Elysium depicts a near-future Earth in which the majority of rich and privileged humans have migrated to an orbiting space station which gives the film its title. The city-state hogs the advanced medical resources of Earth, leaving the people on the planet below in a perpetual state of lawlessness and impoverishment. Matt Damon stars as Max Da Costa, a former criminal who, while doing dangerous work, is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation, giving him just five days to live. He soon obtains an exo-suit to augment his failing body. It’s then discovered that Max has data hidden in a chip in his brain that can, in theory, alter the computer systems running Elysium, which will benefit all the people who don’t live there.
Too bad the movie was so bad. You didn’t really care about the characters and it was just, comically evil space capitalists? I really wanted to like this one since District 9 was so good. Unfortunately every movie afterwards by Blomkamp has been a flop.
Yeah, it was bad enough I can’t really remember much about it. District 9 was tight.
Is the space station an O’Neill cylinder?
Bobiverse all the way!
No, it’s a von Braun wheel. An O’Neill cylinder is straight, whereas the Elysium station is toroidal.
Of the Century? Anybody seen Robocop?
Different century. We’re in the 21st century. Robocop came out in the 80s which was the 20th
There was a forgettable remake though.
Netflix add and remove stuff without fanfare all the time. What do you mean “quietly added”? Are we expecting announcements?
Is this question rhetorical? Articles are shared for discussion but I didn’t write the article or its headline
Are there that many anti-capitalist science fiction films in the past 25 years?
Snowpiercer, Wall-E, Transcendence, Blade Runner 2049, The Hunger Games, Children of Men, District 9, Sorry To Bother You, City of Ember, Spaceman
Wall-E always annoys me because it promotes the absurd assumption that without having to work people become fat and lazy. I am of the firm belief that people want meaning in their lives and that, freed from worries about subsistence, they fill their time with meaningful (to them at least) activities. Though, gravity did play a role in the immobility part if I remember right.
Love the environmental stuff though.
I think it’s not the absence of work alone, but the steady feed of pleasure via their chair data feeds, and chair feeders lol
They are all just terminally online, and it just so happens their gamer nest is a moving chair on a sterilized spaceship
I didn’t think it was the absence of work that made people fat and lazy, but blind consumerism. Those people could have used their time pursuing knowledge, creating art, or even just building a community with their crew mates, but instead, they engaged in the same type of mindless consumption that killed their planet. They lived in a post-needs society, but they had been so conditioned by capitalism (or more accurately, an AI that had no framework for human happiness beyond capitalism) that they couldn’t think of anything to do but consume.
It’s been awhile since I watched it, I’ll watch with your more charitable reading next time and see if I can accept it!
The author must not have seen Children of Men right?
Nor District 9.
District 9 is mentioned as one of the director’s other films
Moon !
Good one! My personal fan theory is that Moon is set in the Blade Runner universe.
Yeah, that’s some Cunningham’s Law amount of clickbait BS. 🙄
Andor isn’t explicitly anti-capitalist, but it is revolutionary, so I’d throw that in there. Very well made to boot.
Anti-fascist you might say
Very much so :)
I feel like altered carbon had the same vibe but did it better
Only the first season unfortunately
Sounds like any kind of “guy with special maguffin takes down patriarchal organization” kind of movie rather than anti capitalist.
What’s really the difference between the two, besides the motivation of the main character?
In the movie, Matt Damon gets lethally injured while working because his boss wants to save money, and is left to die alone afterwards. He uses his remaining time to try and save his life by fighting against the oppressive structures that caused his injury. How would you make the film more anti-capitalist?
You think any of that is specific to capitalism? Money is just a substitute for any other kind of institutional control. He was injured because someone in charge didn’t care, but the means of them being in charge can be anything. It doesn’t have to be “because he was the rich business person”.
He wasn’t injured because his superior didn’t care, he specifically was injured to make his superior more money. He is left to die because he doesn’t have any economic worth left.
In that case, how can a movie be anti-capitalist? Capitalism doesn’t have one defining feature that’s not present in any other system, it’s defined by the interactions of its features. No matter what features any movie focuses on, you can always say that that’s just a substitute of a similar feature in other systems.
Economic value of a person isn’t something that runs out and gets left behind only in capitalism.
There are some defining traits of capitalism that a movie could probably attack. I’d start with the obnoxious responsibility haven of the stock market. It’s inherently detrimental because it incentivises people who make the companies they represent do worse. I’d also take some shots at IP trolls, though I’m not really sure if that’s inherent to capitalism.
I’m not 100% sure what responsibility you’re referring to regarding the stock market, but if you’re pointing at short-term profits at the cost of long-term status - that’s not a capitalism-specific issue. It’s worse because of the reach of investors, but that’s more related to technological advancements.
So that’s also not good enough. Any other ideas? Or can anti-capitalist movies just not exist?
Ahh sorry, I had a typo. Haven became haven’t.
It’s worse because of the reach of investors
That’s actually exactly what I mean! The mechanisms of influence will always propagate themselves. You can use control to expand your control, so you have a power grabbing feedback loop! That is a failing of every economic model, but especially so with capitalism. In the US, we can vote on what the government does itself, but most of what is done is done privately or by corporations. Therefore having money means your vote decides more of what happens in the world. That’s self propagating control.
But that’s my point - under different economic systems, investors have a similar reach. Since you’re requiring the anti-capitalist message to be unique to capitalism, and capitalism has no unique features, there can’t be any anti-capitalist art, right?
I think you’re confusing anti-capitalism with socialist. There are plenty of people who criticize capitalist excess without being aware that the excess is fundamental to the system.
Idk how you come to that conclusion.
You’re the guy who thinks Elysium didn’t have an anti-capitalist message, man, we’re just trying to figure out the malfunction.
No no no, I haven’t seen it. I’m remarking about the description of it here.
The malfunction is that people with influence will always abuse it selfishly. There are ways each and every economic model exaggerate that. Addressing those problems is only really good for patching up that system rather than replacing it with new problems.
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