Released in 2013 by director Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), Oblivion is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller starring Tom Cruise. An alien species called the Scavengers attacks Earth and destroys the moon, causing countless global natural disasters. Humans use nuclear weapons to win the war, but they leave the planet uninhabitable.
Most humanity has moved to Saturn’s moon тιтan. Sixty years later, all that remains on Earth is a technician named Jack and his communications officer wife, Victoria, who oversee a device that converts seawater into fusion energy for the Tet, a human colony ship in orbit. However, Jack soon finds more humans alive on Earth and questions his mission.
This leads to the mind-twisting ending where Jack learns that nothing is as it seems. The apocalyptic history he knows is a lie, and his mission on Earth is not what he believed. He soon discovers that there is something worth fighting for. However, he has to find a way to overcome a new threat to both himself and the remaining humans on Earth.
Humanity Didn’t Actually Win The War In Oblivion
The Aliens Won & Created Clones Of Jack To Eliminate The Remaining Humans
In the Oblivion ending, Tom Cruise’s Jack Harper learns a horrifying truth. The humans didn’t win the war against the alien invaders. The aliens won and exterminated most of humanity. All that remains are small groups of survivors and some rebel fighters who desperately try to reclaim their planet. Not only that, but Jack is supposed to be the villain.
This is because Jack is not a human at all, but a clone of a former human astronaut that the aliens captured before the initial attacks. After the aliens won the war, they sent thousands of clones of the two captured astronauts to different parts of Earth to fulfill missions that would sap the planet of its resources, sending them all back to the Tet.
At the same time, Jack realizes the ‘alien scavengers’ he was ordered to kill were human survivors. This is why the rebel forces led by Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman) didn’t trust Jack when they first encountered each other. However, this version of Jack was already doubting his mission and the Tet itself.
What Exactly Is The Tet?
The Tet Is The Alien AI Controlling Jack & Victoria
At the start of the movie, Jack explains what he thinks the Tet is. However, as the film shows, Jack proves to be an unreliable narrator, as he is unaware of the truth about what happened or who he is. Jack believes the Tet is the last remaining human colony ship in orbit, and it needs the seawater turned into fusion energy to keep it active.
That is not what the Tet is at all. Jack and Victoria believe they have been communicating with their mission director, Sally (Melissa Leo), but this is actually an AI posing as Sally. In reality, Sally is an alien AI and her mission with the Tet is to deplete all the Earth’s natural resources for the aliens’ home world, killing all humans in the process.
The Original Jack & Victoria
Jack & Victoria Were Astronauts Abducted By Aliens & Cloned
Jack and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) were two astronauts aboard a spacecraft sent to explore тιтan. The alien invaders then captured them in the Tet. Before being sucked into the Tet, Jack was able to eject all but him and Victoria from the spacecraft for their survival, including his wife Julia.
The aliens had no idea who Jack and Victoria were, but ᴀssumed they were a couple (likely based on a pH๏τo they had taken together). They then cloned them, likely killing the human hosts, and then programmed them to believe they were married before sending them to Earth to kill all remaining humans and start mining the planet’s resources.
How Earth Is Saved
The Latest Jack Clone Helped Destroy The Tet
There is one thing that the original Jack did that ultimately helped him snap out of his programming and save Earth. He saved his wife, Julia (Olga Kurylenko), by ejecting her from the spacecraft and sending her back to Earth. However, she remained in stasis and was preserved in the shuttle until Jack found her and realized who she was.
Small things (like reading a book) convinced a military leader among the human survivors to trust Jack, and he set out to convince him to help destroy the Tet. While Jack wasn’t interested at first, Julia helped persuade him, and he helped set up the nuclear device that would destroy the Tet.
When Jack arrives, the AI learns too late that he has betrayed them.
The AI learned Julia was alive and demanded Jack deliver her to the Tet. Jack agreed and set off for the colony ship. However, when Jack arrives, the AI learns too late that he has betrayed them by bringing a nuclear bomb and Malcolm with him. They detonate it and destroy the one device that is depleting the Earth of its resources.
The Real Meaning Of Oblivion’s Ending
Humanity Can Survive & Love Can Find A Way If They Never Stop Fighting
The ending of Oblivion revealed the movie’s true meaning. After the sacrifice, Julia woke up in her cabin, alive and well. The film then moves ahead three years, where Julia is raising Jack’s daughter. There is a voice-over with Jack wondering if Julia dreams of him like he dreamed of her, and wondering if she would ever want to see him again if she could.
However, the twist then came when it wasn’t the voice-over of the hero, Jack, from the movie. It was another Jack clone he came across along the way. Just like with the main Jack, this clone also began to recover the original Jack’s memories and regain his lost humanity. Thanks to the love Jack had for Julia, it led him back home to her once again.
This is the lesson from the Oblivion movie, as it offers a hopeful look that humanity can survive the worst setbacks. If people don’t give up and they keep fighting, their love can see them through to the end.
