Oblivion was a beautiful movie, but it was not a thoughtful one. The ending really made no sense and undercut it, in my opinion.
We learn during the film that Jack is one of innumerable clones, but for whatever reason, this Jack has a spark that has somehow captured the essence of the original. This lets his wife Julia reconnect with him after briefly being repulsed. Our Jack is special. This also makes his sacrifice to destroy the Tet have a price, which makes the sacrifice have meaning.
The last scene reunites another clone Jack with Julia. This is a guy who we have seen nothing of the entire movie, except getting his ass kicked by “our” Jack, number 47. Presumably there are hundreds more Jack clones on the planet after the Tet is destroyed, so why should that one be suited to immediately take the place of Original Jack or our Jack 47? Or did Jack 52 get imbued with Teh Special once Jack 47 died? I’m not sure, but it’s frustrating when just leaving Julia with Jack’s kid would’ve been a more consistent yet still positive ending for the movie.
Anyways. Some other quibbles:
- I don’t care how much technology the Tet had, that sky house should’ve swayed like crazy in the wind!
- Why was the Tet so short on spare parts?
- How did Beech (Morgan Freeman) know the exact bit of the poem that Jack had read?
- Why did the Tet start giving its Repairman Jacks more memories, compared to the Phase 1 Soldier Jacks (from the initial invasion as related by Beech)?
- Wasn’t the whole cryochamber switcheroo thing a little gimmicky and cheap?
- Tet could tell there was a body with Jack, but not its gender or age, and it couldn’t sense the bomb?
Groveronline 
Bugged me that Jack could go wherever he wanted in his hovercraft, and the Tet couldn’t just take it over, and force him to come ‘home.’
Kind of seemed like a Matrix ripoff, with a cycle repeating. When the Tet sends the drones out to human colony, Vica isn’t sitting at her desk, and Sally is issuing commands which were heard earlier.
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“Our Jack” was number 49, not 47.
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If u recall the scene, actually when number 52 saw Julia in the desert, the memory about his wife suddenly flashed across his mind. That’s why it’s 52 who spent the 3 years to search for his wife, but not the other clones..
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I think there is more to the story than that, more then aliens and clone it’s a love story. Two lovers separate by time and war and yet even after death he can’t forget the women he loves. He loves her so much that he caries her with him from one body to the next. I agree that jack 49 or 47 should have survived it would have made a much more beautiful and consistent ending but there is still beauty in the ending. It says that love is infinite. Jack 52 was introduced last minute but I think he was in the restricted area, which is why jack 49 was forbidden to go there, and why he was urged to go there by the leader of the surviving human fighters. Also jack 52 recognized his wife almost instantly, which would mean that every jack clone would have recognized her had they not been blown to pieces at the end. It’s a love story more than anything, one that tells the story of a love so strong that it last even after death.
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It is a love story sam got all that down so im going to skip all that and just add that The tet are not aliens but A.I. like in i robot and the war was between human and machine. The machine needed earths resourses to live and lived and built an empire on earths moon so man destroyed the moon to set back the machines in a major war strategy. The machines just floated in space from then on in a huge craft n continued the war with man. Jack served in the military with morgan freeman and was cloned because he was the best air pilot. And his clone companion was a trained dispather the best in her postition. Kept in the space house with given missions. If ever compromised they had a drone in the house ready to kill them and send new clones in to fill their position. The reason tet never colonised on earth was due to radiation from the nukes scramples thier communications forcing the A.I to stay in the skys or space off earth. Nasa built alot of the tech. Im positive its A.I and aliens due to the guns on the drones and it knew how to tell if jack was lieing by reading body language and polygraph reading, thermal reading All human strategies
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I’m not gonna write a massive thing (as it’s all out of date now anyway) I only looked at this cause I re watched the film recently and I swear the first time there was no kid in it at the end.. So thought I must have downloaded an alternate ending one or something….
I agree with ‘Sam chapoteau’ – The clones clearly all have dreams of the wife Julia, for whatever reason..
Because he really loved her etc. It’s nice.
P.s – Mainly I’d like to know what ‘Adrian’ who wrote the last comment was smoking, cause it made no sense at all! lol Pass the joint dude, you’ve had enough lol
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i dont understand 1 thing. why when they arrived to the tet with the nasa spaceship and couldnt go away from the tet pulling them in, the sleeping chambers was able to run from the pulling?
lol no logic in it
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No one has yet mentioned the big gap..how did Jacks craft escape earths gravitational pull/atmosphere to get up to the Mother ship?
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How did jack & beech escape earths gravitational pull to reach Alien mothership?
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Just rewatched this…
The question of Morgan reciting the correct poem seems to be all over other plot hole blogs/articles about this film. From what i gather, Beech (Morgan Freeman) sort of explains this during the movie.
1. He’s been watching our Jack and even states that he saw him pick up the book. Now having lived for a very long time with not as many distractions as tv etc. We can assume Morgan is well versed with what little books are accessible where they currently reside.
2. Was there any gaurantee Jack would have read that poem? He wouldn’t have picked it up if he wasn’t interested.
3. Just before Jack picks up the book, he was ambushed by the resistance. Again reinforcing point 1, they lured him there, the stage is set, so the greater question is…knowing Jack was going to be there, did he leave the book there intentionally?
4. The book was partly on fire (I beleive), so it may have been in Morgan’s pocket. During the drone attack, i can only assume, 1. It accidently fell from Beech’s pocket 2. Morgan left it there on purpose for Jack to find. When Beech tells Jack he watched him pick up the book, his tone and how he words it makes us assume he was surprised that Jack did that, thus he beleives there was still something in Jack that was humane, thus I’d like to think it was dropped by accident.
5. On closer inspection the book was bookmarked, naturally he (Jack) opened the book straight to that page. Beech saw him pick up the book (whether or not he left it there intentionally) must have recognised it. This opens up to another question…if he didn’t leave it there intentionally, did he lose the book perhaps? Or maybe read it up to that point, bookmarked it and having been enlightened by the poem decided to not read the rest and threw it away. Who knows.
Dropping the book by accident seems the more logical explanation. Personally, i don’t think it needed to be fully explained in the film, whilst it did have an important effect on said so characters. There were teasers as mentioned in said so above which makes us use our imagination and engage with the story to fill out bits in between…Of course other questions mentioned in this article is beyond me!
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I think Jack’s memory was swiped and then he was cloned after this procrdure but the memory swipe was not 100% successful. Therefore, every Jack would have a memory of his wife, therefore explaining why the next Jack looked at his wife as though he recognized her.
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Some people are confused by the ending but I know how to explain it. what happened is is that jak and the other girl that hit the tet were cloned and were used as weapons to take out the rest of the human race. throughout the movie the scavengers are called the aliens but in reality they are humans. the tet uses the clones of jack and whats her name to keep the drones up in perfect shape to kill scavengers a.k.a. humans. sally was the women who worked at nasa and talked to the original jack on the odyssey. the tet then used sally as a spokesperson to talk to jack and the other girl. eventually when their mission was over the tet just killed them. and there you have it and to put this in perspective Im thirteen and i understood it so for you adults that don’t get it your stupid because you couldn’t figure out what a thirteen year old could.
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Since Beach had observed many Jacks over the years and noted they were all the same until Jack 49, its assumed that Jack 49’s tendencies to collect stuff was “one-off”. Jack 52 was also collecting stuff he found along the way like Jack 49, he had a bandanna around his neck when he first encountered Jack 49 and ends up having his hands tied up with it after he was knocked out. Once Jack 49 comes back later with the rescue kit from tower 52 to save Julia, the bandanna is laying on the ground and Jack 52 is gone (the scene where the bubbleship lands).
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Suffice to say, you did not watch the movie carefully!
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This movie was okay though it had alot of plot holes but the end was very questionable on that you see Julia with a child when the survivor’s show up with the clone of Jack that he fought with in the desert. How did they know the way there unless the clone told them and took 3 years to walk there since the xhild was about 3 years old. The end just seemed inserted after rewrites and bad editing. Also wasnt fulling explained for time as well as Jack destroying the tet ship . Bad editing and rewrites ruined the end of the film .
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The pods were supposed to go back to Earth automatically so why were they just floating in space for 60y?
Also, the tet is in orbit so why couldn’t it just destroy the pods itself? Or pull it in with its massive gravity?
And if the tet is in orbit, why does the NASA mission need to have anyone in hibernation?
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@Various ppl
The sleeper pods were instructed to return to orbit.
The tractor beam etc was on the front part of the ship so they got pulled in while the cargo crew part was let go in it’s shadow.
I think Beech saw jack with that specific book of which he was well versed. The passage quoted had been cleaned many times (look at surrounding ash on page) indicating its prev owner valued that verse.
The bubble ship went into space mode to reach the Tet. You can see the back of the tail rotor stop spinning (no atom to need to stabilize with a rotor) and the engines increase power. The drones on the Ted, which use the same engine types, move through space just fine. He seems the bubble ship engines were more than enough to get to the orbiting Tet.
The people in hibernation were for the long journey out to the Tet, before it came to earth. The ship got sucked in before everyone was awakened. They were stopped to scan and analyze at 50km away. Crew was to be awoken shortly for next steps.
The Tet did not give more memories to repairman jack. He was around for 5 years and about to be retired (replaced with a new clone) as Sally clearly said to jack that it’s not his fault these things were happening, drones wear our/don’t always work right.
@ the13year old, hush up. The adults are talking about something else, not the basic plot you barely understand.
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