Neill Blomkamp’s film Elysium takes us over a hundred years into the future to year 2154. In his world, earth is a pile of decrepit ruins and only the ultra-wealthy, I’m guessing the top 0.1 percent, manage to slip away from the destitute planet and inhabit a man-made space station, a utopia of presumed happiness and paradise.
At Elysium, people have in-home cure-all healthcare, great views, and great wardrobes.
Yet, the people at Elysium cannot fully delight in their bliss – they are much too preoccupied with the people on earth and keeping them out.
There’s no surprise that the wealthy are armed with their massive police force. Non-Elysium citizens (illegals) trying to fly in under the radar are mercilessly shot down or captured by Robocops.
True to Hollywood form, it becomes one man’s mission to change the course of history. But Max’s (Matt Damon) journey to Elysium is far from a gesture of altruism for all earth’s citizens.
Since Max was a child, he’s always wanted to taste that forbidden fruit dangling from a branch far above his rung on the social ladder. Lately, he’s saddled with a personal predicament that makes his shot in the dark wish to visit Elysium a dire necessity.
In spite of all the machine-operated gadgets and the ornate, translucent design of the space station, Blomkamp ended up creating a world that is pretty much like the world we live in now.
Just substitute Elysium for the exclusive gated communities and earth for the ghettos and the trailer parks.
The wealthy will always desire to live forever and stash their riches away from the masses. The masses will always strive to possess what the rich have, whether by toiling or taking.
But maybe that’s the point.
Human nature seems to follow us no matter where we land.
I watched that movie and the palpable absence of Black people in that movie made me very nervous!
This was entertaining, to say the best about this movie, but damn, no Black people in the whole wide world? Or even in Elysium? That was a little disconcerting for me.
Hey, why every movie gotta have black people in it. Allow people to express themselves how they want, gee.
What do you think? The movie was made by a white South African, Neill Blomkamp! In his country and the world he lives in, there’s only one black person – and that n*gr gets killed, quite quickly, just like they had it in the old days of apartheid and slavery. Ya!
You are a bit dramatic. But I can’t assume I understand the feeling. I don’t know how I would feel if a watched a film about the future and all I saw was other races of people and a single white man. I really wonder how I would feel. So I get it, Blomkamp could have easily avoided this discussion here if he had envisioned a world in the future where black people also have a place.
I liked the movie too, but I can’t seem to get my head around the one black person they had in the movie!
He will be black people’s great evolutionary ancestor, from where all black people of the future, post 2154 will evolve. LOL! Ridiculousness – the mentality of some of these directors, or their parochial minds!
A movie worth watching but not a good representation of what 2154 could look like – certainly not one without black people.
I thought Matt Damon was phenomenal in this film. The direction was a bit limiting or rather the budget.
Oh yeah, it does look so much like 2013, no pun intended.