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5 Plot Point Breakdown: Oblivion (2013)

By Xiaofeng Chen · August 26, 2014

 

Screenplay Genre: Science Fiction

Movie Time: 124 minutes

How can a man die better than facing the fearful odds? For the ashes of his fathers, and temples of his gods.

In 2077, after defeating the alien scavengers’ invasion, human beings have abandoned the ruined earth and migrated to Titan: the sixth moon of Saturn. Just two people left on the earth to finish the last few jobs: Technician #49 Jack (Tom Cruise) and his communication officer and girl friend Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). Their jobs are maintaining the Hydro rigs – the great fusion reactors which are supplying energies for Titan Colony by consuming the seawaters of earth, and repairing the drones that terminate the “scavengers.” Their boss is Co-ordinate Officer Sally (Melissa Leo) who is in an enormous space station which orbits the earth: the Tet – That is all Jack and Victoria know because their memories before that were wiped out. And after five years of work, there are only two weeks left for them before leaving earth.

But something deep in Jack’s mind keeps confusing him: the nostalgia of earth, the fragments of his wiped memory, and a woman always in his dream, tell him he had another life. He begins to doubt what he is doing and doubt reality. Only in a wood cabin in a beautiful valley can he feel the real life and his real self. Then comes the…

1. INCITING INCIDENT

The Hydro rigs are blown up by the scavengers.” And with it, an unknown signal is identified in Grid 37. (28:21) Jack goes down from the watching tower to check it out. He finds the signal is sourced from a buried building: the relic of the Empire State Building. It is a navigation which points to Grid 17.

2. LOCK IN (End of Act One)

Then Jack sees an unknown craft from the space thundering across the sky and descending to the site that the signal pointed to… Jack goes to Grid 17. There he sees the crashed spaceship “Odyssey” and finds five human survivors in sleep pads. One of them is the woman in his dream! (38:29) Then the drone comes and slaughters the sleeping humans. Jack saves the woman from the drone and takes her back to Tower #49.

The woman wakes up. Jack finds she knows him and Victoria. She tells them her name is Julia, the crew of Odyssey which was in order to discover Titan in 2017. But they met an unknown unnatural object in the space. They attempted to discover it but their ship was controlled by it and they was put into Delta Sleep. Jack and Julia want to find out what happened, they go back to the crash site for the Flight Recorder of Odyssey. There they find the recorder but are captured by the “scavengers.”

In a cave, Jack sees the real faces of the “scavengers:” they are not aliens, but humans. Their leader Beech (Morgan Freeman) tells Jack the truth: there’s no Titan Colony, and humans didn’t win the war. For these years Tet has been sucking dry the resources of the earth with the Hydro rigs. They are real aliens. And Jack is one of the thousands of clone men they created. The aliens wiped out their memories and use them to fight against human. Beech tells Jack they landed Odyssey for its nuclear fuel in the reactor. It will be made for a nuclear bomb and carried to Tet to destroy it with a captured drone. But they need Jack to reprogram it. Jack doesn’t believe Beech. Beech lets Jack and Julia go to find out the truth themselves. Jack and Julia get to the relic of Empire of Sate Building. At the telescope on its top Jack remembers here was the place he proposed to Julia. She is his wife!

3. FIRST CULMINATION (Midpoint)

Jack and Julia go back to Tower #49. Jack tells Victoria Julia is his wife. Victoria is jealous and reports Julia to Sally. Sally activates the drone on the tower to terminate them all. Victoria is killed by the drone. Jack and Julia take the craft to get out of the tower. Three drones chase them. They shoot down two, but collide with the third and crash on the radiation zone. (76:22)

Jack and Julia survived from the crash. They see another craft come and land. A man goes out of the craft and tries to fix the damaged drone. Jack approaches the man, sees he is another Jack with a number of 52! Jack #52 is shocked too. They have a fight. Julia is injured by accident. Jack #49 beats Jack #52 out and takes his craft to Tower #52 to get a medical kit for Julia. On the tower he sees another Victoria and begins to believe what Beech said.

4. MAIN CULMINATION (End of Act Two)

Jack #49 and Julia go back to human’s base to help the people with their plan. As they are reprogramming the captured drone, The other drones attack the base. Jack, Julia and the people destroy the drones (100:21). But Beech is wounded bad and the drone that is supposed to carry the bomb is damaged.

Jack #49 flies to Tet with a sleep pad on the craft. On the way he reads the Flight Recorder and knows what happened to Odyssey: Jack and Victoria were operating the spaceship when it was pulled into that unknown object: it was just Tet. Before the ship was captured Jack disengaged the rear module with Julia in one of the sleep pads and he and Victoria were taken by the aliens for the model of their colony fighters.

5. THIRD ACT TWIST

At the gate of Tet Jack #49 tells Sally he is delivering Julia to it. Sally lets him in. At the center of Tet. Jack sees the real Sally: it’s a pyramid thing with a giant red eye and waving surfaces like swarms. When Jack opens the sleep pad, Sally sees it is not Julia but Beech in it!(114:13) It knows it is a trick but it is too late. Jack and Beech detonate the nuclear bomb. The entire Tet is destroyed!

After the war. Julia lives in Jack’s cabin in the volley and has a daughter with Jack. One day some guests come to the volley. Julia finds Jack #52 in them. He has been looking for her.


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