Question

Choose ONE movie or video treatment of a work of sCience fiction of your cho1ce

briefly discuss its impact on us and on the genre in no more than a brief account consisting

of two to three paragraphs. Post your completed project to me in care of my central email

address and post your work to the Discussions B0ard area to share with the rest of the

class

and

Answer 1

Movie Chosen- Elysium (2013)

Directed by Neill Blomkamp and starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, elysium is a sci-fi movie set in the year 2154. The movie describes an Earth which has been devastated and is now home to all the poor, the criminals and other "lower" rungs of society whereas the rich, the powerful and the "higher" rungs have moved to a luxurious habitat in space (called elysium). While the people living on elysium enjoy technological advantage, top notch medical facilities, housing, education and other facilities, living on Earth has become hell.

As Matt Damon's character is hurt during a work place incident, his only hope is to go to elysium and get treatment. For this trip, he meets a human smuggler named 'spider'. This meeting starts a chain of events which ultimately culminates to an end where the program of elysium is changed by Spider and all residents of Earth become recognized as residents of elysium. Although it is a sci-fi movie, elysium shows the visionary nature of the director. The movie impacts us in the sense that the rich-poor divide just keeps increasing and the developments in space exploration make us wonder whether one day such a situation could actually exist? Although it is a dystopia, it does make us ask some powerful questions simply because of the contemporary conditions in the world.

As a whole, elysium is an action packed sci-fi movie which seems utopian but has a strong message for society . It tells us that changes must be made in order to improve the living conditions of every human being on Earth and fix the wealth discrepancy. The movie remains and will continue to remain relevant, due to the message it offers to the audience. In terms of a sci-fi movie, elysium does respect the genre due to the elements it treats but at the same time, it leaves us with an important question to answer.