Neill Blomkamp's Elysium (Post-release)

Two months. Around here that's considered necro, innit? Well, I finally watched Elysium last night, and I was surprised that it didn't hit me over the head too terribly with the rich vs. poor/illegal immigration rhetoric. I thought the story was OK and the effects were fantastic, but the world-building wasn't great. It didn't feel real; a lot of it came across as sophomoric--like it was written by a guy with no real concept of corporate politics (or computers). And there was no sense that the characters existed outside of their scenes. I mean, Kruger is a "sleeper agent" with seemingly nothing to do, but when he's called on he's walking around wearing his body armor.

I watched it with a coworker and he commented that even though all of Elysium's citizens live on the torus, and every house has its own med bay, there are medical drop ships full of med bays on standby. Huh? (Why does every house need its own med bay, anyway?) And now that everyone on Earth has been healed, what? Everyone on Earth now gets to live forever in squalor? Or Elysium is going to be invaded by Earthers? That should be interesting. What could go wrong? And furthermore, is there population control on Elysium? Because space is limited.

All that aside, I enjoyed the spectacle. (But I still think D9 is the superior movie.)
 
Very sorry to still feel pretty much exactly that way myself. Worldbuilding was the big problem for me too; maybe we're spoiled or something in that regard? I don't know; District 9 just nailed all its beats SO freakin' hard, you know?

I tried to keep my expectations damped down, and I enjoyed watching the film well enough, it's just a lot more disposable than I hoped it would be.
 
Saw it last night.

Enjoyed it quite a bit. But District 9 is the superior film.

With the kind of money and talent involved, I'm sure the studio put the breaks on several things.
It felt watered down to me. Matt Damon's character was fleshed out just fine, but the rest lacked the depth the District 9 gave it's secondary and tertiary characters.

I did like it. If I had seen it before District 9 I'm sure I would have loved it.
 
tgreco said:
Enjoyed it quite a bit. But District 9 is the superior film.
Click to expand...


Definitely. It was fun. Poor Matt Damon... that dude just didn't catch a break. But, in the end he was the world's savior so there's that.

I would have liked a little more background on the Kruger character actually. When they reconstruct his face one of his knuckledragger partners mentioned something about him being pissed that something was going to be missing, unless I heard it wrong. I thought there was probably some really good backstory to this that just didn't get hashed out. I figured it was those implant things in his face. He seemed pretty torqued up when he was looking in the mirror though... enough to punch the glass and jab some in JF's neck. I figured maybe he had a family and some horrible **** happened that pushed him into crazy land.

It didn't really give enough details as to what qualified someone to be able to live on Elysium and it seemed kind of stupid that there would be a technology that would heal pretty much everything, and they keep it all to themselves up in space. However, the way our elitest society is I could totally see that.

I was half expecting Matt Damon's boss's head get crushed in the door while he was sticking it in there... until MD went inside and his boss left.

The robot effects were every bit as good as the prawn effects in D9.

Overall... I liked it. But I agree, D9 was definitely better.
 
The one merc says, "[He's] gonna be pissed when he wakes up, eh!" (I get the feeling they've been through something like this before.) And then the other one says something that I've listened to over and over, and still can't figure out. It almost sounds like he's talking about legs getting cut off. Anybody speak South African? (Afrikaans, Pretorian, whatever.)

In the script, Kruger complains about his new skin looking like a baby's, and then uses the broken mirror to cut his face up to add character. (In the Chinese release of the movie, you don't see his face getting blown off, or any of the damage other than on the med bay monitor.)
 
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I just started watching this film.
As with most promising films I try to know as little as possible in advance in order to view it with blank expectations.
I won't read any of the posts in this thread until I'm done.

But just one minute into the movie I said, OMG this is Tiphares from Battle Angel Alita. So far I don't know if I should be excited or ethically offended.
I'm at the 3 minute mark and the kid is Hugo from Alita ... WTF???
It's unquestionably a conceptual appropriation from the manga.
So far the film is blatantly ripping off the manga and I felt compelled to write this down somewhere.
I really hope the parallels stop there but I doubt they will.
I do want James Cameron (who owns the film rights to Battle Angel Alita) to get around to his project. If Elysium kills that prospect I'll be so pissed.

I look forward to what others have to say, but I'm sure I'm not the first to notice this.
 
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OH.....can you tell us where we can read the script!!!!

please.

MFP 2020 said:
The one merc says, "[He's] gonna be pissed when he wakes up, eh!" (I get the feeling they've been through something like this before.) And then the other one says something that I've listened to over and over, and still can't figure out. It almost sounds like he's talking about legs getting cut off. Anybody speak South African? (Afrikaans, Pretorian, whatever.)

In the script, Kruger complains about his new skin looking like a baby's, and then uses the broken mirror to cut his face up to add character. (In the Chinese release of the movie, you don't see his face getting blown off, or any of the damage other than on the med bay monitor.)
Click to expand...
 
Nwerke said:
You're not.

http://www.therpf.com/f47/neill-blomkamps-elysium-post-release-105906/#post2846399

:lol

- - - Updated - - -

Elysium is to Alita what Robocop is to Judge Dredd. :lol
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Point taken.

But if Robocop is 50% Dredd, Elysium is at least 80% Alita.

The remaining 20% of material felt dated. Just another "white savior" story - only not as well masked as, say, Avatar. The use of Hispanics in this sophomoric allegory was embarrassingly overwrought... in fact it's so blatant that I can't even qualify it as allegory (unlike District 9).

Thanks to Syd Elysium itself looked stunning, but that was the only thing the film had going for it. District 9 caught my attention. The few notable things about Elysium movie have little to do with Neil.

I thought the movie was pretty bad.
 
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Sigh. I really wanted to like it. I tried to. Still trying to. But I think I'm gonna end up pretty much in agreement with you.
 
Glad you edited, btw. :p The film proved Neill can make a "real movie" - it's convincing enough as an action tentpole; it just doesn't have the greatness of D9. The guy is a smart, eloquent futurist who thinks about space and the future in the same ways a lot of us do. I really hope he has more great movies in him but I also hope he'll be able to return to the kind of collaboration which helped make D9 so good...
 
Started off well enough but quickly jumped the tracks. The message kicked you in the teeth. Another big-budget stinker. :thumbsdown
 
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