Its a sci-Fi Fairy Tale of the Haves and Have Nots
In the year 2154, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a perfect man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. The people of Earth are desperate to escape the planet’s crime and poverty, and they critically need the state-of-the-art medical care available on Elysium – but some in Elysium will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve their citizens’ luxurious lifestyle. The only man with the chance bring equality to these worlds is Max (Matt Damon), an ordinary guy in desperate need to get to Elysium. With his life hanging in the balance, he reluctantly takes on a dangerous mission – one that pits him against Elysium’s Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her hard-line forces – but if he succeeds, he could save not only his own life, but millions of people on Earth as well.
If you’ve been watching movies this year you’ll note that they all kind of fixated on the earth’s annihilation, movies like After Earth, Oblivion, World War Z and even the comical This is the End. The director, Blomkamp, doesn’t consider his movie to be far flung science fiction though; it’s the unequal class struggle between the 1% and the 99% that explains why Elysium exists in the first place. The director keeps the action moving fast enough that there isn’t time to look into the plot until the movie is over. It’s worth seeing, if not for the action then for its futuristic technology.
We have advanced robotics that police over the poor while they work in hazardous conditions. I wonder why not have the robots go into the radiation filled rooms and finish off the work. Also there are space shuttles that cater to singular persons (the rich of course) and it’s a matter of minutes before they are in space, surreal. There are also those medical beds that cure anything, wow! Blomkamp doesn’t spend any time explaining how these miracles of nature work, which would take hours of complicated scientific jargon that no one would understand or believe, so it’s entirely skipped. Anyway, the basic principle is, be a citizen of Elysium, and literally any illness possible is cured. Got cancer? Not anymore. Did a grenade literally explode in your face? It’s cool bro, there’s an app for that. Seriously, all those medical disasters are completely cured in seconds. Also everyone on Elysium has one of these in their house like it’s no big deal.
Hopefully by now we understand that intentionally misusing technology is one of the quickest routes to dystopia. And while some people do abuse modern wonders, I think humanity does a good job of handling big innovations appropriately. Still, it’s science fiction like Elysium that reminds us all just how important it is to share the fruits of our technological labor. 9 stars out of 10