Just a brief note on Elysium to say thanks to the guys for helping me clarify in my own mind why the film didn't bother me as much.  Basically, what struck you all as simplistic struck me as refreshingly unusual.  Plus it plays to my own prejudices, so of course it's going to resonate. 

Without getting into the correctness of this view, I think that, broadly speaking, the 1% are assholes, and psychopaths in a technical sense, and you rarely see that portrayed as vividly and 'realistically' as in Elysium.  They have absolutely no concern beyond themselves.  (It doesn't matter how many people living in poverty could be offered a chance at a decent life, just try suggesting that you raise the capital gains tax by 1% (money you get for doing nothing in virtually all cases) and see how far you get.)

Sure you get moustache-twirling and whatnot in cartoons (or equivalent) but rarely the simple banality of evil -- people who allow others to suffer because they just don't give a shit.  And, as I say, I thought that was refreshing.

We just learned in the last week that just 85 people have the combined wealth of the bottom 50% (3.5 billion) people.
I agree with sellew - many of the mega-wealthy would rather buy their 50th vintage car, gold-plate their taps, fly by interior-designed private jet, etc than lift a finger to help the poorest realize their own opportunities. We still see millions dying of preventable diseases. If you looked at the spending behind FIYH's malaria-athon choice of charity, it's quite easy to save lives, but we in the west don't do it enough. Bill Gates is trying, as are a few others (e.g. eradication of polio) but for every virtuous philanthropist, there's the Koch Brothers or Rupert Murdoch.

Last edited by avatar (2014-01-30 16:39:44)

Yeah, I'll concede that the automated nature of the system is maybe the hardest part to explain away, but perhaps it's some kind of vestigial aspect to the system originally built by well-meaning people and everybody just forgot about it.  (I only saw the movie on a plane a while ago, and I don't remember if they mention how long Elysium as been in existence.)  That's pretty desperate though, I agree.

But in a way I like the idea that it literally costs them nothing.  How many times have we heard in one form or another "Hey, I didn't get to where I am in life by giving stuff away", "Giving people stuff will just create a disincentive for them to work harder", etc. etc.  It's just that sentiment.  I agree in a way that that does sort of undercut them dramatically, but that makes the film's decision actually kind of brave.  There is no motivation in the dramatic sense, just the "real life" attitude of oh well, sucks to be you (and that's if they think about those people at all).

Even within the world that Elysium creates, it makes perfect sense for the Elysians (?) not to allow Earth's population to come LIVE on Elysium, because clearly Elysium can only support a fraction of that number. So it would be understandable for the Elysians to keep their borders closed to immigration, if we want to deal with a real-world issue in a sci-fi context.

But - the movie focuses specifically on the magic health machines that apparently do not exist on Earth at all, but are stockpiled in huge surplus on Elysium.   

Not only would it cost the Elysians nothing to let Earth have access to that technology, it doesn't even make sense for them to deny it.  Elysium's troubles in the movie are the direct result of the Elysians pointlessly hoarding something free and unlimited.   That's not just being dicks for no reason, that's the dumbest foreign policy in the history of everything.

Yeah, I think it's ultimately a question of having to agree to disagree.  I completely accept that I'm giving the film more of a pass than I otherwise would because it tells me what I want to hear.

However, I think it's too strong to say it's a failure of science fiction though, since I think science fiction can equally be about taking some aspect of our real world circumstances to its logical conclusion.  The argument is (on my reading) that our real life mega-wealthy of right now, today, simply don't fucking give a toss about anyone or anything (except protecting what they have and amassing more) and that point is made by describing a future society in which that characteristic is shared by everyone.  These characters may be completely "inhuman", but that's because the mega-wealthy are inhuman in precisely that sense, so the claim would go.  And it's underlining the injustice of that attitude by making it literally unnecessary in-universe.  (And, by that, further suggesting that the mega-wealthy of today could provide needed help at a negligible-to-them, effectively zero cost, and they, like everyone in Elysium, choose not to.)     

And I completely agree that that induces a kind of dramatic failure.  We the audience aren't (in general) psychopaths, utterly incapable of empathy for anyone who is Not Us.  But if indeed the film is sacrificing drama to make that political point, I think it's a vaguely bold move.  But, again, that's because it's playing to my prejudices.

Then again, we have real life examples of people doing just this (on a smaller scale) on a religious grounds. One of the worst person of modern time, mother Theresa had money and resources practically thrown at her to help her "angels". She withheld these resources from the children she was claiming to help. She believed in suffering.

If the motives of the Elysians were religious I would have bought it.

It's a movie - and standard movie grammar is that everything is heightened, exaggerated and accelerated. The douchebag has to be a cartoon asshole, the hottie has to be a supermodel, the smart one has to be a genius, the rich guy has to be multi-billionaire, the punching has to be bone-crunchingly over-the-top, the witty banter is too perfect, and so on.
We give movies a pass on this exaggeration effect all the time. They all virtually do this, so I don't see why Elysium is singled out for not reflecting the rich-poor dynamic exactly 100% For all intents and purposes, it's effectively the same. Rich westerners COULD save more lives with minimal effort if they wanted to, but don't. It's a metaphor. The rich ring world is a gated community. Perhaps the problem is that it was too obvious (we weren't allowed to work it out for ourselves), but the relevance to Earth's inequality still holds IMO.
My problems with the movie were more to do with the good guy v bad guy punch-up, the choppy editing, the need for that mech-suit (back to superhero superpowers yet again), the lame love story, the Jodie Foster acting, the lack of detail re: internal politics on the ring world, etc. But the rich-poor dynamic wasn't that much of a hindrance, for me anyway.

^

If ELYSIUM is trying to be some kind of satire, it's doing a poor job of it. If it's trying to be serious, it's doing a poor job of that, too.

Last edited by Dorkman (2014-01-31 01:38:01)

Oh my god, Verhoeven's ELYSIUM.

And right on cue:  If you criticize rich people, you're Hitler