Review of Oblivion

Let me start by saying that the visuals in the movie are great, acting is reasonable, and although the general story is slow, it has a lot of potential. That is where the positivity ends. For me, the abundance of plot holes / inconsistencies completely ruined the film. Whilst some of these might seem like nitpicking, when you add them together it really detracts from what could have been a great movie. I was asking questions like;

• The machines seem to have amazing technology, except being able to keep consistent radio transmission.

• How did Jack and Victoria figure that their control centre / home was built with no humans? If by the machines, then surely the machines are capable of handling drone maintenance themselves, making their roles totally redundant?

• Why does the machine mother ship's communication go offline constantly?

• Why are the machines always short on drones?

• Jack has an obvious disposition toward protecting humans, yet the other humans constantly wear armor that make them seem non-human? There is ample opportunity to approach Jack whilst he makes repairs or is on his own.

• Despite Jack / Victoria's control center / home being somewhere in the stratosphere, it seems to have swimming temperature and calm wind conditions.

• Why does Victoria's character have her head completely in the sand, whilst Jack appears to be quite free-thinking?

• Why are the drone cameras not visible to the machine control? This would have exposed significant intelligence about the humans numerous times. It is standard even with drone technology today.

• How can the flight log still hear what the NASA flight crew are saying whilst they fly into the white light? If it was in the crashed ship then it must have been disconnected with the sleeping passengers (this is a clear error)?

• The machine mothership didn't consider that maybe Jack was smuggling something into the ship? Especially after it was clear he knew that they were not human?

• Broken drones are easily repaired with chewing gum.

• How did Jack build an entire home on the lake with no obvious access to building equipment or resources?

• The machines could scan Jack's ship upon entry (presumably by some sort of infrared) and see that there was another passenger, but were not able to distinguish a male from a female? Despite them at times being able to match Jack's DNA on visual recognition?

• In 2017 suspended animation seems to have been perfected?

• Why were Jack and Victoria due to go back to Triton in two weeks?

• The aliens seem to have not nailed memory wiping technology at all.

I could go on and on, but this is just the tip of an iceberg for a truly ridiculous plot.