in a screenwriting forum, as part of an on-going discussion about the derivative elements of Oblivion, the context makes them something else than merely a joke to your wife. You should understand this.

                              Again, most of my post was in plural, and not specifically intended for you. This was *explicitly* clear.

                              Originally posted by MoonHill View Post
                              and I'm certainly not sure how the heck you determined that "It never explores any of the ideas it brings up" counts as "a nice word or two", but hey, your lack of reading comprehension is not actually my problem.
                              You said:

                              "Enjoyable, nonetheless. Very good art department".

                              Which counts as a nice word or two.

                              I only included that because you claimed that your "joke" to your wife was actually "praise". It didn't read that way, but I admitted that you did praise the film a bit in your later paragraph.

                              Originally posted by MoonHill View Post
                              Your inability to figure out that people complaining about rote repetition of plot elements and twists is not in any way, form, or manner the same thing as saying "it's not original because I saw the same idea somewhere else once upon a time sorta" is also not my problem.
                              So... Are you now saying that you *were* complaining about rote repetition of plot elements? So it a wasn't merely a "joke", and probably exactly not "praise" either?

                              Or maybe you were referencing other people here, hard to know.

                              Originally posted by MoonHill View Post
                              Your assumption that because people note that nothing new was brought to any of the concepts that went into this film that it means they are ignorant of science fiction literature is just another sign of how little you seem to actually care about what anyone says, just so long as you can pretend to be smarter than them while disagreeing with it.
                              Not really.

                              You are making assumptions about what I'm assuming. This is not anymore about providing arguments and counter-arguments, which a good debate should be about.

                              I'm actually fairly familiar with a lot of members on this board, and the line of thinking I was referring to my first post, happens here fairly often. Like how Avatar got reduced to Dances With Wolves In Space, for example. A popular opinion back in the day, in these boards. Also lazy thinking.

                              Originally posted by MoonHill View Post
                              IOW, it wasn't just my last sentence that was irrelevant to your point. It was my whole post. And while I can completely accept that I could use some work on presenting the jokes I make to my wife in a format that you would somehow find to be funny, you definitely need to work on how you might want to not utilize one person's post that is not actually saying anything that you're disagreeing with as a jumping-off point for dismissing a whole bunch of *other* people. Because, as far as communicating your target goes, you suck.

                              Much like how this movie failed to actually do anything with most of the concepts it brought up.
                              Well, plural is a plural. There isn't really anything unclear about my first post.

                              Notice how in your posts you are taking things very personally, and doing over-wrough personal attacks?

                              Originally posted by MoonHill View Post
                              TLDR: If you're going to complain about "lazy story analysis", you might want to take the time to actually read a five-line post in its entirety.
                              I did. I didn't disagree with your comparison to Tron, I never took any issue with that, so there was no reason to comment.

                              But anyway, this is not good debate.

                              Meanwhile, others have given good counter-arguments to my post, actually addressing what I said, and giving some so good arguments that I don't know how to counter them.

                              That's good debate.

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Re: Oblivion

                                The main problem seems to be that supporters of the film can't be bothered* to offer counterpoints to arguments that the plotting relies on setpieces rather than an organic narrative, the characterization is lazy, the science is egregiously boneheaded, the dialogue is basic and redundant without being illuminating, the extreme overuse of voiceover (which in itself violates "show don't tell) and of course the derivative content itself which drives the plot more than one fundamental creative vision.

                                Oblivion is (in my opinion) not a movie aspiring screenwriters should look to as a model for spec writing.

                                Although we all seem to agree that the graphics are shiny.

                                *On the other hand, it's waaaaay easier to tear a movie down than to offer insight into why it might be undervalued.
                                "Forget it, Jake. It's Hollywood."

                                My YouTube channel.

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