Tom Cruise’s 2013 post-apocalyptic sci-fi film, Oblivion, which also marks his first outing alongside director Joseph Kosinski, was a mess, to begin with. In the aftermath of the film’s release, not unlike the chaos and confusion arising during many world-ending scenarios depicted on the big screen, a bull-headed search on the internet ensued where the netizens and critics alike simply asked one question: what does it all mean?
However, undeterred by the scope and vision of the film, Kosinski and Cruise trudged through the barren, snow-covered Icelandic landscape and the futuristic set models to breathe life into Kosinski’s long-harbored passion project.
The Futuristic Impossibility of Joseph Kosinski’s Ambition
Originating as an 8-page treatment borne out of the mind of Spiderhead, Tron: Legacy, and Top Gun: Maverick director, Joseph Kosinski, the pitch for Oblivion’s illustrated novel was rejected in 2007. Half a decade later, Disney won the rights to the film following a heated auction over the script but had to sell to Universal due to concerns over its PG-13 rating. After being picked up as a screenplay by the studio, and gaming the added credibility of having Tom Cruise attached at the helm, Oblivion was later published (on the same day as the film’s release) as a graphic novella.
The film, made on a budget of $120 million, was logistically impossible to produce. The production already started with Jessica Chastain backing out of the project with Cruise’s support after finding a legal loophole to exit in favor of filming Zero Dark Thirty. The extravagant sets with futuristic rigs, the glass tower, model crafts, and a full-sized bubble ship constructed as props, alone had to cost nearly $100 million. Adding on to the budget was the use of helicopters to get equipment and crew onto high locations in the treacherous mountain terrains of Iceland.
However, the most unnecessary expense of them all was Cruise’s modified Honda CRF450X which cost nearly $10,000, especially after having parts installed to give it a more futuristic look. Its design was altered to hide the exhaust pipe and include a gas tank that could hold only a liter of fuel at a time which then equated to mere 20 minutes of ride time.
Tom Cruise Fails To Reach the Potential Grandeur of Oblivion
In his numerous and unflinchingly successful years in Hollywood, never has Tom Cruise failed to produce a vision of a magnitude capable of spell-binding the audience, gluing their eyes to the theatre screens, and gripping the edge of their seats. But the power he holds as Ethan Hunt or even in sci-fi dystopian films like Edge of Tomorrow fails to imitate itself on the sets of Kosinski’s otherwise brilliant vision, Oblivion.
Through no fault of their own, both Kosinski and his leading star, Tom Cruise, underestimated the power of coherent storytelling to sell their idea to the masses. In their involvement with the complete grandeur of the ambitious project, both artists fail to grasp the complexity of the plot at its most elemental level. Such a script is meant to be devoured by the mind via reading, and not as a treat for the moviegoing audience who are only seeking out a happy time at the screening of a Tom Cruise thriller.
Oblivion is available for streaming on Prime Video and Peacock.
Source: IMDb
