Elysium

[chonies]

Saw it tonight and loved it. I thought the story was excellent, the pacing was tight, and it was very meaningful. Better, perhaps, than District 9.
Lots and lots of stuff to discuss at our post-movie dinner.

[darlingnikki]

Damn good movie. A little heavy-handed on the metaphors (unauthorized crafts were called "undocumented" for cryin' out loud), but it's the second best movie I've seen this summer (Pacific Rim being the first)

Can I just say that Sharlto Copley deserves to be more famous? 'Cause he does.

[marmalade]

I really enjoyed it. Like District 9, it's a good straight-up allegory with some pretty great action sequences. I was bothered by a few things, though. One, the hero was like the only white guy in an entire planet of brown people. I was also a bit confused by the fact that

SPOILER: Click to show

Spoiler
they could revive Sharlto Copely's character after his head was pretty much destroyed, but not Jodie Foster's character or even the douchebag head of the company Matt Damon's character worked for. They both died too, but their brains were still intact, right? So they could have been revived.

But overall, very enjoyable, and I loved the detail in both Elysium and on earth. The parole officer was a nice touch.

[chonies]

Aug 10, 2013 13:47:25 GMT -4 marmalade said:

I really enjoyed it. Like District 9, it's a good straight-up allegory with some pretty great action sequences. I was bothered by a few things, though. One, the hero was like the only white guy in an entire planet of brown people. I was also a bit confused by the fact that

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}they could revive Sharlto Copely's character after his head was pretty much destroyed, but not Jodie Foster's character or even the douchebag head of the company Matt Damon's character worked for. They both died too, but their brains were still intact, right? So they could have been revived.

But overall, very enjoyable, and I loved the detail in both Elysium and on earth. The parole officer was a nice touch.

marmalade, I read that as

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}Jodie Foster and the CEO guy were not saveable because they had a banal blood loss situation, but Kruger was restored because he was still alive, even barely. I'm guessing the MedBay just heals but doesn't perform resurrections. Also, Delacourt refused help, hastening her death. Anyone see it differently?

Re: the race issue. Valid point, but I saw the whole point of that as emphasizing more of the class and economics of the situation.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}Example: there were people of Asian descent in the first scene of the undocumented shuttle, and also living on Elysium. I'll have to think about it much more, though. I don't know if it's not enough that the hero has a non-Anglo name and has other markers of non-whiteness; I'll try to follow this up. Not to mention, the white South Africans were clearly persona non grata--they were welcome on the periphery as long as they behaved but were also dispensable. I am very aware of the role of South Africans and others as mercenaries in pockets of 20th and 21st century history, but that also kind of underscores the axiom of all poor people looking alike to a rich man </driveby truckers songs>.

And I totally agree. Sharlto Copley needs to have his star power rise. I will now officially watch anything he's in. I thought Jodie Foster's performance was kind of hit or miss. She was good and icy, but I thought the cultivated prestigious accent she was using went in and out. The parole officer at the beginning kind of made my stomach sink just a bit. I didn't really know much about the film beyond what was on Colbert, but the parole officer faked me out with its Idiocracy 2: The Art House Version vibe.

[darlingnikki]

Aug 10, 2013 13:47:25 GMT -4 marmalade said:

I really enjoyed it. Like District 9, it's a good straight-up allegory with some pretty great action sequences. I was bothered by a few things, though. One, the hero was like the only white guy in an entire planet of brown people. I was also a bit confused by the fact that

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}they could revive Sharlto Copely's character after his head was pretty much destroyed, but not Jodie Foster's character or even the douchebag head of the company Matt Damon's character worked for. They both died too, but their brains were still intact, right? So they could have been revived.

But overall, very enjoyable, and I loved the detail in both Elysium and on earth. The parole officer was a nice touch.

A couple of things bugged me about Matt Damon's character. Like, he was a bit too Jason Bourne-y after he got the exoskeleton put on.  

And for a guy trying to save a lot of money, he sure wanted a lot of tattoos.

As for Carlyle:

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}What was Carlyle's plan if he himself inserted the code into himself that would kill him if the code was removed? Why would he care about getting work for 200 years if he was only going to die anyway.

And speaking of time, why the hell was he programming in assembly language? That sure would take a lot of time for things an advanced high-level language (in 2154!) could have done in far closer to plain-speak terms.

Sorry, I'll switch my programming nerd off now.

[marmalade]

Aug 10, 2013 14:37:13 GMT -4 chonies said:

Re: the race issue. Valid point, but I saw the whole point of that as emphasizing more of the class and economics of the situation.

Oh, I definitely agree with that, it's just I was a little irritated because of the specific emphasis on him being special and meant for something greater - like obviously, he shouldn't be down there with the riffraff. If he hadn't been white or if literally every other disenfranchised character hadn't been PoC, the white-hero-meant-for-so-much-more-than-this thing wouldn't be such an issue for me. Based on his name and, like you said, his character kind of coding as not-white, I think it was probably not originally written that way.

Also, regarding the medbay stuff – that makes sense, thanks.

[chonies]

Aug 10, 2013 18:13:52 GMT -4 marmalade said:

Aug 10, 2013 14:37:13 GMT -4 chonies said:

Re: the race issue. Valid point, but I saw the whole point of that as emphasizing more of the class and economics of the situation.

Oh, I definitely agree with that, it's just I was a little irritated because of the specific emphasis on him being special and meant for something greater - like obviously, he shouldn't be down there with the riffraff. If he hadn't been white or if literally every other disenfranchised character hadn't been PoC, the white-hero-meant-for-so-much-more-than-this thing wouldn't be such an issue for me. Based on his name and, like you said, his character kind of coding as not-white, I think it was probably not originally written that way.

That's definitely an important point. I don't want to sound like a racebending apologist (because I don't think I am, and I don't want to be, in any case) but I will keep thinking about it. I'd like to read what Blomkamp has to say on the matter, and I really wish I could have known what Ebert would have said, but that's a topic for another time.