Neill Blomkamp's Elysium

allybhoy · 26-08-2013 11:51AM

For me the best CGI was

when Damon was shooting one of the droids and it disintegrated into a thousand pieces in slow motion, that was stunning

pixelburp · 26-08-2013 11:57AM

So I'm a sucker for any speculative fiction with heavy world-building, and while Elysium's slums are evocative (apparently they filmed in a rubbish dump to get the right look & feel), they don't stand up to much scrutiny and that derailed a lot of the suspension of disbelief for me.

It felt like the makers were so eager to create an obscene mirror of the modern world, they failed to fill the blanks that fell naturally from this concept. Allegorical world-building is problematic when its starting point is overly simplistic, and when the tone is so intentionally anchored in 'reality' as it was here, you also lose the ability to hide the flaws of this world behind fantasy, satire or the grotesque (although the population on Elysium strayed close to parody sometimes). Everything was played so straight - bar Copley's scenery chewing - I just couldn't help pick at the seams.

Elysium was a binary, dystopian world featuring two exaggerated extremes, and the simple absence of any kind of middle-ground blew the entire concept out of the water in my mind. A big flaw was an absence of any form of middleclass, of a demographic that must surely have existed on this Earth. Yet as far as we were allowed know, only the rich elite & impoverished masses exist here. The film already had such clunky, social guilt-tripping to begin with (ooh, aren't those Elysium people so uncaring and aloof), but the fact nobody on Earth seemed to have access to a fraction of the tech, lifestyle or comfort of the space-dwellers, the absence of even the tiniest shade of grey made the concept too unbelievable.

All that said, the action itself was grand, if a little choppily edited in places, and ignoring the college student politicking, the film was gorgeous to look at.

Syd Meads touch was all over the designs and while most viewers would perhaps pay no heed to the visuals, I think the difference an industrial designer like Mead brings to a fictional world is priceless. Frankly, I could happily have watched 90 minutes of panning shots across the technology & spaces of this world; it's to Blomkamps credit that he integrates the heavy FX work so utterly seamlessly; between District 9 and this, he truly sets the benchmark on merging heavy CGI into your scene without the joins showing.

krudler · 26-08-2013 12:09PM

Did anyone else find it odd that on Elysium

every house seems to have a med bay capable of curing, well anything in seconds, yet they have ships full of them? if every citizen had one in their home then why not send a few to earth, if they cure people in seconds you could have them working around the clock and everyone would be disease free in months, therefore not as much reason for the illegals to be trying to get up there. Granted they wanted out of poverty but once they got to Elsyium, then what? they weren't just able to get there and buy a big house they were still poor.

It was something that was poorly executed, people had obvious reasons to get up there, mostly health releated, but then what?

Optimalprimerib · 26-08-2013 12:20PM

Did anyone else feel that this was basically vanquish the movie?

Goldstein · 26-08-2013 01:46PM

krudler wrote: »

Did anyone else find it odd that on Elysium
every house seems to have a med bay capable of curing, well anything in seconds, yet they have ships full of them? if every citizen had one in their home then why not send a few to earth, if they cure people in seconds you could have them working around the clock and everyone would be disease free in months, therefore not as much reason for the illegals to be trying to get up there. Granted they wanted out of poverty but once they got to Elsyium, then what? they weren't just able to get there and buy a big house they were still poor.
It was something that was poorly executed, people had obvious reasons to get up there, mostly health releated, but then what?

Still digesting the movie but I had the exact same thought.

They over did the bio-bed tech magic for 150 years down the road. If it can reconstruct someone's face and keep everyone young why wasn't everyone in their 20s?

Also, why are there no defensive weapons protecting Elysium? Intruders land there so often they have a deportation area yet they need to rely on a guy with a shoulder launched missile on Earth to defend it? What would happen if there were 50 ships or an asteroid?

Banjaxed82 · 26-08-2013 01:57PM

Goldstein wrote: »

Still digesting the movie but I had the exact same thought.
They over did the bio-bed tech magic for 150 years down the road. If it can reconstruct someone's face and keep everyone young why wasn't everyone in their 20s?

Also, why are there no defensive weapons protecting Elysium? Intruders land there so often they have a deportation area yet they need to rely on a guy with a shoulder launched missile on Earth to defend it? What would happen if there were 50 ships or an asteroid?

Very true.

If you can

reconstruct someone's face in mere seconds, and build this massive revolving eco system in space, surely a defence would have evolved beyond a shoulder mounted rocket.

It was the constant plot holes like this that took away so much from the film.

conorhal · 26-08-2013 03:28PM

pixelburp wrote: »

So I'm a sucker for any speculative fiction with heavy world-building, and while Elysium's slums are evocative (apparently they filmed in a rubbish dump to get the right look & feel), they don't stand up to much scrutiny and that derailed a lot of the suspension of disbelief for me.

It felt like the makers were so eager to create an obscene mirror of the modern world, they failed to fill the blanks that fell naturally from this concept. Allegorical world-building is problematic when its starting point is overly simplistic, and when the tone is so intentionally anchored in 'reality' as it was here, you also lose the ability to hide the flaws of this world behind fantasy, satire or the grotesque (although the population on Elysium strayed close to parody sometimes). Everything was played so straight - bar Copley's scenery chewing - I just couldn't help pick at the seams.

Elysium was a binary, dystopian world featuring two exaggerated extremes, and the simple absence of any kind of middle-ground blew the entire concept out of the water in my mind. A big flaw was an absence of any form of middleclass, of a demographic that must surely have existed on this Earth. Yet as far as we were allowed know, only the rich elite & impoverished masses exist here. The film already had such clunky, social guilt-tripping to begin with (ooh, aren't those Elysium people so uncaring and aloof), but the fact nobody on Earth seemed to have access to a fraction of the tech, lifestyle or comfort of the space-dwellers, the absence of even the tiniest shade of grey made the concept too unbelievable.

All that said, the action itself was grand, if a little choppily edited in places, and ignoring the college student politicking, the film was gorgeous to look at.

Syd Meads touch was all over the designs and while most viewers would perhaps pay no heed to the visuals, I think the difference an industrial designer like Mead brings to a fictional world is priceless. Frankly, I could happily have watched 90 minutes of panning shots across the technology & spaces of this world; it's to Blomkamps credit that he integrates the heavy FX work so utterly seamlessly; between District 9 and this, he truly sets the benchmark on merging heavy CGI into your scene without the joins showing.

You should (if you haven't already) give the manga comic 'Battle Angel Alita' a try if that's the kind of fleshed out world you're interested in, Blomkamp seems to have liberally 'borrowed' much of his material from that particular manga.......

From the Wikipedia page:

The futuristic dystopian world of Battle Angel Alita revolves around the city of Scrapyard, grown up around a massive scrap heap that rains down from Tiphares (Salem in the anime). Ground dwellers have no access to Tiphares and are forced to make a living in the sprawl below. Many are heavily modified by cybernetics to better cope with their hard life.
Tiphares exploits the Scrapyard and surrounding farms, paying mercenaries (called Hunter-Warriors) to hunt criminals and arranging violent sports to keep the population entertained. Massive tubes connect the Scrapyard to Tiphares, and the city uses robots for carrying out errands and providing security on the ground. Occasionally, Tiphareans (such as Ido Daisuke and Desty Nova) are exiled and sent to the ground. Aside from the robots and exiles, there is little between the two cities.

Radiosonde · 26-08-2013 05:23PM

conorhal wrote: »

You should (if you haven't already) give the manga comic 'Battle Angel Alita' a try if that's the kind of fleshed out world you're interested in, Blomkamp seems to have liberally 'borrowed' much of his material from that particular manga.......

Wish James Cameron had gone ahead with his plan for a Battle Angel movie instead of Dances With Smurfs 2.

conorhal · 27-08-2013 08:16AM

Radiosonde wrote: »

Wish James Cameron had gone ahead with his plan for a Battle Angel movie instead of Dances With Smurfs 2.

Amen to that! I've been waiting years for him to get off his butt with this project. Sadly it seems that it's not going to happen now.

allanb49 · 27-08-2013 10:20AM

What happened to the homeland security robots that 3 guys could run around without hassle?

constitutionus · 28-08-2013 10:18PM

krudler wrote: »

Best CGI effect of the year so far too imo in
Copley's facial reconstruction

that was done so well i woulda sworn blind it was a practical effect.

Nervous Wreck · 29-08-2013 12:14AM

krudler wrote: »

Did anyone else find it odd that on Elysium
every house seems to have a med bay capable of curing, well anything in seconds, yet they have ships full of them? if every citizen had one in their home then why not send a few to earth, if they cure people in seconds you could have them working around the clock and everyone would be disease free in months, therefore not as much reason for the illegals to be trying to get up there. Granted they wanted out of poverty but once they got to Elsyium, then what? they weren't just able to get there and buy a big house they were still poor.
It was something that was poorly executed, people had obvious reasons to get up there, mostly health releated, but then what?

*Spoilers in this post*

The reason for this, I believe, is that the movie is using private healthcare as the vehicle for its message on class separation. Every single character we saw arrive on Elysium was there for medical treatment. Now granted, we only saw the mother and child at the start and then the main characters bt still. Even the dude who made everyone a citizen had a limp that, you can guess, was probably his real reason for going there. I also think this is why there's no 'grey area' as someone mentioned above. There's the rich and the poor and no middle class. And it's because, with healthcare, you get the (in many cases) awful public system or the fantastic private system. The best treatment for those who can afford it and eff the rest. Its a two tier system. And just like you said, if the machines were spread evenly among everyone, the whole world could be cured. Much like, if the whole country (for example) shared the cost of public healthcare evenly (and huge amounts of money weren't arbitrarily paid to consultants who see a patient for 40 seconds a week), then everyone could be serviced cheaply and efficiently. That's what I took from it anyway!

Also thought the language thing was a nice touch. People on Elysium speaking French and the poor on earth speaking Spanish. Says a lot!

Mickeroo · 29-08-2013 12:53PM

Saw this lastnight. I enjoyed it, but there's no question it's a pretty run of the mill action film.

Perhaps i shouldn't have re-watched D9 last week but in comparison this felt pretty derivative and hollow. It never embraced the potential for satire & social commentary the premise had and after D9 I just expected something a lot less, for want of a better word, hollywood and a lot more scathing.

On the plus side, it looked amazing. Seriously some of the best effects work I've seen, the CG was seamless. The action was great too, although I was dissappointed with the amount of shakey-cam present (though it wasn't a constant thankfully). When stuff looks this good I want to be able to see it clearly dammit!

I thought the cast were decent too (apart from Foster). Copely was the standout with his bad ass beard. Shame the script let them down somewhat. It wasn't that the story was bad, it just never went far enough for me. I would agree they could have ditched the little girl sub plot too in favour of more time spent on elysium.

Overall this joins Pacific Rim as a film that I had huge hopes for only to end up being pretty good rather than great.

I'll still look forward to Blompkamps next project whatever it may be.

krudler · 29-08-2013 03:37PM

Mickeroo wrote: »

Saw this lastnight. I enjoyed it, but there's no question it's a pretty run of the mill action film.

Perhaps i shouldn't have re-watched D9 last week but in comparison this felt pretty derivative and hollow. It never embraced the potential for satire & social commentary the premise had and after D9 I just expected something a lot less, for want of a better word, hollywood and a lot more scathing.

On the plus side, it looked amazing. Seriously some of the best effects work I've seen, the CG was seamless. The action was great too, although I was dissappointed with the amount of shakey-cam present (though it wasn't a constant thankfully). When stuff looks this good I want to be able to see it clearly dammit!

It's made more annoying by that recent interview Blomkamp did where he was giving out about not being able to see action sequences in blockbuster films, then goes as does the exact same thing himself in a lot of Elysium's sequences

The scene where

Max fights Kruger on the walkway, it had this cool industrial setting with trees in it for some reason, nice visual, and its all shakey close ups of two guys rolling around and the odd wide shot, couldn't make out a lot of who was hitting who in it.

Royal.Baby · 29-08-2013 03:39PM

Why cant they make a movie that doesn't fall apart in the final third?

Kylo Ren · 29-08-2013 07:26PM

I really enjoyed it. Copley was excellent. Foster was a let down

Fookin' Prawns.

The Black Oil · 29-08-2013 09:03PM

Firstly, this gets a point or two for once more having Copley effin and blindin' in his South African accent, :pac: and secondly, I think there was some Lisa Gerrard/Dead Can Dance in there, also, though overuse of such choons can grate.

I generally liked it. It is well made and enjoyable (strong visuals), but it is a bit unremarkable. Damon can do the blue collar thing and I think the film managed to balance the contrasts between the dirty, overcrowded Earth and the clinical, integrated, well-resourced Elysium (with some black ops thrown in, as you'd expect) pretty well. I thought it laboured a little once the main Elysium business kicked off, and a core weakness was the characters and not feeling much connection with them. They aren't drawn well enough to make you feel part of their experiences. It is hard to blend an interesting and entertaining alternate world with a core group of people. Not many films pull it off.

As to the Jodie Foster question...um, what? She seemed a bit over-animated, or something.

That_Guy · 31-08-2013 12:31AM

Saw this today and I enjoyed it but what is up with some of the accents in this film?

Mickeroo · 31-08-2013 12:34AM

That_Guy wrote: »

Saw this today and I enjoyed it but what is up with some of the accents in this film?

Fosters was weird but the others seemed fine?

catallus · 31-08-2013 12:38AM

I thought it was a good movie, the bad guy was pretty cool, and the scene where Damon is talking to his robotic parole officer was very very funny.

eyeball kid · 01-09-2013 12:37AM

Saw this on Friday night. Had avoided all the trailers so had no real expectations going in.

Decent enough I thought but it could have been so much better. As someone mentioned previously, they didn't explore the world of Elysium at all. Thought there was a lot of potential with that side of the story. As for the mother with the sick child, they really could have cut that out. That whole resolution was painfully predictable.

Matt Damon was ok but didn't really have to do too much and while Copley was very good, his character was pretty cliched. Loved the visuals though, thought it looked brilliant. Overall worth seeing though.

The Black Oil · 01-09-2013 09:13AM

The red vessel William Fichtner used - that had a Bugatti (rear) logo, right?

Hande hoche! · 01-09-2013 09:36AM

The Black Oil wrote: »

The red vessel William Fichtner used - that had a Bugatti (rear) logo, right?

It had indeed. Foster's character had a Bulgari watch I think. It was a nice touch by the director.

Bullseye1 · 01-09-2013 10:35AM

Really enjoyed this. Visually stunning and amazing cinematography.

Kingp35 · 02-09-2013 01:01PM

There was an awful lot of things that didn't a whole lot of since in this film but the one that annoyed me more than most was this:

The world is run down and ravaged with disease due to a lack of resources because of serious overpopulation. So what do they do? They decide to fight to make Elysiums miracle medical pods available to everyone on Earth which would therefore make the overpopulation problems MUCH MUCH WORSE!

. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and is just one of a number of things wrong.

It looked great, had some nice action but poor acting from Foster and a very poor story let it down.

Ole Rodrigo · 02-09-2013 01:30PM

I think I'm alone in finding Copleys character very annoying - his accent was like a cheese grater on my ears.

The visuals were stunning and the pervious poster is right, Elysium could have been fleshed out a lot more. I liked Foster, she has a natural glacial quality ( those razor lips maybe ) and Damon does the tough guy with a trampled soul very well.

It was a good film that could have been a great film, but I guess with summer blockbusters things have to be kept simple.

johnny_ultimate · 02-09-2013 05:01PM

ror_74 wrote: »

I think I'm alone in finding Copleys character very annoying - his accent was like a cheese grater on my ears.

You're not alone, although perhaps for different reasons - personally, I thought such a pantomime villain was an incredible waste of Copley's obvious screen charisma. Personally, I tend to find villains that are recognisably human much more menacing. Here, it was just a cartoonish psychopath.

krudler · 02-09-2013 05:29PM

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

You're not alone, although perhaps for different reasons - personally, I thought such a pantomime villain was an incredible waste of Copley's obvious screen charisma. Personally, I tend to find villains that are recognisably human much more menacing. Here, it was just a cartoonish psychopath.

He essentially played the same character who he was trying to avoid in District 9, the lead bald mercenary guy, with extra beard.

Mickeroo · 02-09-2013 05:37PM

krudler wrote: »

He essentially played the same character who he was trying to avoid in District 9, the lead bald mercenary guy, with extra beard.

Hell of a beard though. :pac:

Zubeneschamali · 03-09-2013 12:17PM

Some good visuals, the shuttles in space were nice. There was a good stupid action movie in there somewhere starring Copley and Damon. There was a good SF dystopia in there, too.

But it didn't come together.

And Elysium as shown would not work without some magic to keep the air in.

Neill Blomkamp's Elysium

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