Elysium - Politically motivated movie to the max

I know this forum is used for movies, but I wanted to address the movie 'Elysium' and it's highly motivated political messages.

If anyone has seen this, do you agree the last five minutes were... well not to spoil the movie... political bull(*)(*)(*)(*), to say the least?

If you h aven't seen the movie, the premise is a spacecraft off of earth (full of white people, go wonder) while earth is in ruins (full of mexicans, go wonder). People want to go to Elysium to get better healthcare but can't because they're not citizens.

Just ruined it for many, sorry.

Here's a trailer for the movie:
[video=youtube;QILNSgou5BY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QILNSgou5BY[/video]

Anyway.

Anyone else see it? Same director who did District 9 I add.

 

My wife, the Republican, is very enthused about the movie.

I, the Democrat, am less so.

Neither of us have seen it.

We both liked District 9. I can watch a movie with political overtone, sometimes, and ignore them.

Often, the accusations made politically by such movies, are like the Democrats screaming "Racist" at everyone who dares to disagree with them, all the while supporting blatantly racist public policies and racial preferences.

In this movie, we are shown whites as an aristocratic elite, with rights and privileges that the planet-bound don't get.

But in Real-Life America, there are specially entitled and protected Americans, they are the Racially Preferred Non-Whites, and non-Males.

Once again the Left is accusing those around them of the very thing they themselves are doing.

There is an old saying, "The Thief is always the first to point at another and Cry - THIEF!"

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I saw that movie and liked the political message(s) contained therein.

Good movie overall.

 

Sure you're a Democrat.

Exactly how are black brown and yellow women "specially entitled" and "racially preferred"? This outta be good.

 

I should add I liked the movie overall, good sci fi.

 

racial and sex quotas, affrimative action, that crap. probably.

 

Going to see it tonight - However what exactly was spoiled for you. Many often complain that science fiction films are without substance, all flash bang, exciting but no real point. District 9 was an exceptionally challenging film, and was really an exploration of apartheid and its social effects, the aliens were just proxies to explore the human condition

 

I thought it had many political messages. Immigration, Police state, Open borders, Top 1% has everything, Homeland security, Class Warfare, healthcare etc.
The movie was ok, the CGI was great.


Matt Damon had some harsh words for Barack Obama Thursday

 

President Patel is a white guy? Give me a break. Most of the people on Elysium were white because most of the current elite of the planet are white. Some of the echo was a subtle hearkening back to Apartheid-era South Africa (psycho killer is a guy named Kruger with an Afrikkaner accent - and wasn't he the same actor who portrayed the hero in District 9?).

Elysium is the ultimate gated community. I particularily laughed at all the hispanic people being desperate to get OUT of Los Angeles, which made about 5 different political comments at once. The idea of Jodie Foster's character, in an attempt to preserve the refuge of the elite, jettisoning democracy and inviting in a much worse enemy was also a classic commentary on the dangers of facist thinking.

 

Haven't seen it but I could pretty much tell that it had a political message just from the previews. I really don't have much of a desire to see it. I watch movies for the fiction, not the subtext.

That's also why I didn't enjoy "The day the earth stood still". It ended up more or less just a political piece by the end of it.

 

D9 was interesting because it looked @ S. Africa from that POV. The aliens, the corporates trying to exploit the tech & biology, the tribes interacting, the gangs, the camps. I'll catch Elysium when it gets to TV or DVD, but I enjoy watching the director's work.

The S. African setting of D9 layers on a distinct political & cultural subtext. I think it's worth exploring other scenarios, & then allowing clashes of values to see how they play together.

 

Which has been a major driver in science fiction for an extremely long time. Star Ship Trooper, Day Of The Triffids, 1984 among countless others have all explored variations of the political theme

 

Could have downplayed the violence and made it more thoughtful more like the classic film 1984. It would have been stronger. But I favor the older style of movies on these topics what would be maybe called a Science Fiction Drama.

 

Yah, SF is one of the few genres that still puts a premium on plot & characterization. 1984? - I don't think Orwell meant it as SF, more as political allegory. I remember reading his comment that the title actually refers to 1948, if Communist-style governments flourished & the West had to imitate those polities in order to survive.

I don't remember a political subtext to Day of the Triffids, but then I remember the movie more than I do reading the novel. Starship Trooper, yes, set the bar for '50s SF in the reactionary/military sphere. I thought the recent movie caught the political temper of the book pretty well, all things considered. Of course, the movie spent far too much $ & attention on the bugs, they should have spent a lot more of both on the powered suits that defined the MI - & dropped the human (& inhuman) wave stuff - impressive visuals, but silly in a tac nuke battlefield.

We may simply have to wait for the next remake, just as SyFy Channel's remake of Dune & Children of Dune were - MO - far superior to the first Dune movie, somebody may produce a superior Starship Trooper in the future. We can always hope, @ least.

 

Since most of the movie industry is run by liberals, the default story line is always liberal whether on purpose or not.

 

You are absolutely correct. The book is clearly Orwell's disenchantment with the Soviet system, made all the more powerful with the knowledge he was a card carrying socialist for most of his life. Hence his original desire to name the book 1948

Yeah, the movie did not touch it, but the later mini series sort of toyed with it. In the novel the hero encounters isolated groups of survivors and we see allegories of socialist systems, dictatorships etc

Heinlein was quite the arse in his day. This was really the first time he really let his guard down and politically stated his position. There was a Japanese mini series years ago that did exactly the sort of thing you wished the film had

We may be waiting a while, the era of the flash bang science fiction film seems to be drawing to a close. Outside the superhero franchises none of these big budget films have been making their money back for a couple of years now. Pacific Rim is bucking the trend, but I think its success has been driven as much by the manga fan base as anything

 

(My bold)

Nah, most of the movie/entertainment industry is run by corps - & thereby, by bean counters. As the only thing bean counters know is counting beans, you can understand why most of the so-called SF movies are also-rans, populated by big names &/or no-names with big CGI budgets, but always with old tropes. Every once in a while you'll get a Star Wars-style breakout, showing us some heart to go with the gee-whizz effects. Not often, though, more's the pity.

It was depressing to see Disney's D23? extravaganza, although no word on the next Star Wars efforts. Knowing Disney, they'll be as bland as bland can be, with neatly lettered signs saying "Keep off the grass." The movie equivalent of those little snow globes - shake vigorously, let the soap flakes or whatever they're using these days settle over the maquette inside. Tiresome to think that they've absconded with Marvel Comics - who were, in their day, fairly innovative. Kind of like EA "updating" their sports video games - without actually changing anything others than faces & jersey numbers ...

The movie Pandorum was interesting, the world-ship idea taken to a logical extreme. It was graphically violent, but @ least had the courage of its convictions. The idea's been kicked around a lot, back in the '50s of SF, but hadn't been brought to the screen as a lavish production value movie.

 

The mistake that a lot of folks make is identifying corporations with conservatives. Nothing could be further from the truth. The 'big money' in Hollywood has been, for decades now, been held by liberals. It will take some time for the liberal influence to subside and allow more conservative films and ideas to come to the fore and slowly change the default liberal template used to produce so many movies.

I don't believe it is even a conscious effort nowadays because most of the producers, directors, etc. have grown up in a liberal scholastic environment and to them, liberal ideology is 'mainstream.'

 

After Team America, I simply can't look at Matt without laughing.

 

I like Sci-fi with a message, even a message I disagree with, but from what I've seen of this movie, it's an infomercial for single-payer healthcare. The whole premise is that such a thing is something people are willing to kill to get, and without it, no other possible solutions exist. I have no interest in infomercial movies -- it sounds like one of the preachier Treks, where all they do for the entire story is pound you over the head with the message. Sure Scifi needs to have a message, but hitting people over the head with it, infomercial style, is not how to do it. Show all angles, save the sermons.

 

(My bold)

No, it's not a question of ideology. It's a question of trying to make movies like color by numbers. Star Wars was a box-office success, & so we had a veritable celluloid forest of embarrassingly bad wanna-be SF movies. They weren't, & most of them quickly sank into the aether, & frak 'em.

There may be a gifted bean counter out there, but his/her idea of perfection is counting beans quickly, efficiently. Not the makings of a heroic nor interesting movie. Nah, you need somebody hungry - an early Coppola or Lucas or similar, who is willing to gamble on his/her vision & make the movie the best they can.

Every remake of the movies War of the Worlds or Mysterious Island or Journey to the Center of the Earth now figures out how to get in a love interest &/or children as - well, I have no idea why. Perhaps to try to draw in the distaff side, or @ least appeal to their feelings, fer God's sake. My advice - if you don't trust the material, don't bother to punch it up. There is no covering up lack of resolve, no matter how pretty the eye-candy. It's simply pandering, & there are no prizes - the Oscars notwithstanding - for merely pandering.

Could Dr. Strangelove be made in Hollywood now? Could One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest? I don't think so, & that's the problem, not the ideological trappings of the creative nor even the financial side. They all seem to see movies as just another business, & not a peek @ eternity. Barring total personality/soul transplants, the Hollywood system needs to fall altogether. Perhaps something will rise out of the ashes, Phoenix-like. & if not, well, they can always go the way of the recorded music industry, which is living in interesting times now, & has been for what? 20 years or so ...

 

Yep. The last 5 minutes were a joke. Everyone around me laughed when they saw the hacker change one line of code in order to change everything.

Frankly, if this movie was true, they would have back up servers. Correct? Maybe shut down the server and restart it with back up systems in order to restore the original code?

About the movie as commentary. If the US is a poor 3rd world country, can you imagine what the 3rd world country must be like? It shows the planet as a hell hole. No wonder the rich wanted out.

 

For 99.999% of human history, health care meant;

*Self-restraint in exercise, food and strong drink
*Some Mildly effective herbs and poultices
*Boiled water to washout, Bandages to halt bleeding, and stitches to close wounds
*Amputation, when no other option remained
*Prayer and Faith

Good read the history of what life was like in the various Eras of that 99.9999% of human history. People were happy, or sad, or both. People were rich or poor or middle class. Lives were worth living, civilization grew, achievements were made, cities were built, people sang, wrote, acted, and enjoyed the arts!

GOOD LIVES can be had, and civilization can be achieved without free public MRIs on demand.

Super-Tech Health Care, which in many cases extends lives only a few month/years of disability and misery, is NOT the only measure of a society or means of achieving prosperity.

We are being duped into thinking that somehow getting advanced health care for free will turn the 3rd world hell hole into a panacea.... WHY?

Why would you expect that long, very healthy lives would necessarily solve all the other problems that make a 3rd world hell hole into a 3rd world hell hole?!

Are there not other issues? Freedom of speech, association, and privacy? Social mobility, rewards for achievement, scorn for sloth, drug addiction, children having babies, broad employment, universal standards driven education, basic physical security, abuse of government official power ...

3rd world hell holes are never created by just one problem alone.

The theme of Elysium is shallow, mono-dimensional, and propaganda driven.

It is not alone in the scifi genre for having these faults, and may be an entertaining experience despite them, but we as audiences should ask for much more.

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I wonder if they also tried to organize a boycott of Total Recall? I mean the plot is basically the same.

 

At least TR had the subtext of the entire thing possibly being a fantasy. In fact, the ending was meant to show that it WAS a fantasy, the ending was the hero having a lobotomy, basicly, in the real world, so the dream world went fuzzy.