Neill Blomkamp says he 'fucked up' Elysium, wishes he could go back and do it right
70 replies, posted
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[url]http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/i-f-cked-it-up-neill-blomkamp-says-he-wants-to-go-back-to-elysium-and-do-it-correctly-20150226[/url]
[quote]"...I feel like I fucked it up," the director candidly told Uproxx. "I feel like ultimately the story is not the right story. I still think the satirical idea of a ring filled with rich people hovering above the impoverished Earth is an awesome idea. I love it so much, I almost want to go back and do it correctly. But I just think the script wasn't... I just didn't make a good enough film is ultimately what it is. I feel like I executed all of the stuff that could be executed, like costume and set design and special effects very well. But ultimately it was all resting on a somewhat not totally formed skeletal system, so the script just wasn't there..."[/quote]
[quote]"The problem with me is I get so caught up in concepts and ideas. Like I just said, the ring is so cool. The satirical idea of a diamond encrusted ring above, like, slums is such a satirically cool idea - I'm not like a normal person in the sense that I have to have a story for something to be interesting. Concepts are just as interesting to me as stories are. Where, to normal people, stories are more interesting," he explains. "So that's an example of what I mean. I can be like, 'fuck, I love this ring, I love all the visual effects related to it, I love these images and how they're juxtaposed with one another.' And then be like, 'as a director, I could have done better.' And you sort of realize that all these people prefer this element I didn't pay as much attention to, but I paid a lot of attention to this."[/quote]
Elysium was alright, I liked it. Wasnt as good as District 9 and wasn't groundbreaking or anything but it was OK, the action scenes were really cool and I liked the space station design, I forget what it's called but there's a name for it
anyway Neil's cool I like Neil
I liked Elysium
the movie used its themes as a setting to support and stage a lame bionic action flick instead of exploring the themes /concepts
edit: i just remember leaving the theatre thinking this movie could have been so good, and Matt Damon brought his full game to the thing and it just wasn't there
#OccupyElysium
pretty much what it was
Blomkamp seems like a really cool director. His aesthetic choices are absolutely top-notch as well. But it's nice to see he doesn't think he's infallible. A lot of directors and film-makers could stand to follow suit.
The biggest issue is that the rich people could have just spent some of those billions of dollars that they had that meant nothing to them if they were the only individuals of actual worth on the planet, and build a few more of those insta-heal things that can practically bring you back from the dead.
Like, would that have hurt? It was the only reason people bothered risking their lives to try and get there, it'd stop the immigrant problem altogether.
[QUOTE=Blackwheel;47222307]the movie used its themes as a setting to support and stage a lame bionic action flick instead of exploring the themes /concepts
edit: i just remember leaving the theatre thinking this movie could have been so good, and Matt Damon brought his full game to the thing and it just wasn't there[/QUOTE]
Yeah Matt Damon did a pretty good job, Sharlto too, I always thought it was funny that Neil originally wanted Eminem for the lead role. But yeah I left theater the same way, it was decent enough but my expectations were too high going in to see it
I honestly have never heard anyone say anything negative about this movie before this month, what is going on?
[QUOTE=Killer900;47222347]Yeah Matt Damon did a pretty good job, Sharlto too, I always thought it was funny that Neil originally wanted Eminem for the lead role. But yeah I left theater the same way, it was decent enough but my expectations were too high going in to see it[/QUOTE]
dude Matt Damon was fucking aces on this movie imo, telling off the bots and stuff; script was bad and got worse as it progressed, whole thing with the kid and standing on shoulders thing uuughh, i felt bad for Damon
[QUOTE=Killer900;47222295]Elysium was alright, I liked it. Wasnt as good as District 9 and wasn't groundbreaking or anything but it was OK, the action scenes were really cool and I liked the space station design, I forget what it's called but there's a name for it
anyway Neil's cool I like Neil[/QUOTE]
Uh Elysium? :v:
[QUOTE=Ardosos;47222367]I honestly have never heard anyone say anything negative about this movie before this month, what is going on?[/QUOTE]
Probably hearing more about it because of concerns over Blomkamp's new projects and whether he was maybe a one-hit wonder with District 9. Elysium was pretty bad imo. It had a really neat setup and did absolutely nothing interesting with it.
[QUOTE=Ardosos;47222367]I honestly have never heard anyone say anything negative about this movie before this month, what is going on?[/QUOTE]
Probably has something to do with Chappie coming out soon and exactly how that will affect Blomkamp's filming career so far, depending on the film's success.
I feel like it you look at what he's saying in correlation to his work, this director has some insight. The fact hes able to self-inspect and accept criticism is really promising.
Fingers crossed for the new Alien movie
I liked the film, it wasn't phenomenal, but I guess I'm sorta like Blomkamp in that I REALLY liked his concepts and the aesthetics of the movie(one of the main reasons I loved District 9).
I saw it way after it came out so I wasn't overly hyped or anything either.
That said, District 9 was leagues ahead of it and yeah the story wasn't too stellar but given the shit hollywood spits out I was happy enough see more of Blomkamp's aesthetic vision alone.
I like it, had that cool space circle thingy.
I feel like if I were a director I'd be exactly the same as Neill. It's probably why I like Elysium so much in spite of its lack of a story, because the things that get me excited are the robots, the ships, the weapons, and visual design of everything.
For this reason I'm a little worried about Chappie because it looks to be far more about characters driving an actual story than as an excuse for a big mech to play cat and mouse with a tiny robot.
The action was pretty great though, those exploding taser shurikens were [del]the bomb[/del]...[del]the real stars of the film[/del] fucking awesome
Seriously? I thought the reason the movie felt short was because of executive meddling, at least that is what it felt like. I didn't think Blomkamp was the reason the movie was just ~okay~
[QUOTE=Killer900;47222295]I liked the space station design, I forget what it's called but there's a name for it[/QUOTE]
Stuff like Elysium and Halo are called ringworlds, after the original Ringworld novel by Larry Niven
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;47222388]Probably hearing more about it because of concerns over Blomkamp's new projects and whether he was maybe a one-hit wonder with District 9. Elysium was pretty bad imo. It had a really neat setup and did absolutely nothing interesting with it.[/QUOTE]
It was pretty and fully realized, with a shitload of practical awesome; there was no story other than "kill rich whitey"
The action was not great at all. Matt Damon was in it, so the cameraman just thought he was filming another Bourne movie and swung the camera around constantly.
[QUOTE=minilandstan;47222345]The biggest issue is that the rich people could have just spent some of those billions of dollars that they had that meant nothing to them if they were the only individuals of actual worth on the planet, and build a few more of those insta-heal things that can practically bring you back from the dead.
Like, would that have hurt? It was the only reason people bothered risking their lives to try and get there, it'd stop the immigrant problem altogether.[/QUOTE]
I don't think you [I]quite[/I] get the social commentary.
The same could be said of the richest people in the world today. Or privatized healthcare.
I hated the way it was all a metaphor for the US-Mexico border.
Whole thing felt real... Fake, because of that
[QUOTE=minilandstan;47222345]The biggest issue is that the rich people could have just spent some of those billions of dollars that they had that meant nothing to them if they were the only individuals of actual worth on the planet, and build a few more of those insta-heal things that can practically bring you back from the dead.
Like, would that have hurt? It was the only reason people bothered risking their lives to try and get there, it'd stop the immigrant problem altogether.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Last or First;47222671]I don't think you [I]quite[/I] get the social commentary.
The same could be said of the richest people in the world today.[/QUOTE]
IRL if such thing existed, one the argument that would be used against using to help the poor would be along the lines of "it encourages parasitism".
[QUOTE=Wizards Court;47222688]IRL if such thing existed, one the argument that would be used against using to help the poor would be along the lines of "it encourages parasitism".[/QUOTE]
they literally have a magic machine that you stick someone in and it cures them of all wounds
there is no real world analogue to that, it's sci-fi wizard magic
[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;47222709]they literally have a magic machine that you stick someone in and it cures them of all wounds
there is no real world analogue to that, it's sci-fi wizard magic[/QUOTE]
that isn't the element people are comparing to its real world analogue though
[QUOTE=27X;47222625]It was pretty and fully realized, witha shitload of practical awesome; there was no story other than "kill rich whitey"[/QUOTE]
Killing the rich people was never really a motivation. Being treated equally with the rich people was the motivation.
Though, as someone on this forum put it, and I can't remember who it was, the story of Elysium can be summarized as this:
[quote=Someone whose name I can't recall]Matt Damon fights to bring universal healthcare to Planet Mexico.[/quote]
[editline]fish[/editline]
[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;47222709]they literally have a magic machine that you stick someone in and it cures them of all wounds
there is no real world analogue to that, it's sci-fi wizard magic[/QUOTE]
The real-world analogue is money. With money, people can solve all the major problems the common people in Elysium suffer from - wage slavery, hunger, sickness, etc. Money is the magic cure-all, where the wounds to be cured are poverty.
Except it doesn't work either as an analogue or morality fable for pretty obvious logistical and cultural reasons. It was simply flat and sloppy as hell.
D9 had a fully realized world hidden in tiny nuance and scenes with a metric fuckton of contextual information being parsed out, and that was if you knew nothing of the region where it was filmed, if you did have knowledge and understood why things were presented as they were it was even richer. It had a kind of plausibility to it.
There is none of this in Elysium, and I live 4 hours from the border. None.
Kill whitey.
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