Escape to the Movies: Elysium

scw55

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Thank you Bob, you helped me get over my reservations over this film.

I did enjoy District 9 a lot, but I also felt it was a little dry in places. But now I was reminded of the aspects of District 9 which I did love and adore, so when I have a chance, I will certainly see this film.
 

major_chaos

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Feb 3, 2011
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So another "dirty poor rebel heroes against EVUL rich white strawmen people" movie? Yea I'll pass,. Not only do I hate that kind of plot with a burning passion for a host of reasons, I really don't feel like paying to sit down and be told I'm shit.
 

Nurb

Cynical bastard
Dec 9, 2008
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I don't like how it mixes its "messages"

There's the story of the 99% VS an oligarcy that lets a nation return to practically medieval Europe, then it combines it with the support of turn of the century style open immigration policy which no nation has, pitting anyone who isn't white against "whitey in the sky" who doesn't share just cuz.

So basically the immigration thing conflicts against the 99% thing because "Space 'Murica" represents Americans of course, but that demonizes the 99% as well as the Space Romneys when the protagonists are all shades of brown.

If each allegory was a seperate movie it probably would work better.

I'd say the exploitation of oppressed communist Chinese as exploitable labor for "capitalist" western business, and the people who begrudgingly support it with little option would be a better jumping off point for an allegorical story... buuuut Hollywood wouldn't allow that because the Chinese would ban it and cut off all that money from that part of the global market.
 

Basement Cat

Keeping the Peace is Relaxing
Jul 26, 2012
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Smiley Face said:
Also, at the moment, Elysium actually has 68% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is closer to what I'd expect.
shiajun said:
Where are you getting your numbers from? Rotten tomatoes has a 67%.
Freakazoid said:
And this movie has a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes not 47%.
A lot more reviewers (147 now) have weighed in since I saw the Rotten Tomatoes' review when I posted earlier. When I checked RT the front page only had one or two "Fresh" ratings.

That's what really threw me about Bob's review--the votes at RT were overwhelmingly negative at the time.
 

Deathfish15

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Ukomba said:
I hear what Bob is trying to say, but it comes off more like a massive Straw-man. Like, this makes Avatar look subtle and balanced levels of Straw-man.

While I couldn't agree with you more about how amazing Pacific Rim is, I think your love of this movie is more because it's an echo chamber of your views.
No, this movie is good on it's own merits, Bob's opinion notwithstanding. I never watched Pacific Rim because I'm less into the "smash-em'-up" part of things, more into the logistical background aspects...which I'm to understand that the movie dives very little into.


Elysium does very good in explaining the short and long of the situation, without actually explaining it at all.
Everything is voiced through story which is played smoothly from one character to the next. Jody Foster does great playing the evil political suit that tries to obtain power purely on the backs of other people's work through aggressive persuasion. First through the blackmailing the arms contractor into helping her with the coup; secondly with the psychotic militant contractor into getting the system codes through job promises... though that one backfired on her when he found out what the "top secret data" was and tried taking it for himself.

Matt Damen does really good in playing the self serving ex-con trying to get by. A smartass to authority figures (robots?) and does anything to keep his job he so desperately needs. Both situations come up and both get him injured to the extreme point where he's got only 5 days left to live by radiation poisoning. In comes the contract with the Devil...er, okay "Spider" to keep his life and menial existence. Advice from a friend, another criminal but still a friend, tells him MULTIPLE times not to do this. End over end it becomes the demise of the friend, throws Damen into an injured run scene, and into a moral choice to try to help a dying child. HE CHOOSES NOT TO! See that...stays on character to the self serving ex-con that he originally is. Only in the very end, the very last length of his journey does he decide to change everything and just save a bunch of people. This is after many crisis events occur that pushes him towards that being the only choice.
 

Username Redacted

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faefrost said:
Casual Shinji said:
We're never gonna get that Battle Angel Alita movie, are we? :'(
Nope :( This pretty much killed it, just as Promethius killed The Mountains of Madness one.
I wouldn't say never because James Camerson seems like the type to give zero fucks about what others think and/or want. That said it's probably pretty close to never as Avatar made too much money to not try to cash in on. Hell, Cameron's IMDB page has writing credits listed for Avatar's 2-4. -_- I, given the fact that I don't particularly like most of what he's done recently, am not super thrilled that James Cameron is the one holding the rights to Battle Angel.
 

Darth_Payn

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Casual Shinji said:
Azurian said:
Casual Shinji said:
We're never gonna get that Battle Angel Alita movie, are we? :'(
Were there talks of one? Because I am wondering how they would pull that one off!
James Cameron was going to make it.

But then he made Avatar which made a shitzillion dollars, so he decided to make sequels to that instead. Apparently it's still on his radar, but if it does ever get made we probably won't see it before 2020.
I thought Steven Spielberg wanted to make that a movie, and Ghost in the Shell. If Cameron's going to do it, he should hurry up with the Avatar sequels and cut out the deep-sea submersible diving.
 

Tono Makt

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Mike Fang said:
When I first heard about this movie, I'd considered going to see it. However, the more I hear about it, the less I want to, because it sounds like it's going to be Avatar levels of heavy-handed, left-wing preaching about illegal immigration and ecenomic disparity among social classes. God forbid they take it with an even hand and, I dunno, handle both sides fairly with a message like "some say the economic system is unfair and keeps people from making their lives better in order to benefit the privileged few...but others think that you can get ahead and the fact that some don't succeed is just an unfortunate, but unavoidable fact of life and trying to homogenize prosperity is going to be about taking away what some have rightfully earned and giving it to those that haven't earned it."

It's sad that I think I can say without fear of disagreement that we're not likely to see a movie with that kind of message anytime soon. Instead we're going to keep seeing movies where the message is where the only people who are successful and rich are the dishonest and those born into privilege and that successful, wealthy people have no virtues because they're all selfish and cruel.
I think you're hitting one of the anti-Elysium nails right on the head - it looks like it might have had a working title of "Occupy Elysium". Heck, even Bob alluded to that when he mentioned the 99% living on Earth. I'm hoping that someone who review movies will mention just how much and how heavy handed the message is and not simply try to avoid the issue, like Bob did in this review, because aspects of the movie look awesome. I just don't know if I want to get bashed over the head with a message I have some disagreements with just to see some kewl action and awesum effects.
 

MatthewGeer

Just some guy, you know?
Nov 21, 2010
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Weirs rhymes like piers or beers; it's not pronounced "Where's Beach". Funspot, though, is awesome. Check thier website, or local gas stations, for a coupon for 25 free tokens when you spend $20. (125 total, thanks to thier sliding scale pricing.)
 

bat32391

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Edit: Nevermind didn't see the posts above.

OT: I skipped through most of the spoiler stuff, but it sounds like its going to be a cool movie.
 

Korsgaard

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About to go watch/review it myself. Interesting Bob says its more an analogue to relations between the first and third world as opposed to the beaten-to-death-horse that is 'capitalism is bad'. Even when they handle that well, it always hits me as greatly hypocritical for a film headlined by a handful of multi-millionaires and financed by one of five or six multibillion dollar corpertations to critique the way capitalism works.

Anyway, Elysium looks good, I'm excited.
 

Stryc9

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Nov 12, 2008
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Soooooooo will I be able to ignore the political bullshit and still enjoy the movie or should I just stay home and watch or do something else? I'm honestly getting really tired of having every single thing that happens ever anywhere be turned into a right vs. left political issue and would just as soon ignore as much of it as possible.
 

Darth_Payn

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Makabriel said:
Ihateregistering1 said:
It has nothing to do with thinking about how you might "subscribe to their views" or be "brainwashed". It has to do with film-makers with very clear-cut beliefs making movies that take complicated ideas that are chock full of grey areas and reducing them to black-and-white fantasy, where everyone falls into convenient categories of "if you think this way you're smart and righteous and wonderful, and if you think this way you're a vile and disgusting human being". As you can imagine, people don't really like being insulted, and they especially don't like it when you insult them by presuming to understand their views when the film-maker clearly doesn't (or just ignores them).
But how does this make sense in a fictional movie? A documentary I can understand. But imagine debating these points while disusing Judge Dread, which has a lot of the same views. Hell, the remake of Total Recall even...
There is ONLY ONE Total Recall! We do not speak of failed remakes here!
 

Alar

The Stormbringer
Dec 1, 2009
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Desert Punk said:
Jacco said:
I literally could not watch that review because I can't handle the Bawstin accent.
I know right? This is normally the kind of thing editors are supposed to catch and tell the person to rerecord.

OT: Glad to hear the movie is good, I shall go see it this weekend!

And kinda sad, the "Special announcement" is really just a "Special advertisement" I am still curious who a WRITTEN lets play is supposed to be targeting, and if there was actually a demand for such things..
I was hoping/expecting for something else, too. I mean, it's great that he's branching out and all, but I don't see the appeal. XD

If this movie is as good as he seems to feel it is, it'll be worth a rent or a watch on Netflix down the line.
 

Arcane Azmadi

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Damn, another one for the "must see" list. I'm STILL trying to find time to see Pacific Rim.

Copper Zen said:
Funny. Bob's cheering this movie on while other reviews I've read are canning it. Time gave it 2+1/2 stars out of 5 and it only gets a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Uh...is this another case where Bob's inner fanboy leaves him giddy and oblivious to problems? You may recall how he said the Captain America might be "the best movie ever". Bob has as much of a track record for going overboard liking certain directors or movies as he does for reflexively hating others (I never listen to Bob when he talks about JJ Abrahm's work, anymore).

Has anyone else seen this movie? If so I'd appreciate your opinion on it.

EDIT: The 47% at Rotten Tomatoes has changed to 67% as more reviewers weighed in their opinions.
Considering I value Bob's opinion above pretty much all other critics, I'm more than willing to disregard anyone who disagrees with him until I see the film myself. You talk about his "inner fanboy" but Bob doesn't have an "inner fanboy"- he's ALL fanboy and completely unashamed about it. Since I'm a fanboy as well, that's why his opinions gel with mine so well.
 

faefrost

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ThingWhatSqueaks said:
faefrost said:
Casual Shinji said:
We're never gonna get that Battle Angel Alita movie, are we? :'(
Nope :( This pretty much killed it, just as Promethius killed The Mountains of Madness one.
I wouldn't say never because James Camerson seems like the type to give zero fucks about what others think and/or want. That said it's probably pretty close to never as Avatar made too much money to not try to cash in on. Hell, Cameron's IMDB page has writing credits listed for Avatar's 2-4. -_- I, given the fact that I don't particularly like most of what he's done recently, am not super thrilled that James Cameron is the one holding the rights to Battle Angel.
/sigh! I actually don't mind the idea of Cameron making Battle Angel Alita. Yeah he seems like a bit if a jerk, but the man does have an incredible eye for and timing with these types of movies. And I love that Cameron is one of the last of the big genre filmakers that has not succumbed to washing everything out with blue and orange digital color correction. Love or hate Avatar for the acting dialog and story, but the filmmaking in it is spectacular.

I cry because it will at a minimum be years before we see such a movie. Can you imagine if it could be in production now using the girl from Pacific Rim? Or the chick that played Yukio in The Wolverine?
 

Muspelheim

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A Hollywood triple-A production involving plot elements of class struggle?

Oh, this will get ugly...
 

NeedsaBetterName22

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Tono Makt said:
I think you're hitting one of the anti-Elysium nails right on the head - it looks like it might have had a working title of "Occupy Elysium". Heck, even Bob alluded to that when he mentioned the 99% living on Earth. I'm hoping that someone who review movies will mention just how much and how heavy handed the message is and not simply try to avoid the issue, like Bob did in this review, because aspects of the movie look awesome. I just don't know if I want to get bashed over the head with a message I have some disagreements with just to see some kewl action and awesum effects.
You've actually summed it up perfectly. If you can't stand fairly stupid preachiness, don't go see it. If you can tolerate Hollywood Economics then you'll be fine, I actually really like the technology designs. Whoever does their design work is outstanding and the special effects are pretty good. But yeah, it's filled with a lot of plot holes due to ham-fisted current political commentary. The rich have super cheap medicine stuff and are greedy, but don't sell the super medicine for profit and to keep their workforce productive. This is because the medicine is clearly a commentary on public healthcare, but the problem is that one is expensive and requires a fair bit of infrastructure while Elysium's just seems to be a box you need to power. Actually, it's kind of like the Dark Knight and its Occupy commentary.

Woodsey said:
I think the idea is that everything had already gone to hell down below and so the rich left.

In which case, it's not particularly.
Did you read Atlas Shrugged? At the end they leave New York as the last bit of power is fading and the whole place is about to go post-apocalyptic. You could argue it's an 'Atlas Shrugged 200 years later' scenario if you wanted to.
 
Aug 1, 2010
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Uh, Bob? Have you completely lost your mind?

Elysium was meh at best. Matt Damon and the girl had literally no character, there were many scenes that made no damn sense and the whole "message" completely failed to materialize outside of what we saw in the trailers.

The tech was cool, the action was nice and Kruger was great, but that all failed to matter when the leads were so ungodly bland.

Also District 9 was far superior.
 

Lionsfan

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Jan 29, 2010
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bat32391 said:
Copper Zen said:
Funny. Bob's cheering this movie on while other reviews I've read are canning it. Time gave it 2+1/2 stars out of 5 and it only gets a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Uh...is this another case where Bob's inner fanboy leaves him giddy and oblivious to problems? You may recall how he said the Captain America might be "the best movie ever". Bob has as much of a track record for going overboard liking certain directors or movies as he does for reflexively hating others (I never listen to Bob when he talks about JJ Abrahm's work, anymore).

Has anyone else seen this movie? If so I'd appreciate your opinion on it.
Where are you getting those numbers? I just checked rotten tomatos and is has a 67% like for the critics and a 77% like for the people.

OT: I skipped through most of the spoiler stuff, but it sounds like its going to be a cool movie.
Dude.....look literally 5 posts above yours.....

From Copper:

A lot more reviewers (147 now) have weighed in since I saw the Rotten Tomatoes' review when I posted earlier. When I checked RT the front page only had one or two "Fresh" ratings.

That's what really threw me about Bob's review--the votes at RT were overwhelmingly negative at the time.
OT: Just like Pacific Rim, this is not nearly as good as everyone on here is hyping it up to be. Just another 'meh' at best