Elysium — When a Movie has the Wrong Story | Anatomy of a Failure

Elysium is writer-director Neill Blomkamp's follow-up to District 9, with Matt Damon and exosuits and futuristic weapons. It was a letdown, though, thanks to one key thing: it had the wrong story/plot. So in today's Anatomy of a Failure, let's see what that means for Elysium and what to keep in mind when choosing the plot for your movie to explore your movie's special world with.

#elysium #anatomyofafailure #scifimovies

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Elysium (2013)
In a future in which the privileged reside on an Earth-orbiting space station named Elysium and the less fortunate live on the surface of the blighted, overpopulated planet below, one man dares to defy the strict anti-immigration laws that separate the two disparate worlds in order to save all of mankind in this visceral sci-fi action thriller from District 9 director Neill Blomkamp. The year is 2154, and the division between social classes has grown wider than ever before. As the rich enjoy a life of luxury and access to cutting-edge medical technology on Elysium, the rest of the human race contend with poverty, crime, and disease on the surface of planet Earth. Meanwhile, hard-line immigration laws ensure that only those who have been explicitly approved will ever set foot on the elusive paradise in the stars. 36-year-old Max (Matt Damon) lives in an L.A. shantytown and earns his living by working on an Armadyne assembly line. He's had a rough past, but he's struggling to stay on the right side of the law when he realizes that his only hope for survival after being exposed to deadly radiation is to elysium exosuit scene heist scene everything wrong with elysium honest trailer watch elysium full movie online free 4k clip hd best moments best sci-fi movies worst sci-fi movies reach Elysium. Should Max succeed, he will strike a major blow for equality in the eyes of his fellow surface dwellers; should he fail, it will mean certain death. In his quest to become the hero who can restore the balance between the rich and the poor, however, Max must first do battle with Elysium's hawkish Secretary of Defense Delacourt (Jodie Foster), who has devoted her entire career to maintaining that division, and whose key enforcer Kruger (Sharlto Copley) is notorious for his brutal tactics in driving out illegals. With the fates of millions hanging in the balance, Max sets his sights on Elysium and never looks back.
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District 9 (2009)
Director Neill Blomkamp teams with producer Peter Jackson for this tale of extraterrestrial refugees stuck in contemporary South Africa. It's been 28 years since the aliens made first contact, but there was never any attack from the skies, nor any profound technological revelation capable of advancing our society. Instead, the aliens were treated as refugees. They were the last of their kind, and in order to accommodate them, the government of South Africa set up a makeshift home in District 9 as politicians and world leaders debated how to handle the situation. As the humans begin to grow wary of the unwelcome intruders, a private company called Multi-National United (MNU) is assigned the task of controlling the aliens. But MNU is less interested in the aliens' welfare than attempting to understand how their weaponry works. Should they manage to make that breakthrough, they will receive tremendous profits to fund their research. Unfortunately, the highly advanced weaponry requires alien DNA in order to be activated. When MNU field operative Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is exposed to biotechnology that causes his DNA to mutate, the tensions between the aliens and the humans intensifies. Wikus is the key to unlocking the alien's technology, and he quickly becomes the most wanted man on the planet. Ostracized and isolated, Wikus retreats to District 9 in a desperate bid to shake his dogged pursuers.~Jason Buchanan

[Filmento]

Physical copies coming later. And if you can't buy from Amazon, email me and I can sell the ebook as a PDF directly: saltyfilmento(a)gmail.com

[dantheman]

Actually Elysium didn't do that bad at the box office and with critics. It was Chappie that put the nail in Blomkamps Hollywood career.

[k.g.]

I don’t think Max’s lack of a reason to live was really a problem for Elysium, but I think you’re very right about the fact that the goalposts changing in the movie. When the movie was just “break into elysium, get healed and then try to get out before you get arrested” it was better and more believable than “break in and change the social structure of a country so that a girl you hardly know with leukemia can get in and hope she doesn’t get arrested afterwords because of magic”

[bamhamer]

Think of the story what you want but visually neil is a mastermind. His sci fi visions are breathtaking

[combatwombat]

It wasn't perfect, but I fundamentally believe Blomkamp's gritty, realistic feeling action scenes are amongst the best.

[onlyonewhyphy]

Watching Sharlto go from weak Wikus to this guy was all I needed to see how excellent an actor he is. His character is genuinely intimidating and Wikus couldn't intimidate a puppy.

[justinamerican]

Bloomkamp has a villain problem in all his movies.

"Why do people do bad things?"
"Because they're EVIL."
"Thanks for breaking that down for me, Neil."

[bossisin]

I’m so proud of you, writing a book is a huge accomplishment.

[Garian]

There were a lot of things that were silly in this film, like the human traffickers with hearts of gold and why the healing station are exclusively on the Elysium but Sharlto Copley and Matt Damon easily carried this film into guilty pleasure for me.

[BatAmerica]

My question is why didn’t they merge the two core concepts? For example, the main character, Max, is trying to save himself and his little sister from radiation poisoning. These orphans are unable to afford the treatment and only have two days before the poison kills them, so they must break into a house in Elyisum to illegally access the machine. Meanwhile, these corporate figureheads are lobbying their Government to prevent this treatment from going to Earth in a week. That way they can minimize competition and keep their prices high.

[SmokesKwazukii]

Thanks for making this! It explains an issue with many films that i have gone into wanting to love and come away feeling like something was just not working despite many great elements. I remember when i first saw Elysium i was pretty young, a teenager, and it was probably the first R rated film my dad took me to see actually. I remember feeling like the story was “random” that it was just kinda this contrived series of events to justify the world the movie created. I couldn’t articulate this beyond saying “the movie had a random story” but this video perfectly explains what i was thinking when i first saw Elysium and a number of other films. Random is still not a bad way to describe the endemic plot issue.

[lilgabriel]

Can’t believe you made a video on this movie, my dad and I were just trying to figure out what it was called 😂 we enjoyed rewatching it lol

[ThePrisoner]

This movie is a classic case of having "the message" take the place of an actual plot. The director was so desperate to say "greedy rich people = bad" that he forgot about things like character development, motivations, etc.

[serotoneeder]

Your editing always amazes me, the perfect way to enhance your writing 👏🏻

[nyn]

7:10 good to see Charlie back at it again acting at an extremely important scene what a legend

[jssandler]

5:30 this is a very good point. It always seemed like the girl friend was a bit extraneous. If instead she was his ex-wife and the girl was his daughter and he was trying to fix his marriage, that would have tied a few elements of the story together a little bit better. Also, If Max worked at a factory that manufactured the healing machines and it was seen that the healing machine factory was running out of resources and they had a limited time up on Elysium in which to use the healing machines, that would have also tied together motivations a little bit better.

[TheBestEverEverEver]

It’s sad that simply being original is so rare in Hollywood that it blows their minds.

[LuvzToLol]

"I can't help her" says the man wearing an exo suit that's specifically meant to help him reach Elysium

[buzzlightyearpfp]

i dont think the plot being 'he wants to live' is an issue considering so many other stories are built on that premise. Infact, a majority of action/survival/combat stories can be boiled down to 'they want to live'.

although I think the issue is that after he DOES get to live in the movie, we dont see him do anything with it. He doesn't change his life for the better or anything like that

[Ekstrax]

Elysium, Chappie and District 9 were all great movies imo, love them