I think of this as heavy handed SCI-FI. The director and writers have some points they want, and they threw out some logic to get there. That was a problem as SCI-FI already throws some logic out and doing that too much will put too many cracks in the fourth wall. I loved this movie, but if you think too hard beyond "Rich, selfish, white people are bad and 99% are good" you will see how much it fails to be real. Great movie, but don't think to much about it.
Elysium (Here There Be Spoilers)
- Thread starter Nytmare
- Start date
I recently watched Bong Joon-Ho's Snowpiercer and it got me thinking of Elysium. Both are heavy-handed sci-fi allegories --ie, the best kind -- and both construct worlds that barely make a lick of sense.
I loved Snowpiercer. I mostly enjoyed Elysium, but I kept wanting to rewrite it so it made more sense. For example, I'd set it much farther in the future, with more shorty toga-wearing characters, fewer overt references to the present-day world, and a greater sense that virtually no one understands the systems running their society anymore, and thus can be reprogrammed by a single important guy.
All of that would make the story easier to swallow. Even the magi-tech medical beds.
Snowpiercer takes place barely 20 or 30 years in the future, in a totally transmographied 'society' aboard one of least believable 'arks' in SF history. And yet, I bought the whole thing hook, line, and sinker.
It comes down to tone, I think. But I can't quite articulate why the tone fails the story badly in Elysium.
I loved Snowpiercer. I mostly enjoyed Elysium, but I kept wanting to rewrite it so it made more sense. For example, I'd set it much farther in the future, with more shorty toga-wearing characters, fewer overt references to the present-day world, and a greater sense that virtually no one understands the systems running their society anymore, and thus can be reprogrammed by a single important guy.
All of that would make the story easier to swallow. Even the magi-tech medical beds.
Snowpiercer takes place barely 20 or 30 years in the future, in a totally transmographied 'society' aboard one of least believable 'arks' in SF history. And yet, I bought the whole thing hook, line, and sinker.
It comes down to tone, I think. But I can't quite articulate why the tone fails the story badly in Elysium.
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Fast Learner
First Post
FWIW I was fine with the ham-handed messages, and frankly Matt Damon was the reason I ended up watching it (so some South African rapper or Eminem would have lost me as a customer).
However, the nutty plot holes (the defense system was just stupidity itself), bad science (especially the way-too-small-to-have-any-atmospheric-pressure rings), and worst of all, the incredibly gratuitous violence made me wish I'd not wasted 2 hours and $3.99.
However, the nutty plot holes (the defense system was just stupidity itself), bad science (especially the way-too-small-to-have-any-atmospheric-pressure rings), and worst of all, the incredibly gratuitous violence made me wish I'd not wasted 2 hours and $3.99.
