Question: Maybe this was explained in the film and I missed it, but it has been bugging me for a while. What happened to all the rest of the clones of Jack and Victoria after the Tet was destroyed? Presumably their daily instructions in the form of Sally would cease. Wouldn't they get suspicious? Some reasonable explanation would be nice.
Question: Since the Moon is not gone, just broken into pieces, wouldn't this still provide the same mass, and hence the same gravitational attraction? Hard to see how the tidal effect would destroy the Earth without physically removing the Moon's mass. Makes a nice visual, but seems to fall flat on the science.
Question: Since Jack/Victoria are clones, what is the purpose of using 'Sally'? And if Jack is having flashbacks/memories of his wife, wouldn't he have flashbacks of Sally as part of mission control?
Answer: Jack and Victoria believe that they are there on behalf of the human race, so it makes sense for them to have a human face to interact with. Sally is a logical candidate - the Tet would presumably have intercepted her transmissions to the Odyssey and would therefore have plenty to work with in constructing their fake Sally as an interface with their clone workers. It's not made clear in the movie how the original Jack's memories of Julia survived to resurface in his clones, but it seems reasonable that it might be related to the powerful emotions that are associated with those memories, in this case his love for his wife. Sally and Victoria would also feature significantly in the original Jack's memories, but without the same emotional investment, those memories failed to make the transfer into his clones.
Question: When Jack gets to the ESB, retrieves Scav's transmission and Victoria decodes it, you can see precise coordinates where the "Odyssey" will crash. In reality that's the location of a contemporary house located north of New York. What's the significance of that house?
Answer: The coordinates point to the home address of the Visual Effects Production Supervisor for Oblivion, David Feinsilber, in New City, NY.
Question: I am curious why there is no lag whatsoever in communications between the Odyssey and Ground Control. We are told that the Tet is initially pretty far out in space, and even fairly close in to Earth there would still be noticeable delays. This instantaneous communication would seem to require some sort of faster-than-light system, which physics says is impossible. So, is there an explanation or is this a mistake? Seems odd to me given the care taken to design the drones and bubble craft.
Answer: There are theories to beat FTL communication, (if not travel) the fact that they are doing it in this film means they must have implemented a solution. Otherwise it has to be put down to either an oversight, or the director traded realism for drama. A long delay would probably irritate the audience.
Question: Wouldn't Jack have blown up with TET? How is he alive to come back at the end? Is it a different version?
Answer: It's not the same Jack. The one who died in the TET explosion was the Jack 49 clone. The clone who shows up at the end is Jack 52, who Jack 49 had encountered in the desert. Both have the same memories. Look closely, and you can see the tech clone designation numbers embossed on their jackets.
Question: Unless it was stated in the movie, why was there a beacon or signal from the Empire State Building? And how did the surviving humans know how to create a signal to bring the spaceship back to earth?
Answer: There are already, in real life, a large amount of communication dishes on top of the ESB. It would be easier to modify that existing setup rather than building a new array from scratch. In the movie it says that the survivors opted for a longer term plan and hint that they had the know-how for a while but were waiting for a "Jack with a soul" to action it. As for the specifics of the signal, real life recovery beacons used in maritime and airplane landing approach can basically remote control a ship or plane. If someone knew the specific system used by the shuttle (and only a few exist in real life, making that a lot simpler that one might think), it would not be a hard thing to set up. It is not unbelievable that one or more of the survivors would have that knowledge.
Question: What is it about the moon being destroyed that caused loads of earthquakes and tsunamis?
Chosen answer: The moon's own gravity affects the Earth, most notably in the form of ocean tides. Over the eons a balance has been established between the two celestial bodies. When the moon was destroyed, that balance was thrown out of whack and the Earth basically adjusted itself. Sort of like if you hold a ball bearing to the inside of a bowl near the top with a magnet on the outside; remove the magnet and the ball bearing suddenly drops and careens around inside the bowl until it finally comes to a rest at the bottom. That rolling around would be analogous to the earthquakes and tsunamis that resulted from the moon's destruction in this film.
Question: After Jack is saved by Drone 166, Jack picks up a book and looks at it. But for a brief moment as he picks it up, a bright blue light reflects on his arm and the book. What is that blue light?
Chosen answer: From the beginning of the movie you can see this light on his jacket wrist. Must some tech stuff, maybe for his vitals or for communication.
Question: Can someone explain to me what happened to the 52 version of Victoria?
Chosen answer: No. We don't know. Tower 52 is left unharmed, but it is likely that the Tet sent drone(s) to kill area 52 version of Victoria when her Jack was in a kerfuffle, to reinstate new versions of Victoria and Jack.
Answer: They would obviously notice that the Tet was gone and would no doubt have questions, but, without outside intervention, would be unlikely to be able to do anything about it, as they would have no reason not to believe that the "radiation zones" confining them to their particular area weren't real. Some would likely die fighting Scavenger groups in their areas (without the drones, they'd be increasingly vulnerable), others might be successfully contacted by those groups and thus could join with them, some may have ultimately starved without resupply from the Tet. The film only covers what happens to Jacks 49 and 52; the others likely met with a variety of different fates.
Tailkinker ★