SPOILERS: Deception or Things are not what they seem in film on Drone warfare

Rating: 9/10 (16 April 2013)

In Oblivion, Americans in particular get to see drones up close, in a manner only seen by their middleeast victims. I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie, and still have my queries. The title is suggestive but its meaning in 'forgetting', is not clear till later on. For the first half, life for our hero is simple. Jack Harper is a drone serviceman,who likes superbowl and longs to go to the remaining human colony on Titan,has an idyllic hermitage, with some very old books. He wants to go and wants to remain: Jack is a man divided.
But still has work to do on a shattered Earth. He has a team companion, a British woman Victoria who always stays behind monitoring his mission,a sort of mission controller. The only other human we see at first is a woman Sally, a mission controller(for real as we learn) who is supposed to be in the big upside down pyramidal thingy floating above the earth, where other humans are. The drones he services are for the protection of huge vacuum cleaners sucking up earths oceans for fusion power for humans on Titan, we are told. Also to kill any lurking alien menace (what else are drones good for?) Jack likes to take his bubble ship and traverse the remains of earth. He finds a downed drone and we learn he isbeing observed by unknown but likely sinister beings.Here the film is a thriller. Monsters lurk in the dark, threateningly, out of view: its suggested they are the same aliens who destroyed the moon. (Thank god for the drones!) A trip to an underground place where lurk sinister figures who almost kill Jack, but for a drone (god bless em) which comes to his rescue. He is cleared by it and it terminates whatever lurking fiends were present. Things go swimmingly for jack and his lovely team mate (who he ties to please by bringing back a plant(flowers?), which she drops over the side of their house (no potentially toxic plants please, were British): they as we are reminded: 'an effective team', tho he does have these dreams of an unknown woman, and a intact NY. Flies off to an idyll he seems to have made, Till one day a ship careers into the atmosphere and Jack goes to investigate. Finds a human cargo in sleep pods, one woman he is able to rescue but the rest are killed by the drones: an event which alarms Jack. The woman is the woman in his dreams, From here the film slowly turns into a 'reality is not what you think it is' vehicle, as we learn the sinister shadowy figures are the real surviving humans, the drones are really alien kill machines 'terminating' what is left of humanity, and Jack and Victoria are clones. The bad guys are really good guys and vice versa, drones are not there to defend humanity,things are not what they seem, and Jack and Vicky, the now not so effective team are clone pawns serving the alien invaders stealing our earths precious bodily fluids(sorry!) and servicing the machines sent to kill any surviving humanity. Nice! Pananoia never looked so good! For Jack and us, the is advised by advised by god...sorry Morgan Freemans character to enter the radiation zone, which he does ...the truth really is out there! Jack and we the audience suddenly have our take on things turned upside down....or rightside up. If truth lies in Knowing Thyself, Jack gets a real education! This is a well made film showing further advances in film technology and i feared it was all about that and nothing else....but surprisingly it does force the viewer to review the ideas he has been fed by the Sallys of the apocalyptic military media industrial complex...are drones good? are they saving humanity orhave we all been deceived. Its interesting that American jack has a British partner servicing the drones...nudge nudge wink wink.But its not till after Jack enters the Forbidden zone, a finds its another area serviced by an identical Jack Harper and Vicky, that this theme is itself inverted. For Jack Vicky and Julia were part of a mission to destroy the pyramid. Its curious that Julia has a Russian(or Ukrainian) name! A desire to see US and Russia make amends? to become a really effective team. The 'are you an effective team' question 'Sally' asks of British Vicky, can be asked of the current UK/US imperial alliance: add France and you have FUKUS,currently waging war in Africa and middle east...just like the never seen aliens. In politics as in the film, things ain't what they seem to be. It will be interesting to see how Americans in particular see this film.