Escape to the Movies: Elysium

level27smartass

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Steve the Pocket said:
level27smartass said:
Do you even socioeconomic? When wealth is concentrated in hands of few that means they literally own means of production. Now imagine whats cheaper giving your employs fair wages or Exploiting them. Now exploiting people is cheap but diffcult work because they can just up leave however since you own mostly everything that means you control labor or lack there off. Detroit was a very wealthy city back in the day but your only option was working for on the auto manufacturers or a place that relies indirectly on income from said Auto manufactures. Now what happened was the CEO's found something cheaper than exploiting domestic-workers; exploiting foreign workers by outsourcing. So with cheaper labor there was no reason to keep the American Factories open so wealthy in Detroit left along with factories. Whats left is a poor local economy and a bunch of poor people. So its not that rich knows how to lead they just have the money to fix it and in capitalistic society that's what you need to succeed.
OK, fine, fine, but how does the rich people packing up and moving to a space station make all of that worse? My guess, now that I've thought about it some more, is that it didn't really; the point is more that the situation on earth had already gone to hell, and the rich people moved into outer space to distance themselves from it, literally. Like the Axiom in WALL-E except it's just a few people instead of the entire human race.
Wealth is finite or it use to be currently many nation use fiat currency meaning the money you have your pocket is a federal IOU. Wealth isnt just cash its property and recources lets say the people who control land and resources become disconnected from society vis a via gated community or orbital space station. By leaving there taking with there aquired wealth and resources out of economy.
 

Falsename

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Oct 28, 2010
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Why do I bother listening to a man who doesn't seem to know how to review a movie properly?

Bob is always leaning in the exact opposite direction of the other 99% of reviewers and audiences. Bad movie=Good movie for him.

And pick a freaking accent! I don't even know where the hell you'd have to live to talk like that.... It's attrocious. Stop trying to be Yahtzee. You're not Yahtzee.
 

KissingSunlight

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Jul 3, 2013
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I know some people are not going to like this movie because it has the radical message of: Everybody should have access to quality health care. Basically, Matt Damon's character is the Robin Hood of medicine. It really shouldn't be that controversial.

Message aside, it's a quality action blockbuster. It has a few things in there that makes me mourn for the Halo movie that never was.
 

pearcinator

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Apr 8, 2009
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I don't know what everyone's complaining about (although I am not American so I don't know their politics) I thought this movie was fucking awesome! Neill Blomkamp has made a name for himself now with his own gritty sci-fi take (gory scenes? YES PLEASE!!!)

If there is one thing to criticize about this movie is that the shaky cam in some of the fight scenes made it really hard to tell what was going on. Matt Damon must just LOVE shaky-cam and want it in all of his movies...
 

scotth266

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Jan 10, 2009
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The only reason I'm going to see Elysium in the end is because I've seen District 9, and even then it'll be a close thing.

While I liked District 9, its beginning is one of the most ham-fisted intros in the history of movies. It was only when we finally got to the cat-food vs people-food scene that I became interested, if only because it demonstrated that there was actual reason to fear the aliens - and shortly afterward the film actually started confronting its own issues rather than just trying to wave a huge "RACISM IS BAD, M'KAY?" sign in my face. The first ten minutes of District 9 suck. The remaining portion is great, because it's not trying to send the message as much - it's focusing instead on the action, and while the aliens are victims, they're certainly not blameless.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like this film's going to make an effort to go much farther than "RICH PEOPLE ARE DIRTBAGS HOARDIN' THE RESOURCES, MAN!" Every review I've read about the film and all the scenes I've seen indicate nothing more's going on here, no hidden layers, no double meanings - just a bunch of rich people being dicks for the sake of it.

If the movie actually has anything of merit to say then I might be interested... but the trailers certainly aren't getting me as excited as I should be. It's got the right aesthetics to rustle my jimmies - I love me some good hard-soft-sci-fi (Looper and District 9 for example) but it's losing me on how propoganda-ish it feels.
 

RTK1576

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Aug 4, 2009
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Falsename said:
Why do I bother listening to a man who doesn't seem to know how to review a movie properly?

Bob is always leaning in the exact opposite direction of the other 99% of reviewers and audiences. Bad movie=Good movie for him.

And pick a freaking accent! I don't even know where the hell you'd have to live to talk like that.... It's attrocious. Stop trying to be Yahtzee. You're not Yahtzee.
Why DO you? You only show up to complain about Bob and make sweeping generalizations that lack any supporting evidence. A rational person would've stopped watching him and moved on with his life.
 

RTK1576

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Ihateregistering1 said:
Aardvaarkman said:
Ihateregistering1 said:
1+2: Both of these are completely off base because no one is saying that anyone "shouldn't be allowed" to do anything, but I can understand why some people find the idea of Matt Damon, a multi-millionaire actor who lives in a $15 million mansion, starring in a movie in which he's the champion of the poor. Also bear in mind that Damon doesn't exactly shy away from getting involved in political and social issues, and thus he contributes to the "limousine liberal" stereotype (ie. the hypocrisy you mentioned).
So, what is the hypocrisy there?

Are liberals not allowed to be wealthy? The "limousine liberal" stereotype has always been pretty much bullshit, a trope used by right-wingers to discredit liberalism without having an actual argument with any substance.

I think the issue here is that many liberals manage to be financially successful, but the right-wing can't accept this, because liberals are supposed to be dirty hippies, and the idea that liberals can manage their finances successfully is a kind of heresy, so the only rational explanation (for such irrational people) is that liberals are either corrupt, or hypocritical. Never mind the fact that liberalism isn't actually anti-wealth, that's just a narrative made up by those who oppose it.
Actually, taken as a whole, liberals, on average, make more money than conservatives (suggested reading, "Who really cares", by Arthur Brooks).

Regardless, the difference between the two is that conservatives with money don't usually scream for the Government to give more money to the poor, while liberals with money do. So this begs the obvious question of (we'll go back to Matt Damon) "if Matt Damon cares so much about the plight of the poor, why doesn't he sell his $15 million house, move into a $1000 a month studio apartment, and give away the rest of his money?". No one asks Mitt Romney that question because he's flat-out said that he doesn't believe in income redistribution.
So, again, your argument is "If someone whose is rich wants to help the less fortunate, the only way they gain creditability is to not be rich."

Do you realize how dumb that argument is? I guess not, as you avoided addressing my rebuttal.

And, gee, you notice that Romney isn't President after saying things like you just did. Go figure.
 

Falsename

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Oct 28, 2010
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RTK1576 said:
Falsename said:
Why do I bother listening to a man who doesn't seem to know how to review a movie properly?

Bob is always leaning in the exact opposite direction of the other 99% of reviewers and audiences. Bad movie=Good movie for him.

And pick a freaking accent! I don't even know where the hell you'd have to live to talk like that.... It's attrocious. Stop trying to be Yahtzee. You're not Yahtzee.
Why DO you? You only show up to complain about Bob and make sweeping generalizations that lack any supporting evidence. A rational person would've stopped watching him and moved on with his life.
Honestly, sometimes I get bored and view a video for fun. And if people didn't give feedback then you'd get everyone running around here with an ego larger than a Emu egg. If someone gives a bad review, you let 'em know it and hope they'll be a little more careful next time. A wider range of criticism will lead to a more average score.
 

Korsgaard

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Aug 9, 2013
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It was decent, though nothing revolutionary like I'd hoped.

On the plus side, the film itself looked incredible, especially the design of the space colony and the robots. Sharlto Copley chews the scenery as the supporting villain, and proves the character highlight of the film, and I really hope this gets him more big roles. Also, it was a hell of a lot more subtle than other films dealing with the same themes.

On the downside, the acting was bad from the major actors - Matt Damon gave one of his blandest performances in recent memory, which says something, and Jodi Foster gave a performance worthy of a Razzie - the only thing keeping her from having given the worst performance in a sci-fi film this year is the existence of After Earth.

Also, the script could have used some more polish, as could the theme work. Though I give it points for subtlety, the points about healthcare/immigration were still clumsy, and for a dystopia, it needed a few more dashes of true dystopia.

Overall though, a decent movie, worth a matinee on a rainy day, or a rental when it hits netflix.
 

Tormuse

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Nov 18, 2009
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I saw it last night. Over all, it was okay; not great, but still worth a look. (I thought District 9 was similarly okay, so take that how you will)

I liked that everyone in the film had clear motivations for their actions and that they changed believably during the course of the film. (I didn't think the shifting goals of the cast was too complicated as Moviebob indicated) I would have liked to see more of what the people of Elysium think of the people down on Earth, or at least seen some better indication of what their policy is toward them. Near the beginning, Delacourt is being reprimanded for shooting down ships that tried to land on Elysium, so it makes me wonder what do they normally do? Surely, people from Earth are trying to land on Elysium all the time, right? If they don't shoot them down, what do they do with them? What do the population of Elysium think of these people? The movie doesn't even touch these questions. I didn't feel that the allegory was as heavy-handed as Moviebob made it out to be, but there were enough unanswered questions about the setting to leave me unsatisfied.

Action scenes and visuals were excellent, but they were heavily marred by overuse of shaky-cams. Normally, I'm not really bothered by that effect, since it can increase the perceived intensity of the scene, but I felt it was overdone in this movie.

The thing that really bothered me about the movie, though, was that old plot device of the good guys winning because the bad guys are stupid, or the good guys otherwise just don't meet nearly as much resistance as they should. The most egregious part was when...

...they capture Max. (Matt Damon's character) This is the man they've been pursuing for the whole movie, the man who is carrying information that can shut down Elysium, essentially giving anyone power to rule the world. They know how incredibly important he is and they have him completely at their mercy and... they freakin' leave him unguarded! They've gotta have hundreds, if not thousands, of guards, both human and robotic on the station! They could at least have had Kruger's men watch him who were right freakin' there moments earlier, or at the very least had him sedated! At this point, he's already shown how dangerous he is with that exo-suit, having torn up one of the robots with his bare hands, but no, they leave him conscious with nothing but a couple of straps holding him down which he breaks easily.

It gets worse when he goes to rescue Frey, who is being kept in the armoury because... Wait... Why? Why would they keep a prisoner in the armoury, surrounded by weapons? That doesn't make any sense! And why is Max able to just stroll in there without any trouble? Aren't all these weapons guarded at all? Shouldn't there at least be a lock on the door? Or password protection or something? And Max picks up one of the weapons and it's some kind of weird energy weapon that turns the wall and the person he's shooting at into Swiss cheese... So, these incredibly dangerous weapons are kept fully loaded and ready to use at any time, available to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who feels like walking in there with nothing to stop them. How the hell does that make any sense?!? Why hasn't Elysium turned into its own little dystopia with high-powered-gun-toting rebels all over the place ages ago?

So yeah, it was a very promising premise to start, and had its fair share of good points, but stuff like the above and more just kill my enjoyment of the movie.

And on an unrelated note, this is going to sound terrible, but I find the scene where Max gets irradiated kind of morbidly funny because the computer terminal displays the message, "Organic material detected in chamber," but it still doesn't shut down. I mean I get that the people on Earth are working with old, shitty, dangerous equipment, but you'd think that a system sophisticated enough to scan for organic material in the chamber would use that information to decide when to shut down. Instead, the machine tells them, "Hey guys, I'm killing someone right now. I'm not gonna *stop* killing him, but I just thought ya'd like to know!" :)
 

DC1

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Jun 8, 2009
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Saw this movie last night. Definitely best movie of the summer. A few cliche elements but besides that really amazing story, characters, and visuals. This is one movie that actually makes me want to entertain the possibility of seeing sequels.