In the years since Elysium was released, its future has begun to seem less ham-fisted. In an age when certain billionaires are prone to sharing their plans for leaving Earth behind, the idea of a space station reserved solely for the world’s elite doesn’t seem as far-fetched as it should. Time has been kind to Elysium, even if it hasn’t been kind to us.
Loved it back when it came out and still do, it's message is more relevant than ever now. District 9 has aged well too.
District 9 is weirdly racist against African immigrants but is otherwise solid, same goes for Elysium aside from its white savior complex.
It's been a while since I last watched it, but Isn't the portrayal essentially intended to be racist to demonstrate the evil of the racists?
The African immigrants are depicted as rapists, cannibals, thieves, and cheating merchants IIRC. They’re usually interacting with the main character and the prawns, not the mercenaries hired by the South African government.
IIRC Blomkampf repurposed interviews from and earlier documentary he had done about immigrants from Zimbabwe. I think he reshot the scenes with actors and just changed the subject matter to aliens.
Children of Men (2006) has aged incredibly well. Looks like it was filmed yesterday and the message is more relevant. It’s scary how much closer we’ve gotten to the society shown in that film.
I watched that again a couple moths and you're very right.
Tbh,I hate District 9, but I would've probably loved Elysium had I seen it.
Just saw this for the first time a few months ago. It's good, but it's basically "what if we actually had to see the third world and they could touch us?" the movie
We all owe Neill Blomkamp an apology.
For what? Just because the message of the story is sound doesn't automatically make the entire thing suddenly good. That movie had a lot of issues and you can not like the movie and still agree with the message.
Seriously. The obvious messaging is fine it's not the film's major flaw. It's been a bit since I watched it but I seem to remember things like pacing, and the emotional core to be kinda weird? idk.
Avatar has obvious ham-fisted messaging but not the same flaws. I guess I'm saying James Cameron could have made Elysium really good instead of just okay, with all the same cool sci-fi shit.
Somewhat related; in the early 00's there was talk of 20th Century Fox producing a 5th Alien movie with Ridley Scott writing and James Cameron directing. After Freddy Vs Jason was announced and received some hype Fox cancelled the project and ordered up Alien Vs Predator in a rush job. A decade later Blomkampf was signed on to make the actual Alien 5 starring Sigourny Weaver while Scott worked on Prometheus 2. Scott threw a fit and ended up turning Prometheus 2 into Alien Covenant and the Blomkampf project was cancelled.
Still remember Matt Karp's tweet about the trailer: "Matt Damon vs the 1%"
I have a pet theory that these kinds of films are just advertisements for the future telling us what to get ready for. Not the good parts like space ships and healing miracle beds - just the shit parts like robot factories that burn you alive.
