Everybody – and we mean everybody – is talking about Elysium today.
The second trailer for the forthcoming Neill Blomkamp feature hit the Web this week, where it’s been called everything from “f*cking AWESOME” to “the one you’ve been waiting for.” And we have to agree; it’s pretty gorgeous.
Matt Damon stars as a man struggling to escape the hell that Earth has become in order to receive treatment on the utopian Stanford torus in the sky called Elysium. The privileged few, it turns out, escaped from Earth to build their own world in space, leaving the 99% (you know, plus or minus) to suffer back on the mother planet.
But there’s another two features due out this year that touch on similar themes that we’d wholeheartedly recommend checking out if you like the look of Elysium. For this special edition of Trailer Park, consider us the Pandora of cinema.
Lunar
In this feature, the prison and land of promise have been switched. The robot police are patrolling the Earth, much like in the opening section of Elysium, but from there, it’s reversed: Lunar‘s prison is in space, and the promised land is back on terra firma. Tyler Wade Johnston‘s feature is only listed as “coming soon,” but we’ll keep you posted.
LUNAR (2013) Teaser from Tyson Wade Johnston on Vimeo.
Snowpiercer
What’s a surefire way to make Elysium‘s premise even more nuts? Scale it down to the microcosm of a single circular train, and put it in the hands of Korean director Bong Joon-ho. In this futuristic sci-fi feature, the privileged few ride in the front of the train, while the rest are left to rot in back; Tilda Swinton is Jodie Foster. Can the bedraggled passengers in back, led by Chris Evans, overcome the oppression? Is Swinton’s character as evil as she looks? Who is the mysterious Wilford? Look for Snowpiercer in theatres in August, theoretically.
This article appears in June 14 • 2013.