How Tom Cruise’s Oblivion Should Have Ended
When Tom Cruise and Joseph Kosinki’s Oblivion came out in 2013, there was significant hype around this sci-fi flick. It was with good reason. You have the star power of Tom Cruise, a massive worldbuilding futuristic concept and the potential for amazing visuals with a story to boot.
Needless to say, it failed to live up to all of the hype. Some of that we detailed in our Oblivion review, explaining that the movie was just a bit too predictable and a lot too boring. Within that there were some major problems with the ending to the movie.
We weren’t the only ones who thought that way either. The How It Should Have Ended YouTube channel is a national treasure. Okay, that might be putting it a touch too dramatically, but it is a pretty good time. Oblivion felt the sharp sting of them pointing out the absurdity of its ending. Check out what they had to say about it.
The conclusion of Oblivion may have left you scratching your head and asking a lot of questions. It is totally one of the worst fake happy, tacked-on endings you’ve ever seen. Seriously, the protagonist gets to have the moment of supreme sacrifice, and the pretty couple gets to end up together. It’s complete crap, and so, so lazy.
At least if Oblivion had wrapped up like this video above, with endless numbers of Tom Cruises showing up out of the blue, Julia (Olga Kurylenko) would never have been short of helping hands to do work around the place. They live in a shack in the woods, so you know there’s going to be a great need for assistance chopping firewood and woodsy stuff like that.
When the little girl asks, “are you my daddies?” is priceless.
The second alternate ending, where Sally (Melissa Leo) just blasts Jack out of space, is really the most realistic option. Watching the movie you keep waiting for something like this to happen, and when it never does, it feels like a copout.
In the end, Oblivion had some visual appeal, but there was an over-reliance on sci-fi clichés and an underdeveloped plot. It was derivative and lacked any real originality, with significant plot holes and a failure to fully explore its intriguing concepts. Sure, it has some twists and turns. But they were easy to see coming. Style over substance for sure.
