30 thoughts on “Elysium”

  1. That is a movie, if I bothered to spend any money on it, where I would be rooting for the “bad guys,”

    1. That’s because the “bad guys” want to settle the cosmos while the “good guys” are just working on a futuristic version of healthcare reform.

  2. When you build a fictional world just to meet your own infantile ideas of rich and poor, and you pay no attention to how real technological societies work, you end up creating something that doesn’t work on any level beyond pretty pictures. That doesn’t mean that the pretty pictures aren’t worth a view. As the author suggested, just turn off the sound and look at the really big (and horribly engineered) Stanford torus.

    1. The movie never explicitly said why a box that cures all diseases could only be found in space. It did push the idea this was because of nefarious intent rather than any economic or technological limitations. It is hard to believe that a technology could be as common as a coffee table and yet totally unavailable on Earth even to any terrestrial elites or governments.

    2. What is it about the design that you don’t like? I know there’s the whole thing of “doesn’t have a roof”, but I did have to allow that was important to a plot point.

      1. If you need to defy the laws of physics to make a major plot element possible, you are doing it wrong.

    1. Avatar was little more than Dances With Wolves in space. Admittedly, the visuals were terrific but the plot was yet another Hollywood retread.

  4. There are plenty of stupid plot holes in that film. As for the poor vs rich scenario the director had done it before when he did District 13. He’s from South Africa. He stated the movie was a metaphor over the social situation in South Africa where instead of putting poor black people in the movie he used aliens instead.

    So it was hardly unexpected this movie would turn out like it did. If you have issues with movies doing social critiques just do not see them. Also while some things are implausible others are actually believable IMO. It also does not have a Hollywood ending so a lot of people hate it. Then again a lot of people hated Blade Runner when it came out.

    1. If you have issues with movies doing social critiques just do not see them.

      That’s fine as far as it goes, assuming society then doesn’t try to treat those movies as somehow reflecting reality. What’s going on here is that certain viewpoints get the money for movies. Why do so many movies with a dysfunctional and immature view of society get so much budget? I doubt it’s because moviegoers have a subconscious need to get preached at.

  5. Really, the remarkable thing is that society hasn’t collapsed yet. So much of the population of the west hates technology, hates wealth, hates industry, hates free enterprise, and hates individual liberty.

    1. Didn’t see Atlas Shrugged I or II, but I liked this review comment: ‘ “fast-paced” when compared with the original novel’s 1200-page length’. Even those of us who have a little bit of sympathy with Ayn Rand’s philosophy mostly skipped through John Galt’s speech.

      2. “DVD rentals and sales can tack on up to $60-$100 mil for a big title and TV rights, merchandise, and many other avenues can generate income,”

        So figure Elysium made $370 Million, it probably did okay, overall. Not a monster megahit
        like Harry Potter, bust still 100X better then Atlas Shrugged.

    4. Another moronic comment from the village idiot.

      Do you really imagine that how badly made films created from ideas indicate the power of the ideas?

      OK, you’re an idiot, so I suppose you do.

      1. I could not stomach reading Atlas Shrugged. It is hardly surprising the movie sucks balls too. As for LoTR it took me like 2-3 days per book to read. I just could not put it down once I started. Awesome.

        Regardless of how good the ideas are the book is just too poorly written.

      2. Maybe you could put your amazing writing talents into a new screenplay of The Fountainhead.

  7. Elysium: “The reason our health care is struggling is that Elon Musk is getting over 250 flu shots per day and had three heart-lung transplants last week, just for fun.”

    1. I don’t know what Elon is doing. But Steve Jobs got a liver transplant under highly suspicious circumstances. Of course right afterwards he proceeded to ignore medical advice and went into a mystical diet instead of taking his pills. You can guess how well that went.

    2. For Elysium’s theme to work Steve Jobs would have to get hundreds of liver transplants, because how else could the 1% suck up 99% of the health care? I imagine that they sit around breaking all of each other’s bones just to tighten their noose on the plaster cast market.

      Oh wait. This just in. Rich people are healthier than poor people because they take good care of themselves, and thus use less than their share of health resources. People who drink Steel Reserve and Old English 800 make up a very disproportionate amount of ER visits. People who drive Bentley’s make up an under represented group of health care users – probably because they drive around slowly looking to score some Grey Poupon.

      1. Pohl played a bit with this concept in the Gateway series, but it wasn’t that poorer people couldn’t get medical care so much as it was about the huge gap between fantastic, science-fiction (literally!) medical care and something more akin to what we get today.

  8. I have been the Silo series (Wool, Shift, Dust) I can see the elites of the left doing exactly what is in that series. (very good reads, I highly recommend)

    1. Yep. And they were dems. I recommend too, but in the correct order (Shift,Wool,Dust) 🙂

      1. I actually preferred reading them wool, shift, dust…the added mystery about where the silos came from increased the suspense

Comments are closed.