Elysium
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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If you want to push some type of political message or show the plight of some group of people or whatever, make a documentary.
Trying to intertwine it(and in the case of Elysium shove it down your throat) just ruins what could otherwise be a good movie.
Adebisi
Clump of Cells
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Having both the little girl AND matt damon terminally ill and needing their rides to Elysium made it kinda weak. You're not sure who you're supposed to care more about - little girl or damon. You only have so much feels to go around, namean?
They should've had only the girl dying, and damon fighting to get her there.
They should've had only the girl dying, and damon fighting to get her there.
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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I could've done without the entire female/daughter characters in the movie. They really served no purpose except the girl telling Matt Damon that retarded story and him giving her the same look I give kids when they tell me retarded stories.
meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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From the rough times they gave of the ships going back and forth (12-19 minutes?), his brain would have been dying/dead for proabably 30-40 minutes, which sounded like the prerequisite for successfully healing folks.
I liked the movie overall. For 120 minutes it felt short and hope we get a lot of extras come Blu-Ray time. I can't get enough of the effects in this/District 9.
zzeris
King Turd of Shit Hill
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I think it was a good movie with a great message. The typical American needs to be sledgehammered to understand more than basic ideas. Throw in more action to keep them happy and Bam! - your new movie may build upon District's success. This is the kind of movie this guy likes to make and I'm always down for a good sci-fi flick.
Wingz
Being Poor Sucks.
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Saw this last night, it was merely ok. Worth renting maybe, but no more.
The problem I have with the movie is that it attempts to make this a parallel with the US immigration problem, but fails utterly in understanding why it's a problem in the first place, leading to heavy handed and illogical "messaging".
First of all, the issue with the real life US/mexico border issue isn't an issue of place. In other words, if I'm standing near the border of mexico in the USA, there's very little difference between the actual land I'm standing on. It's all about the same dry desert land, basically. The difference is brought about by who lives where, and how they think and how they run things. USA government is (relatively speaking) uncorrupted and uses its resources well to generate prosperity, whereas Mexico's government is hugely corrupted and just doesn't do a good job providing its people with a chance for prosperity. Whereas in this movie, this concept is either not understood or just glossed over, in that all one has to do is reach a different place (Elysium), and then things are automatically better.
Second, if the problem of this time is really overcrowding, I don't think people would build the great place in space, I think it would be the other way around. People would make the planet great, and then ship off the "excess" people to be crammed into space habitats that are little more than prisons. This would be much cheaper, and facilitate an "out of sight, out of mind" rationale much better.
Third, as someone else said, the real thing the people on earth wanted was access to Elysium's advanced technology, not to have to live there. Why not just steal it? There would have to be a way. After a few decades, someone on Elysium would likely feel sorry for earth's plight and defect with the info, or someone would hack them, or whatever.
Fourth, whatever happened to nuclear weapons? At the very least, someone would have gotten pissed off over Elysium living so high and them living so low and sent a few nukes their way, an orbiting station would be incredibly vulnerable to something like this. Maybe they were equipped with a station sized shield gizmo like Kruger used, but still, you'd think someone would have just decided to destroy the place at some point.
The heavy handed terminology was what did it for me, "Deploy Homeland security!" On a space station it's still called Homeland Security? Give me a break.
First of all, the issue with the real life US/mexico border issue isn't an issue of place. In other words, if I'm standing near the border of mexico in the USA, there's very little difference between the actual land I'm standing on. It's all about the same dry desert land, basically. The difference is brought about by who lives where, and how they think and how they run things. USA government is (relatively speaking) uncorrupted and uses its resources well to generate prosperity, whereas Mexico's government is hugely corrupted and just doesn't do a good job providing its people with a chance for prosperity. Whereas in this movie, this concept is either not understood or just glossed over, in that all one has to do is reach a different place (Elysium), and then things are automatically better.
Second, if the problem of this time is really overcrowding, I don't think people would build the great place in space, I think it would be the other way around. People would make the planet great, and then ship off the "excess" people to be crammed into space habitats that are little more than prisons. This would be much cheaper, and facilitate an "out of sight, out of mind" rationale much better.
Third, as someone else said, the real thing the people on earth wanted was access to Elysium's advanced technology, not to have to live there. Why not just steal it? There would have to be a way. After a few decades, someone on Elysium would likely feel sorry for earth's plight and defect with the info, or someone would hack them, or whatever.
Fourth, whatever happened to nuclear weapons? At the very least, someone would have gotten pissed off over Elysium living so high and them living so low and sent a few nukes their way, an orbiting station would be incredibly vulnerable to something like this. Maybe they were equipped with a station sized shield gizmo like Kruger used, but still, you'd think someone would have just decided to destroy the place at some point.
The heavy handed terminology was what did it for me, "Deploy Homeland security!" On a space station it's still called Homeland Security? Give me a break.
Kreugen
Vyemm Raider
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Epilogue:
More Sharlto Copely please.
I want a Blomkamp version of Saving Private Ryan set in 2125 with the guns from this and D9. So fucking cool. With the weapons and toys he comes up the plot could be taken from a porno and I'd still want to see it.
After the ensuing population explosion, most of the planet starves. What year was Hunger Games set in?
As to why Max Damon had to be sick and not just the girl, it's because the director likes stories where the flawed protagonist is acting almost entirely out of self preservation rather than the goodness of his heart, because Neill Blomkamp is a cynical bastard. I think his bitterness over losing the Halo movie drives him to make movies where nearly every character is a selfish asshole.
Hell, even his redeeming act was hardly that because even if he had healed himself and told everyone else to fuck off he was still basically fucked. Che Guevera knew what was in his head, was Max going to kill him and everyone else who knew too?
As to why Max Damon had to be sick and not just the girl, it's because the director likes stories where the flawed protagonist is acting almost entirely out of self preservation rather than the goodness of his heart, because Neill Blomkamp is a cynical bastard. I think his bitterness over losing the Halo movie drives him to make movies where nearly every character is a selfish asshole.
Hell, even his redeeming act was hardly that because even if he had healed himself and told everyone else to fuck off he was still basically fucked. Che Guevera knew what was in his head, was Max going to kill him and everyone else who knew too?
More Sharlto Copely please.
I want a Blomkamp version of Saving Private Ryan set in 2125 with the guns from this and D9. So fucking cool. With the weapons and toys he comes up the plot could be taken from a porno and I'd still want to see it.
Kreugen
Vyemm Raider
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So I did some more reading and apparently there is a huge conservitard bitchfest over the supposed liberal message of the film when there is no clear message either way. The rich vs poor stuff is just the setting for a sci-fi action film. There's no proselytizing whatsoever. Everything is left for you to judge for yourself. The characters nearly all act out of selfish self-interest, rich or poor. Not one person lifts a finger to help a stranger. The protagonist was so fucking far from being portrayed as a saint that people calling this propaganda are absolute retards. In fact, his actions more than likely made the world even worse off in the long term. In one scene people are even teasing him for having a job. If this was all about "liberals are perfect; conservatives are evil!" then all of the poor people would have been lined up outside of the factory gates begging for work, right? Or maybe all their problems would have been solved by working together in a classless, moneyless hippie commune, was that the message? It seems to me that the movie simply reflected today's (South African) reality without judgement.
The main flaw was the lack of a character making a remark like "if we all had access to their medical magic, how would we feed and house everyone?" That would have provided the missing counter point. Note that there's no epilogue to the movie that claims that everyone lived happily ever after in harmony because free health care solved all the world's problems. If that had been the case, then yeah, people would be right to have their panties in a twist because that's obviously idealistic nonsense. But there's nothing that suggests that is the case.
Furthermore, the movie clearly showed that the government didn't approve of Foster's actions. People who lack compassion and empathy were the villains of the movie, not simply "rich honkies." Hell, the police were literally robots, how much more obvious can you get?
Granted, the CEO was an over the top shitbag, heh. But again, the movie did not claim he was an asshole because he was rich. He was simply a rich asshole.
The poor need the rich and the rich need the poor, that's your damn message. Now enjoy the explosions.
Also, +1 for having someone justify murder with a "because the children" speech. I chuckled as soon as she went there.
PS: I've been interrupted ten fucking times while typing this so I give up on editing it into something less of a mess.
The main flaw was the lack of a character making a remark like "if we all had access to their medical magic, how would we feed and house everyone?" That would have provided the missing counter point. Note that there's no epilogue to the movie that claims that everyone lived happily ever after in harmony because free health care solved all the world's problems. If that had been the case, then yeah, people would be right to have their panties in a twist because that's obviously idealistic nonsense. But there's nothing that suggests that is the case.
Furthermore, the movie clearly showed that the government didn't approve of Foster's actions. People who lack compassion and empathy were the villains of the movie, not simply "rich honkies." Hell, the police were literally robots, how much more obvious can you get?
Granted, the CEO was an over the top shitbag, heh. But again, the movie did not claim he was an asshole because he was rich. He was simply a rich asshole.
The poor need the rich and the rich need the poor, that's your damn message. Now enjoy the explosions.
Also, +1 for having someone justify murder with a "because the children" speech. I chuckled as soon as she went there.
PS: I've been interrupted ten fucking times while typing this so I give up on editing it into something less of a mess.
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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In addition to a bunch of other stuff I feel like the movie needed a few scenes showing the incredible capacity the citizens of Elysium had to improve life on Earth but didn't because 'fuck those guys'. In addition to the bacta tanks they could've demonstrated food generation tech, air/water purification, energy generation, cheap construction ability etc. Overcrowding isn't really a problem if you have resources to support it.
With that kind of ability being demonstrated I think the movie would be much different, where as with how it is I agree completely with Kreugen.
With that kind of ability being demonstrated I think the movie would be much different, where as with how it is I agree completely with Kreugen.
Kreugen
Vyemm Raider
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Yeah you got the gist of my rambling mess. We simply aren't shown enough to make the conclusions people are making, and the movie makes no attempt to preach about anything. It's simply a cynical view of today's world.
People who take offense just need to adjust the stick up their ass.
People who take offense just need to adjust the stick up their ass.
TrollfaceDeux
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cyrusreij
Trakanon Raider
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I enjoyed this thoroughly and since I am a simple minded retard I honestly completely did not get the whole parallel to the US border crossing and homeland security, I was more focused on how awesome of a character Kruger was. Damn it sucks to be ignorant of the obvious and enjoy things at face value and miss the deeper message sometimes :\
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Elysium just doesnt make any sense when you realize that Elysium itself has unlimited resources.
Kreugen
Vyemm Raider
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What makes you say that it has unlimited resources? It's basically just a giant gated community in space. The factories and crap are still on Earth. They are still Job Creators.
With the limited information we have, we can basically assume everything functions like modern day South Africa. (ps: the movie is not about 'merica)
With the limited information we have, we can basically assume everything functions like modern day South Africa. (ps: the movie is not about 'merica)
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Ability to reconstruct a human face nearly instantly with the wave of a wand? The staggering gap in technology possessed by Elysium and Earth is almost logic breaking when you realize the state Earth is in. Max goes to a hospital and all he is given for a broken arm is a cast. It just makes no sense for such a disparity between the two societies.