Freude schoene Gotterfunken Tochter aus Elysium

Love that song! A bit of the ludwig von

I really want to see it, but haven't yet.

Oh sorry, you meant something else.

Are there no "good" people on Elysium, this space station for the rich and famous?

From the reviews and plot, it sounds like we only see typical mustache-twirling "Mwuahahaha, I'm rich and you're poor and therefore I'm evil" bad guys...

I think I've voiced my opposition to big business and the Donald Trumps of the world here enough...but that being said...there ARE plenty of good people who are rich...

And, to be fair--you know, at least Trump (from what I know) really did work hard to make his money, even if he was an asshole doing it. I'm fine with that. I have a harder time embracing someone like Paris Hilton who's more "I am, therefore I am rich" with little to no redeeming value...but I think most people would be opposed to that...or at least be annoyed at such a person, we as a species do tend to value merit--

Which makes the name of that space station (perhaps unintentionally?) ironic--Elysium, a take off the Elysian Fields, the sort of Greek ideal of a hero's paradise?

...You had to EARN your way into that, if I'm not mistaken...not everyone gets to go...hence Hades? You kind of had to earn your way in by being an Odysseus or Achilles or someone like that.

And...well, if the people on this spaceship really HAVE earned their money...why should I hate them?
Because they don't share their money?
If that's the case--well, I'm liberal, I'm all for the rich being made to help the poor...
But if Earth is as shit as the trailers make it out to be...are the poor at a point of no return, as it were, in terms of just how truly we've screwed over the world?

If that's the case...well, who can blame those who can leave for cutting and leaving? If the problem is overpopulation, why WOULD they want more people up there?

If it's that they should send supplies, like those nifty medical devices that can apparently cure anything...

Well, why WOULDN'T they? O.o
Why wouldn't they share that, especially if they could share it and profit from it?
Is there a reason?
Or is it just "Ooooooooh we're rich and therefore evil and want you all to die" again?

It seems like this is a movie I should be on the side of politically--but then I'm also on the side of common sense and recognizing that people are complex and there ARE shades of grey and two sides to a complex problem (and usually more.)

And 99%-style films and books like these are so popular...and it does bother me...

Because they seem to break it down to that mustache-twirling, good vs. evil mentality, and not only is that not true, I have news for you 99%-ers...

That mentality isn't going to SOLVE the problem.

Films and books don't present a complexity of ideas anymore, don't give both sides.

I retracted my objection to The Hunger Games after you all told me to read it (so maybe I'll eat my words with this as well, who knows) but while I still don't think that work was nearly good as others laud it to be--I maintain it's an interesting idea sloppily executed, and that while the parallels to reality TV and class stratification are there and are at least semi-competent in their presentation, I maintain that the characters are ultimately more believable than this world, which still feels forced and ham-fisted in a lot of ways--it at least had something of a brain...

Honestly, unless you have plot details to shock me, I think "Star Trek: Into Darkness" had more subtlety than this...it at least tried to look at the problems with terrorism and the price of counter-terrorism in a way where even if you disagreed with the characters, at least each position was represented and given a chance to speak.



So, what did you think?

You expect people to read all that?

The tome has been delivered, Invictus. :p

(Hey, I haven't done one in a while--I now have a low-paying job typing articles for...well, I'll just say never by any diet pills ever, they're all awful and don't work. And any review of a product that doesn't have a name attached to it? Yeah, that could be me now. Even though I've never seen the products I'm reviewing. None of you are safe, not even our British friends...I've done articles for products marketed in and made in the UK now...all I have to do is add that superfluous "u" to make color "colour"--yeah, yeah, French influence...we Americans know you're just trying to cheat at Scrabble!--and bam! ;) So yeah, I'm paid to make the Internet a stupider place...but hey, it's about time SOMEONE paid me to do what comes naturally, right?)

:p

And I never do, Invictus--well, occasionally, but not for ones that long.

I'm pleasantly surprised when they do...

And I enjoy the comments anyway. Sometimes. Unless a flame war breaks out.

You think these "movies with a subtlety of a sledgehammer" are a new phenomenon?

Go watch Birth of a Nation :)

LOL...oh D.W. Griffith...so racist...

No, it's nothing new, obviously, but I think these things sort of wax and wane.

We had Dances with Wolves and Pocahontas (both ripoffs of earlier stories) and then about a decade or so later we get Avatar.

To be fair, blatant symbolism CAN work...

Jonathan Swift can be pretty blatant with his points...

After all, "Animal Farm" and "Gulliver's Travels" are both excellent pieces of satire.

(This is fact. If you hate either work...fail. HOW DARE YOU HAVE AN OPINION OF YOUR OWN!!!) :p

But those were smart and nuanced in their own ways--they were blatant with what they were depicting and stance they took, but they did at least work to make those positions complex to some degree, especially Orwell. You may not like Napoleon he Pig (you're not supposed to) and he is a pretty good Stalin stand-in...

That being said--well, while we're meant to feel antipathy towards the pigs, without the pigs there wouldn't have been a revolution against Farmer Jones at all...and with the exception of a few, none of the other animals can read to any great extent...

So while the pigs are obviously exploiting the other animals, it's not as if they're totally without merit themselves, either--they DO and CAN contribute...and in the beginning they do...they just get corrupt and choose not to in the end.

I don't see that sort of nuance with a lot of films, shows and books today--

It's an issue I still have with The Hunger Games.
In today's world, heroes--be they traditional or anti-heroes--are good...
And villains are completely and totally evil with no redeeming qualities whatsoever...
Full stop.

And that's not the way the world works, that doesn't help forge an understanding of others.

Not really a "message" movie in my opinion.

But the whole thing revolves around a single plot twist. Okay movie, but not great.

There is a "false flag" theme, but I don't see any message.

Oh duh. I was thinking of Oblivion. Sorry, wrong movie.

Yes, Elysium absolutely is a message, movie, but it's worth watching in spite of that. Not quite as good as District 9 was, but still good sci fi thriller/action. You can effectively ignore the social message and just watch it for the action.

Triumph of the Will

There's another message movie

Can you all imagine how much this empty headed little cunt would blather on if it had actually SEEN the movie? More importantly, would you all give a fuck?

tl; dr.

Without reading any of Obi's diatribes...I have seen the movie. It was a decent enough sci-fi movie...with a message delivered with a sledge hammer, yes.

There were any number of plot holes and things that didn't make sense, but I was willing to overlook them -- after all, I went to see Matt Damon in a powered exo-skeleton fly up to a space station and kick some ass. He did this....so the movie delivered what it promised. The story moved along pretty fast, setting up the why and how Damon's character would go up to the station...not saying it was a brilliant plot, but it was a reasonable enough plot, I suppose.

Go see it is you want to see a sci-fi film with a decent bad guy (actually, the bad guy is pretty cool - no, not the Jodie Foster character...she's OK, but she's not *the* bad guy)

But yes, the premise of the world overrun, poisened, etc, the haves and the have nots....YAWN....boring, old, trite, frankly stupid.

Disappointing ending leaves as many questions as it answers...and yet...to wield my own sledgehammer...the solution to this Liberal sledge hammer is *also* about as deep as the typical solution offered by Liberals...it's a surface, feel good solution that doesn't address a single underlying problem. Bravo, short-sighted, silly liberal Hollywood film maker...

@Krellin I thought it was only ok with a message like a sledgehammer and a predictable plot.

I agree with the above assessments, but for me the action sequences didn't do much to offset how terrible the rest of it was.

I mean come on, 5 minutes in, the bad guy sets the code from "paralyze" to "kill," and you can immediately say to yourself, "well, I guess MD dies at the end then."

I did like evil Chuck Norris.

"evil Chuck Norris."

yes, and the same actor who played the do-gooder social worker in district 9. Nice range.

Celtic - OK, it was "OK". I did say the premise was boring, trite, old...so yes, predictable goes along with all that. But, given the purpose of the movie (watch Matt Damon beat people up in an exoskeleton suit) I wasn't expecting a deep plot *at all*, so any plot that was reasonably executed was better than expected, in a way. The plot did have one or two twists. OK....not big twists...but twists.

Has anyone seen Oblivion? I put this on par with Oblivion....your basic escapism sci-fi film to waste an evening that doesn't leave you yearning for more.

Haven't seen Oblivion. Probably will go see Kick Ass 2 in the next week or 2 though. Also, those "twists" were predictable, but maybe I've just watched to many movies like that or had to much theatre experience not to see them.

Ah, I missed you, mapleleaf!

"Triumph of the Will"...yep...there's a message movie for ya, lol...

"Go see it is you want to see a sci-fi film with a decent bad guy (actually, the bad guy is pretty cool - no, not the Jodie Foster character...she's OK, but she's not *the* bad guy)"

Yeah, I've heard this film features an awesome, almost psychopathic villain (huh, Jodie Foster starring in a movie with a psychopathic villain...nope, that's never happened before!)

"the solution to this Liberal sledge hammer is *also* about as deep as the typical solution offered by Liberals...it's a surface, feel good solution that doesn't address a single underlying problem."

Which is why I take issue with some message movies--

If you're going to espouse a liberal (or conservative) message, it shouldn't feel shallow or short-sighted and should address the underlying problems.

Orwell and Swift were masters at that..for a more liberal author, Shaw was too, to the extent that he wasn't afraid to risk having plays go at a snail's pace for a bit to actually go into detail about why things are the way they are and why people think certain solutions will or won't work.

It sounds like a fun sci-fi shooter if you like that sort of thing, but then I don't...

Unless you're Indiana Jones or something like that, I prefer a slower pace and more explanation and detail to fast-paced, running around, bam-bam-message-message-ok-back-to-shooting-now.

Unless you're Indy--then it's the reverse (oh, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, WHY did you make that setup so complex...it didn't need to be! Same with Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3--it's Pirates vs. Actors in old Royal Navy costumes, that and some Jack Sparrow action is all we need, no need to spend hours on complicated setups with bad CGI!)

Pirates 2&3 were a bit disappointing because the visuals in ! were just so well done as the Barbosa and his crew moved in and out of the moonlight... Simply brilliantly executed and with lots of nods at the Disney ride like the dog holding the keys to the jail cells.

Also, I need to see District 9...

Though I'll ask before I do, since I care fuck-all about spoilers--

WHY are the aliens kept in an Apartheid-stand-in-type situation?

I mean, keeping them in an Area 51 sort of set up and in laboratories away from the world I can get...but I somehow don't see human beings throwing space aliens in the ghettos--

Not because we're so noble or anything like that, but...

Wouldn't we have more to gain by...well...doing almost anything else with them?

Study them in a lab (alive or dead, if you choose not to care about ethics)...
Try to communicate with them and learn about their technology...
I'm sure every university in the world would love the chance to examine these guys...
Maybe they can give us an idea about what parts of the galaxy we haven't seen are like...

Or, well, marketing agents like novel ideas--what's more novel than having a REAL-LIFE space alien "endorse" your product (even if they're ugly, come on...if people will watch the Geico Cavemen pitch products to the point where they got their own show for, what, all of a month...surely some video game company or SOMEONE would want to use them for marketing?)

Maybe NASA would like to talk to them?

Hell, maybe countries that hate the US would want to talk to them and see if they could supply them with super-amazing alien know-how on how to build a deathray or something...

How is throwing them in the gutter a logical choice, District 9 fans?

Messages are nice...but they have to make sense in the context of the setting...
Maybe it does, but enlighten men--

Why does throwing them in the gutter beat ALL those options? Really? Not even a zoo or something will pay you and show them off like circus animals...the biggest discovery in the history of mankind, and it's "Fuck off, aliens?"

Don't ask so many questions and just watch it, Obi. It's a good movie.

People.

This thing has SERIOUS mental problems.

Do it a favour, and ignore it's obvious pathetic attempts (this utterly meaningless thread, for one) for seeking attention.

It needs TREATMENT, not validation.

For pity's sake.

If we, as a community, completely ignore it until displays normalcy, then we will have behaved compassionately.

Before there was Thucy v. Krellin, there was Obi v. Mapleleaf

District 9 is a seriously good movie, don't judge without seeing.

I'd even say it doesn't really use a sledgehammer in it's *many* messages (not just how we treat strangers to our shores but commentary on the media as well).

Yes, do watch District 9. It's a very good movie with action, comedy and food for thought!

LMFAO mapleleaf

Regarding Elysium, I just want to post the great irony in the movie. The overly entitled attitudes and rich closed gated society that Elysium represents most accurately represents the culture of the Hollywood-Beverly Hills community.

Its ironic that Matt Damon continually makes movies taking a shit on that kind of society when if Elysium existed in real life, he would be living there.