Oblivion is a 2013 Science Fiction film directed by Joseph Kosinski (TRON: Legacy) starring Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Melissa Leo and Morgan Freeman. Anthony Gonzalez of M83 and Joseph Trapanese (The Raid, TRON: Uprising) are the composers.

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Cruise plays Jack Harper, a repairman who maintains a series of drones on the surface of the Earth in the aftermath of an alien invasion which resulted in half of Earth being destroyed. When he finds a crashed spaceship, he starts a series of events that forces him to question everything he knows.

Jack Harper is a drone repairman on a post-nuclear Earth. Maintaining these heavy artillery airborne beasts that protect vast hydro stations dotted around the planet that suck up water for the Tet. The drones need military might as they are attacked by Scavs (an alien species?) that were the cause of all these woes in the first place.

The biggest draw of the movie in my own opinion is the great aesthetically pleasing design of props: The Sky Tower, The Bubble Ship, the Tet space station, and the drones.

The Bubble Ship operated by Cruise’s main character, Jack 49, was inspired by the ‘Bell 47’ helicopter from 1947, with a transparent round canopy very reminiscent of a dragonfly. Daniel Simon, who previously worked with Kosinski as the lead vehicle designer on Tron: Legacy, was tasked with creating the Bubble Ship, incorporating elements evocative of an advanced fighter jet with the Bell 47 to create a light, functional vehicle that was both practical and aesthetically pleasing.



Rather than employ digital models, Wild Factory, a Camarillo concept car company, built the Bubble Ship as a 25-foot-long (7.6 m), 4,000–5,000 lb (1,800–2,300 kg), mostly aluminum prop. Elements of the cockpit, such as the placement of the joystick and pedals, were customized for Cruise, who is a qualified pilot, and who had some input into the design.

The craft was also made to be easy to disassemble and assemble, in order to facilitate transport to the Iceland shooting locations, where it would be mounted on a gimbal for shots of it flying. The unmanned aerial drones that figure prominently in the plot were created to appear to be in the same design family as the Bubble Ship.