chris,

I think I'm not understanding what problem you have with the trailer and the larger message you believe the trailer/movie is imparting.

I'm obviously failing to communicate, yeah. (Not sarcasm)

Within the context of the story, ita ! is almost certainly correct. But that is the story being told. What I'm talking about are the images that make up the movie, and what visual shorthand it uses to indicate the alignment of the people on the screen at a given moment.

Specifically, if a group of people appear and they are: clean, healthy, well-dressed, associated with high-technology, they will, in this movie, almost certainly be THE BAD GUYS. Similarly, if a group is shabby, dirty, sick, low-tech, the viewers will expect them to be THE GOOD GUYS. It's the association of technology level with moral status that I'm finding offensive.

(Hey, queer/feminist theory people, or media studies people - is there a term for that? For the gap between the story as told in context and the visceral impact of the images or the words as they are perceived?)

And then there's the question of how the conflict will be resolved. Obviously I don't know for sure, but based on the context of the rest of the entertain-o-sphere, I'm not hopeful for anything other than more Luddism.

I should probably reiterate: the trailer itself is just a last straw deal. Most of this is the Oh Not This Shit Again venting that comes from seeing one too many kidnapped girlfriends, or your overused trope of choice.

chris,

okay, I understand your point, but I suppose I don't understand your objection. It is typical and stereotypical for the poor to be portrayed as dirty & unwashed and wealthy to be portrayed as clean and more advanced. Rather than see this as a good/evil dichotomy, I thought was was being portrayed as a class struggle dichotomy - of which resources are a part. Difficult to have equal technology and resources in a class struggle tale. Class is about resources.

My reaction upon seeing the trailer is that it seemed like "The Running Man" and King's critiques in the novel (as opposed to the movie) about an increasingly stratified society in which wealth seems to be connected to healthcare, safety in employment, and ability to live free of pollution.

Given that King's themes in the book are reality, not only in the U.S. but in other nations as well, I don't really see much controversy in the film trailer. I don't think there is Luddite (and proposed lack of technology) advocacy in the movie. Damon's character has a machine strapped to his body after all. Yes, his working conditions are atrocious, but I thought it was because of societal deprivation, not a fear of technology.

Well, yeah. There's nothing in the trailer that says the people in the world of the movie make moral judgments based on tech level; the dirtsiders' opinion of Elysium tech may just be, "damn, I want some of that."

I'm talking about the visceral impact of the imagery of the movie on the viewer in this world, at a lower level than what the story being told is. If the visual language of the piece is, when you see high-tech you think BAD GUY, when you see low-tech you think GOOD GUY, what is the subtext of that association?

Woman finds new uses for Uruk-hai scimitar: [link]

Too awesome.

Definitely awesome.

chris, I see your point, but I'm having a hard time tying it to a broader social context, which seems to be where your objection lies, if I'm reading you right. I don't feel like this movie (or other movies/TV shows/books/whatever) is making the argument that advanced technology is bad, or that people who use it are bad, or less noble than people who don't. It seems pretty clearly to be a statement on wealth and privilege, not advanced technology, both within the context of the story and within the context of our own society.

You said:

How dare we want to be happy? How dare we want to be healthy?

But what I'm seeing, in both the story being told and the visceral images being shown, is more along the lines of: "How dare we want to be wealthy? How dare we want to exclude others from our perfect world?"

Well, my impression, and this may only be a subjective thing that exists inside my head, is that the imagery of the privileged is tied to high-tech in a MUCH MUCH stronger way than in, say The Hunger Games. Certainly the Capitol was more high-tech than the Districts, but it didn't feel like THAT was what divided the haves from the have-nots.(I would say your last bit up there definitely describes the Capitol.)

I keep coming back to the insta-cancer-screen bit. To me, that feels like the climax of the section of the trailer that sets up what Elysium is like; the part that says "Do they have it all? THIS will show you they REALLY have it all!" And it's a bit that combines high-tech and health care. Not high-tech and conspicuous consumption the way, say, instant and painless cosmetic surgery would.

I may be wrong. The end of the movie may show them peacefully coming back down and working to share what they have. (and, y'know, not getting lynched) But there's nothing in the trailer to suggest hope of a peaceful resolution, and given the current social context I'm not optimistic.

But this trailer is in the same world as the Microsoft Surface Pro ads (god, I hate those), right? It's hardly part of an overwhelming "scientific advancement is evil and suffering is what elevates us" message to the masses.

I'm rewatching the trailer, and Jodie Foster and her ilk have:

• sweeping architectures
• well tended hair and clothes
• prime real estate (and when I say "location, location, location" I mean they give us three or more angles of how lovely the view is)
• technology
• no poverty
• no war
• no sickness

In thirty seconds of trailer, health has so far been mentioned as a word, and technology is a farback shot of what looks like a high speed train track. Then a gorgeous woman in a sexy bikini is shown to have "trace amounts of cancer" that she seems to have deliberately and dismissively caused in herself by tanning, which is then healed.

Matt Damon has

• dirt
• crowds
• crime (implied by sirens)
• lack of resources (implied by crowds of people with empty jugs)
• a need to break into Elysium
• hi tech cyborg parts
• the power to "save everyone"
• a Firefly class ship (actually, I have no idea whose that is, but all ships landing look like Serenity to me now)

So I parse the movie as the haves who use indiscriminately and a have not that needs access to those resources for an unspecified reason. The message of dragging the beautiful people down into the muck alongside the noble savages did not come across to me in the images I saw--there's in fact a lingering vibe that he's dragging himself up or somehow trying to acquire what they have, rather than a framing of despoiling them.

How is tanning yourself into cancer you then cure while other people are lining up for water or gas or whatever not conspicuous consumption? Making yourself ill and not suffering because of it screams the sort of messages to me that you feel aren't there.

That's why I'm confused. I am just not parsing what you're parsing.

Damon's character has a machine strapped to his body after all.

I have a fond hope that it's the Large Hadron Collider.