Elysium (Page 2 of 3)

Whoah. So maybe she even says different shit in the US release, such that it makes it less understandable...??

/Z

If you look closely, Jodie Foster is wearing a DUG collar...

I think Jodie Foster was a fine choice. The problem wasn't a matter of casting, but the decision to give the character a weird, inconsistent accent of some kind. However, I agree that Tilda Swinton would have been better. Yes, it's obvious but for good reason.

I didn't hate Elysium as much as you guys, It was a nice looking sci-fi that didn't suck as much as Star Trek Into Darkness (shut up Doc Sub!) but now I'm bummed not to have gotten Teague's Delacourt centric Elysium 

It's hateable for how boring and generic it is, though it's true that it doesn't really do anything egregious. The panel didn't really get into this, but I'd forgive the confused lame storytelling choices if the action delivered, but it's an utterly lame action movie. It's like Blomkamp thought he was making an "important" movie so he didn't want it to be too action-oriented, so you get the worst of both worlds.

Last edited by bullet3 (2014-02-21 08:05:41)

I dunno, hate's a very strong word.

Watching the movie now.

Matt Damon gets irradiated because he steps into a room which is going to be irradiated and moves something that prevented the door from closing... What other result could there have been really? Did he think he would move the thing that blocks the door and the door wouldn't close behind him? They don't show him activating any kind of failsafe to lock the door and prevent it from closing before he goes in there?

Do they even have failsafes on the doors? Why didn't he just open the door again, move what was in the way and then close it again? Do they not have the ability to open the door again unless it closes completely? That seems stupid.

The boss forces Damon to go in to the room under threat of firing him. The boss, you would think, knows of the stupendous risk because of the above described design of the doors. Once Damon gets irradiated they apparently shut down production entirely causing superboss Fichner to get angry. Surely Damons boss should have handled the blocked door differently and with more attention since it obviously could lose them lots of time and money if he sent Damon in there and things went wrong? Why didn't he? Just so he also could have a moustache-twirling moment? If they're so money-hungry you'd think they would be able to make a simple cost-benefit-analysis and realize that it probably is worth finding a way around the problem that doesn't involve sending Damon in to certain death and loosing alot of time and money.

All this would have been solved if they just showed Damon activating a locking-mechanism on the door before he went in, but we then see the switch flip back on its own due to poor maintenance of safety features for the workers (which is alot more plausible, reinforces the theme of the rich/bosses not spending any money on the workers to ensure their safety) and doesn't require any moustache-twirling. Plus it would actually create some tension in the scene. As the scene is in the film we see Damon be reluctant to go in, but I assumed since the film doesn't show any safety feature of any kind, I guess there's no danger for him once he goes in. He doesn't open the door or reset whatever he is doing and start over. Atleast cut back and forth between Damon and the safety switch, maybe the switch is mounted on something that vibrates from another machine somewhere, and it's shaking enough to cause it to spring back into normal mode. As it is the scene is so flat, Damon goes in and then the door just closes and it's very unceremonious. Particularly since this is the scene that sets Damon off on the path he takes for the rest of the film.

Last edited by TechNoir (2014-02-23 14:38:57)

OK, I haven't written anything for awhile, mostly because I haven't need to I guess.
But there was something that was said by just about everyone, right after they
download the data from the factory owner guy into Damien's head. It was about
how Matt kept holding his head every once and awhile and has a fit. You guys said it
was unclear why he was doing this, and that maybe it was the radiation or something,
and that the movie didn't make it clear.
OK, maybe it seemed clear to me, I don't know why, but the reason for Matt's fits/headaches
were due to the corrupted data that he received into that chip in his head. I thought it
seemed obvious, since the Sandro guy was barking about how "the data is corrupted",
and Matt orders him to redo it, and then the bad guys show up. Well anyway, Matt was
fine the entire time until immediately after the download into his head. Maybe there should
have been some dialog there from Matt like "damn, my head, that download is messing me
up!", but to me it would have been too forced, especially during an action sequence.

I think the real problem is that it has no impact on the story, so it's just a cheap way to add tension to scenes.

Finally, Blomkamp fesses up.

Apology accepted, Neill.  Now don't go making the same mistakes with Alien, umkay?