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ELYSIUM Trailer

ELYSIUM Trailer

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This post is outdated. Read our review of Elysium here.

Hi guys, I’m back! Sorry for the long wait between posts but I had some personal stuff come up that got me distracted for a while. I’m back now though! Let’s start off with a preview of Elysium, which is scheduled to be released in theaters (in the U.S.) on August 9th, and see here for release dates for other countries.

In 2154, Earth has become overpopulated, and the rich have created Elysium, a space station safe haven, which is practically an idyllic paradise for the rich. There is “no poverty, no war, no sickness”  (“cancer cells removed” as the scanning medical machine pronounces), although while they state there is no war, they seem to be at war with the poor. The poor are forced to elysiumremain on Earth, but are occasionally trying to get to Elysium. Max (Matt Damon) is one of the poor people on Earth, and when it’s announced to him by a robot that he is going to die in five days, he is upgraded with an exoskeleton. He then has the mission to save not only his own life, but also that of a little girl, who is dying too, by getting them both to Elysium to get her treated – and hopefully in the mean time, he . Secretary Rhodes (Jodie Foster), is the bad guy government official in charge of Elysium, and she will do everything to prevent the poor from coming to Elysium and to enforce the anti-immigration laws.

As you’d expect, I’m thoroughly fascinated by this movie and can’t wait to see it. In our current and modern world, immigration of foreigners and the segregation of them, and xenophonia in general, is a global  issue. Interestingly, xenophobia and the battle between privileged versus the disadvantaged are topics that Neill Blomkamp, Elysium’s director, already covered in a way in District 9 (2009), where the foreigners as we know them were clothed in the costumes of aliens. I enjoyed District 9 because it was a good movie and because Blomkamp conveyed some tough criticism on society’s perception of the “other”, and I’m curious to see how he is going to do it again in this movie.

What do you think?

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