Line #42 Film/Elysium


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/elysium_8524.png]]
2
3	->''"They will hunt you to the edge of the Earth for this..."''
4
5	''Elysium'' is a {{dystopian}} ScienceFiction film directed by Creator/NeillBlomkamp, director of ''Film/District9'', and starring Creator/MattDamon, Creator/JodieFoster, Creator/SharltoCopley, Creator/WagnerMoura, Creator/CarlyPope, Creator/AliceBraga and Creator/DiegoLuna. It was released on August 9, 2013.
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7	In the year 2154, the rich live on Elysium, a Stanford torus high-tech utopian space station watched over by Secretary of Defense Jessica Delacourt (Jodie Foster) located in orbit around Earth which is free of crime, war, poverty, hunger, and disease, while everyone else - a.k.a. the poor - lives on the overpopulated, ruined Earth below. The citizens of Elysium live a life of luxury, which includes access to private medical machines offering instant cures, while the citizens of Earth exist in constant poverty and struggle to survive on a daily basis and desperately try escaping the planet (and not trying to escape the planet to ''live'' on Elysium, just to break into someone's house to use a medical machine before they are deported back to earth). Those who maintain Elysium will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve their citizens' lifestyle, even destroying ships that attempt to get there.
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9	After an industrial accident leaves him with severe radiation poisoning, thirty-six year-old former car-thief-turned-factory-worker Max [=DaCosta=] (Matt Damon) has only five days to get to Elysium in order to be cured. Max straps into a powerful exoskeleton and attempts to kidnap a rich businessman (William Fichtner) in order to steal his identity and hijack his way into Elysium. This pits him against Delacourt and her violent secret police forces, led by Kruger (Sharlto Copley).
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11	----
12	!!''Elysium'' provides examples of:
13
14	* AbnormalAmmo:
15	** One of the weapons that Max uses is a modified AKM that uses high explosive airburst rounds, each round as powerful as modern-day 40mm grenades. The AKM goes from semi-obsolete relic to ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' bolter with a magazine swap.
16	** There's also the remote-triggered explosive shotgun slug, which packed enough explosive power to disable a ship engine. And then we have Kruger's explosive shuriken.
17	* AbsurdlySharpBlade: Kruger's katana. When he stabs [[spoiler:Julio]], he puts it full length through the man ''and'' the ground beneath him with no apparent difficulty. Even with super-strength, we're talking about hard-packed earth.
18	%% * ActionHero: Max.
19	* AllThereInTheManual:
20	** Carlyle is a self-made man and is chosen for Delacourt's hijack of Elysium, as he's the one who coded the SABRE defense system in the first place, being a child prodigy hired by Armadyne for it. He also [[ComicallyMissingThePoint won a humanitarian award for coding the defense system, which fries the attacker's brain.]]
21	** Kruger and his men have steel-reinforced skeletons to facilitate their usage of an exosuit. This helps explains such things as how Kruger is able to overpower Max (albeit only when the latter is distracted) even before getting his own exosuit, why he's seemingly unconcerned about being shot at by 9mm pistol rounds, why he's unharmed by exosuit-powered punches to his unarmored face, and how he can survive a grenade to the face with no brain trauma.
22	** Kruger was born in [[OlderThanTheyLook the 1970s]], FormerRegimePersonnel from UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra. Med-Pod technology apparently indefinitely extended his lifespan.
23	** Kruger, Crowe and Drakey operate their own PMC, known as the Oryx Warfare Group. Both Crowe and Drakey have the OWG patch on their gear, and Kruger's ship, the Raven, has an Oryx spray-painted on it.
24	* AmoralAfrikaner: Kruger and his henchmen Drake and Crowe. Notable because they're a trio of South African mercs in futuristic ''Los Angeles'' — they aren't exactly inconspicuous.
25	* AntiRadiationDrug: Played with; after suffering a lethal dose of radiation, Max is given medication... to deal with the ''pain'' of slowly dying from radiation poisoning, since he cannot be cured by any treatment available on Earth. However, the Med-Pods on Elysium can cure him, and getting access to one becomes Max's primary motive for the rest of the film.
26	* AntiVillain:
27	** President Patel, Elysium's board of directors, and Delacourt's unfortunate assistants are [[EvenEvilHasStandards repulsed]] by Delacourt's EstablishingCharacterMoment (which nearly leads to Delacourt losing her job as Defense Secretary). Not that Patel's any more tolerant of undesirables from Earth, but he prefers to simply round them up and deport them.
28	** Delacourt is a slight example, as her stated reason for taking control of Elysium is to [[WellIntentionedExtremist ensure a future for the children of Elysium and out of fear of the hordes of illegals breaking into the station.]] Of course, the fact that all that the illegals want is medical care and nearly all of them are crippled or incredibly ill, makes her justification more ParanoiaFuel than anything else (she also orders attacks on defenseless shuttles, killing everyone inside, rather than let the incredibly capable robot cops deal with things and just deport people). So really, she's only on here because of [[spoiler:some AlasPoorVillain moments after being left to die by Kruger]].
29	* AreTheseWiresImportant: Max disables [[spoiler:Kruger's]] Exosuit by grabbing the wires that lead into the brain stem and giving them a good yank.
30	* ArtificialIntelligence: In this film robots exist that are bright enough to handle police work and parole duty. Also to run Elysium.
31	* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Max is dying of radiation poisoning, which is why he wanted to go to Elysium in the first place. A lethal dose of radiation causes your body to rapidly deteriorate, leading ultimately to death. This would have made it nigh impossible to graft in an exo-suit, because Max would not have been able to heal after the operation. If the medication Max was given to "keep him functioning" for five days actually stopped the radiation deterioration to some significant (or very specific) extent in order to keep the suit working, it should have kept him alive a ''lot'' longer.
32	* ArtisticLicenceNuclearPhysics: {{Justified\|Trope}} somewhat due to the movie's CrapsackWorld setting and the Devil-may-care attitude towards worker safety. [=DeCosta=] has acute radiation syndrome after being accidentally locked in a radiation chamber. While the five days he is given to live (though unusually precise) are entirely realistic, the movie doesn't make much of an issue that [=DeCosta=] is now a likely radiation hazard to ''other people'' who requires decontamination. A hazard droid is used to remove him from the chamber, suggesting that he's dangerously irradiated. Albeit, if they were indeed decontaminated properly, then they wouldn't pose a risk to people around them but this gets {{Handwaved}} seemingly with some PhlebotinumPills they take. Yet [=DeCosta's=] contaminated effects don't seem to be accounted for as if they simply "cooled off".
33	* ArtisticLicenseSpace: Elysium doesn't have a roof -- the shuttles are able to fly over the walls and land anywhere on the habitat ring. On a structure smaller than a planet, centrifugal force and high walls shouldn't be enough to keep air from leaking out, and there's no indication that the atmosphere is held in by a force field, even though force field technology exists as applied to Kruger's personal shield.
34	* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Carlyle and Delacourt]]. The former was picked by Max for exactly that reason.
35	* {{Autodoc}}: The Med-Pod is the closest thing the future has to a {{Panacea}}. They can heal every disease known to man (as stated in Armadyne's AlternateRealityGame website), repair any form of injury, and reverse aging seemingly without limit. They're so powerful that they can even [[spoiler:repair Kruger's face, most of which was blown off with Max's grenade, in about twenty seconds]].
36	* AxCrazy: Kruger and his crew, who get their kicks from killing. When he finds out that [[spoiler:Delacourt's "classified info" is a total system reboot for Elysium, he decides to get the data himself to turn Elysium into his own twisted playground.]]
37	* BadassNormal: Drakey and Crowe, Kruger's henchmen, who despite lacking exosuits, hold their own against Max and others, [[spoiler:with Drakey single-handedly taking out the CCB building and forcing an evacuation.]]
38	* BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork: This is what Delacourt keeps Kruger around for, to the dismay of President Patel. Then, when he gets to the Elysium near the end, Kruger [[spoiler:kills Delacourt]].
39	* TheBeautifulElite: People living on Elysium, due to being far away from the harsh environment on Earth, not having to lift a finger to work, and especially due to the advanced healing machines they have access to. Carlyle, one of its citizens, can be seen getting disgusted and wanting to get away from his rabble of a workforce as fast as possible.
40	* {{BFG}}: Many of the Elysium weapons are stated on the respective wiki as being absurdly heavy or potent, given their size, but significantly less so in the actual film.
41	** The modified AKM, equipped with airbursting explosive ammo and a laser rangefinder/designator. Each round packs the explosive power of a modern 40mm grenade round in a smaller package.
42	** One of the weapons for the Civil Cooperation Bureau, who supplies the weaponry for the Elysium Defense Forces, is known as the Cousar Crowe Rifle. It's classified as an anti-material rifle, weights 40kg, and fires a .22 non-explosive round at extremely high-velocity. In order to utilize it, the operator has to wear an Exosuit, not just for recoil management reasons, but to provide the damn thing with additional power.
43	** Then we have its under-barrel GrenadeLauncher, the Sky Sweeper, which is supposed to give the ability to serve as a man-portable air defense system and adds 15kg to the base rifle. It uses a smart surface-to-air grenade round with a 400,000 km range -- enough to hit Earth while standing on the moon, yet has problems incapacitating even unarmored humans at less than 20 meters, as seen in the data heist segment.
44	** Then there's the [=ChemRail=], which is a man-portable ''railgun'' system, which utilizes a dual-propulsion system, using chemical propellant to fire the round and an electromagnetic system to propel it to incredible supersonic velocities. It ''doesn't'' get nerfed by the movie, and gives the middle finger to concealment, cover, the laws of physics, and the (presumably reinforced) walls of the armory before disintegrating a Mook. The ammo that it uses is a fin-stabilized, rail-accelerated sabot round.
45	** Kruger uses a man-portable quad Surface-to-Space missile launcher, whose two-stage missiles are capable of intercepting (from behind, no less) spaceships traveling at 6 times escape velocity. The missile itself is going about ''50 times'' escape velocity, or 545 kilometers ''per second'', all while being about the same physical size as a baseball bat and apparently having infinite fuel.
46	** One of the weapons in the Art of Elysium book that did not make it to the final cut, was a man-portable railgun that was going to be wielded by Crowe, one of Kruger's fellow agents. The design for it was based around the mounted door gun used by Drakey to attack one of the other survivors of the failed heist. The big difference was that it wasn't mounted and that Crowe was going to use it on foot. The power for the weapon would have been drawn from the battery packs bolted to his body armour, just like the power source used to fuel Kruger's personal deflector shield.
47	* BigBad: Defence Secretary Delacourt oppresses the people of Earth in the name of the elitist Elysium and when Max ends up stealing her plans to take over the SpaceStation, she begins targeting him directly. Her position gets [[spoiler:usurped by her unstable henchmen Kruger, who had already been a far more active threat than she, when he kills her and takes over Elysium himself]].
48	* BilingualBonus: "Jan Pierewiet", the song Kruger sings to Maya's daughter, is an Afrikaans folk song in which a man and his wife greet each other with a kiss in the morning and make coffee -- in other words, [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty doing domestic, married-couple things]].
49	* BittersweetEnding: Max manages to save Frey's daughter and get people on Earth the medical attention many of them need, [[spoiler:but at the cost of his life to upload the information from his brain to reboot Elysium to recognize Earthlings as citizens of Elysium.]]
50	* BloodKnight: Kruger and his squad-mates Drakey and Crowe seem uninterested in the luxuries that Elysium offers. They just want to kill people.
51	* BloodlessCarnage: [[spoiler:Kruger blowing himself up]] is onscreen but doesn't involve much blood, except for his body parts flying away.
52	* BodyHorror:
53	** Max's PoweredArmor is grafted directly onto his bones and tied into his nervous system and brain, which means the pain is probably a lot worse than it might seem at first.
54	** Kruger after [[spoiler:he gets over half his face blown off by a grenade]] on arrival at Elysium. [[MadeOfIron And he lives!]] We even get a real [[NauseaFuel nice look]] at the results, too, before he gets fixed up.
55	** Then we get a brief, quick glance of [[spoiler:Kruger getting the back of his skull-Exosuit interface forcibly ripped out by Max, and still going. OWWWWWW.]]
56	* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece:
57	** Max's PoweredArmor is a (probably painfully) salvaged third-generation exosuit, which is good enough to take on Kruger and his new gadgets, [[spoiler:including Kruger's fifth-generation exosuit, in an Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight moment]].
58	** {{Lampshaded}} by Max when he's handed the modified AKM. He refers to it as a "family heirloom".
59	* BullyingADragon: Delacourt at one point starts yelling at Kruger, after Max escapes custody. [[spoiler:It earns her a well-deserved death.]]
60	* CapitalismIsBad: TheMovie, pretty much. The wealthy ruling class leave the working class to rot in squalor on a near-uninhabitable Earth while themselves living in luxury on the orbital colony of Elysium. The working class are shown explicitly to be the ones creating the wealth that the ruling class benefit from - the hero Max works at a droid factory, for example, in [[NoOSHACompliance appalling labor conditions]] - while seeing none of the benefits themselves. Perhaps most glaringly, Elysium has a {{Panacea}} installed in every home - ''[[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything literal]]'' [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything universal healthcare]] - which is withheld from the working-class Earthlings by Elysium, and any attempts by the residents of Earth to seize this healthcare for themselves are violently clamped down on using missiles and AxCrazy off-the-books mercenaries like Kruger.
61	* CastingGag: Sharlto Copley as an AxCrazy mercenary hunting the hero, a reversal from his role in ''Film/District9''. Invoked, as Copley wasn't interested in playing the same character again.
62	* CentrifugalGravity:
63	** Elysium rotates to provide this.
64	** An accidental version occurs when the Raven spins out of control, throwing the combatants against the bulkhead.
65	* CherryBlossoms: At one point, Max and Kruger are fighting in what appears to be a factory with random cherry trees dancing everywhere. Fittingly, Kruger uses throwing stars and a katana.
66	* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Max and Frey were childhood friends who are implied to have fallen in love at some point.
67	* ClingyCostume: Max's Exosuit is surgically grafted to his bones.
68	* CoverInnocentEyesAndEars: Subverted
69	-->'''Kruger:''' I don't believe in committing violent acts in front of kids...[[ExactWords so I need you to close your eyes]], sweetheart.
70	* CranialProcessingUnit: Max rips the head off a battle-droid, and its head and body both shut down immediately.
71	* ConvenientlyClosePlanet: The titular Elysium is always in the sky above Los Angeles when needed and clearly visible. Geosynchronous orbit is 35,786 kilometers above the Earth's surface, almost three times Earth's diameter, also only technically possible at the equator but the distance between that and L.A. is trivial compared to geosync orbit.
72	* CoolAirship: The Raven, Kruger's military VTOL-ing transport that can even fly into orbit.
73	* CrapsackWorld: Earth is devastated and overpopulated and the people who still live on it are destitute. The very wealthy live on the titular Elysium, a space station similar in appearance to a Stanford torus, and will stop at nothing to maintain the distinct separation between the two classes of people and prevent immigration. To show how bad things are on Earth, the slum city Max lives in is ''Los Angeles''.
74	* CureForCancer: The AutoDoc units that Elysium makes use of are manufactured by a MegaCorp known as Armadyne. They'll cure anything from crow's feet to cancer. All it takes is a simple scan and brief surgery. Max [=DaCosta=] is trying to get to Elysium because he is dying from extreme radiation exposure, and using a Med-Pod would save his life. Frey, his childhood friend, is also desperate to get to Elysium because her daughter is dying of leukemia.
75	* CyberPunk: Though humanity has the technology to live in space colonies and cure cancer in seconds, much of Earth lives in poverty and squalor.
76	* {{Cyborg}}: Max [=DaCosta=], the protagonist, has an older model Exosuit grafted to his body. Kruger has implants on his body to mount technology to, and facial nodes to interface with tech. Near the end of the film, [[spoiler:Kruger mounts a high tech exosuit on his implants.]]
77	* DeadpanSnarker: Max to an extent. Considering what he's dealt with over his life and what comes next, anyone would be. Mouthing off to robots isn't too smart, though.
78	* {{Deconstruction}}: Of the very concept of Space Colonization and in particular the idea it being a solution to human problems stemming from environmental degradation. Only in the most blatantly self-serving of propaganda would one dare to depict Elysium as an outpost of brave men and women conquering the final frontier, or a shining hope for humanity. Instead it is shown to be very much a lifeboat for the one percent to save themselves while leaving the rest of humanity to rot. Of course, the goal of the immigrants is not to destroy the wasteful one-percenter colony, but to journey to it and live there themselves. It could be said that the problem is that they only built the one and won't actually colonize the solar system proper.
79	* DeflectorShields: Kruger carries an awesome handheld shield. He uses it twice, both times to help him survive against what would be immediate death otherwise, at the hands of 7.62mm airbursting explosive ammo and fire from the Chemrail. It seems to be powered by the powerpack he wears on the back of his body armor. Very realistically portrayed, for once, for the simple fact that although the shield stops the shot, [[BlownAcrossTheRoom it doesn't stop the transfer of energy to the target]].
80	* DelicateAndSickly: Frey's daughter is dying of cancer, and there's nothing she can do to save her.
81	* {{Determinator}}:
82	** Max, as he's trying to save his life from imminent death. ''Nothing'' gets in his way from reaching Elysium, [[spoiler:not lethal irradiation, not painful Exo-Suit surgery, not even a stab wound keeps him down for more than a day or so.]]
83	** Kruger. It's his job to be one but his hunt for Max quickly becomes personal, especially when [[spoiler:Max blows half of Kruger's head right off]]. This is especially evident after he [[spoiler:wakes up from surgery]].
84	* DisappearedDad: The father of Frey's daughter Matilda goes unmentioned and unseen.
85	* DiscOneFinalBoss: [[spoiler:At first, Kruger seems like this, but then is revived and kills Delacourt.]]
86	* DisneyVillainDeath: Subverted. [[spoiler:When Kruger is thrown off the railing during the final fight, he instead blows into a bunch of chunks thanks to the grenade that was attached to him.]]
87	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
88	** As with ''District 9'', Neil Blomkamp makes little effort to be subtle in his symbolism. The film is a condemnation of the [[SlobsVersusSnobs economic and political disparity]] between the wealthy and the lower class. The fact that the film is mostly set in America and the downtrodden population is mostly Latino puts its commentary specifically on the issue of [[SouthOfTheBorder Latino immigration in America]].
89	** The robot says to Max after he's fatally injured, "Thank you for your service."
90	* TheDogBitesBack:
91	** After Max is irradiated in an accident in his factory, Carlyle has him removed from the premises simply because he doesn't want to go to the expense of changing the sheets in sickbay. In payback Max insists that he be the target of the data heist.
92	** [[spoiler:Kruger mutinies against Delacourt while she's chewing him out.]]
93	* TheDragon: Kruger, for Delacourt. He's her preferred assassin and she enlists him even when he's been decommissioned. Although he's quite comfortable making demands from her and it's quite clear her plan has no hope [[DragonInChief without him]].
94	* DueToTheDead: [[spoiler:Frey covers Delacourt's body with a sheet after she dies.]]
95	* DyingDeclarationOfLove: From Max to Frey.
96	-->'''Max:''' [[ItMakesSenseInContext I figured out why the hippo did it.]]
97	* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Though The Hero Dies, medical aid is rendered to Earth, Frey's daughter is cured of her leukemia, and the villains of the story are dead.]]
98	* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous:
99	** Kruger himself is Ex-Special Forces turned chief enforcer for the Civil Cooperation Bureau.
100	** John Carlyle's security droids are pretty standard, aside from the fact that they're ''gold''. Yeah, subtle.
101	* EmpoweredBadassNormal: Max goes from an ex-convict stricken with extreme radiation poisoning to a superhuman with PoweredArmor grafted directly into his body. Kruger goes from being a badass Ex-Special Forces sociopath to an augmented badass Ex-Special Forces sociopath.
102	* EstablishingCharacterMoment:
103	** Delacourt's first action in the film is to order the destruction of passenger ships full of people in need of medical attention.
104	** President Patel also has one, as he immediately calls Delacourt in for a review, only to fold immediately under her defence of her actions.
105	* EvenEvilHasStandards:
106	** Unlike Delacourt, the rest of the Elysian government isn't exactly comfortable with employing human rights violators and shooting down unarmed shuttles full of civilians.
107	** As much of an asshole Max's supervisor is, [[spoiler:he's clearly disgusted with how the Armadyne CEO treats Max in the wake of his radiation.]]
108	** Subverted when Kruger states that he can't commit violence in front of children and repeatedly tells the little girl to keep her eyes shut while he's punching her mother.
109	** Spider has a hard time pushing the button [[spoiler:that would kill Max, so Max does it himself]].
110	* EvilDuo: Kruger's henchmen, Drakey and Crowe.
111	* EvilIsNotAToy: [[spoiler:Delacourt thinks she can keep Kruger on a leash. This comes to bite her in the ass, big time.]]
112	* ExtremeSpeculativeStratification: The film takes the "White Flight Syndrome" social phenomenon and boosts it ''way'' past up to eleven: the titular space station is essentially a suburb/man-made country for the hyper-rich to which they have moved to; leaving the increasingly-CrapsackWorld that is Earth (with its immense levels of overpopulated poor) to rot.
113	* FacialHorror: [[spoiler:Krueger's]] face gets blown off by a grenade during the 2nd half of the film. [[spoiler: However, that doesn't kill him.]]
114	* FauxAffablyEvil: Kruger's friendly demeanor only enhances his evil.
115	* Fiction500: Various fictional future brands and companies are seen throughout the film and promotional material:
116	** Pharmaceutical and Medical
117	*** Marksetz
118	*** FOXOM Ferrovoxium Derivatives
119	*** Merjanta
120	*** Nerchem
121	*** LATRAL Medchem Solutions
122	*** Versamex (the company logo is seen on the pill container Max is given)
123	** Fashion
124	*** Oesse (the designer brand seen on the devices behind both Carlyle and Delacourt's ears)
125	*** Riché (the brand logo tattooed on Carlyle's cheek)
126	*** Cheval (one of the designer logos seen on Carlyle's pimped out droid bodyguards)
127	** Defense
128	*** Asgari (the company that makes the handguns, tasers and grenade bullets)
129	*** GKR (logo also seen on various weapons and Armadyne security droids)
130	** Finance
131	*** NACEX (a stock market like interface seen in Carlyle's shuttle)
132	*** Saypeon (another stock market like interface seen in Carlyle's shuttle)
133	* FictionalCurrency: The Amero (legal tender in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_monetary_union "North American Monetary Union"]]) has replaced US/Canadian dollars and the Mexican peso in 2154.
134	* FlippingTheBird:
135	** Kruger is shown flipping it as he flips Max's car with an explosive.
136	** Kruger's henchman does this [[spoiler:to a room of government people after he tosses a grenade in there to kill them.]]
137	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
138	** The tie-in websites for the Med-Pod state that [[spoiler:it only takes a minute to completely reconstruct a destroyed face. Guess what happens to Kruger.]]
139	** Max takes out one droid by jumping behind and ripping off its head. [[spoiler:Guess how he disables Kruger's exosuit.]]
140	** Max's parole officer predicts that he'll fall back to old vices: hijackings and robbery. This is exactly what he does.
141	** The lone woman shown to manage getting her crippled daughter healed in an AutoDoc foreshadows [[spoiler:Frey and her daughter]].
142	* FountainOfYouth: The Med-Pod technology can apparently stops ageing and extend lifespan indefinitely.
143	* FreezeFrameBonus:
144	** When Max's parole officer detected his heart rate elevating and offers him a box of pills, you can briefly see written on the lid of the box: "[[SideEffectsInclude Side effects may include]]: vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, dizziness, constipation, blurry vision, dry mouth, rash, increased heart palpitations, high blood pressure, violent seizures, and sudden death". Perhaps more than anything in the film, this warning shows the government's total disregard for the well-being of the citizens of Earth, as even a simple drug is so poorly regulated.
145	** As a second FreezeFrameBonus, there's also the [[ShownTheirWork surprisingly correct]] Intel-syntax assembly code in which Carlyle is seen programming, and the rather believable interface with which he fries the system once he's done.
146	** When Carlyle's biographical information is displayed on screen, it is revealed that he is born in 2010, making him 144 years old in the movie. Again, Med-Pod technology to the rescue.
147	* AFriendInNeed: Julio does everything he can to help Max after he's been irradiated, from taking care of him, to unhesitatingly offering him his savings even though they both know it's not enough to get him to Elysium, to joining him on the job he takes for Spider in exchange for help getting to Elysium.
148	* GeniusCripple: Spider walks with a cane and is a brilliant hacker.
149	* {{Gorn}}:
150	** [[spoiler:Kruger's head after he falls face first into Max's grenade. He gets better.]]
151	** [[spoiler:Also, the [=ChemRail=] rifle. A mook gets all four limbs and then his HEAD popped off. In ''slow motion''.]]
152	* GravityIsAHarshMistress: Of the "varying gravity" type. The hijacked spacecraft at the beginning seem to ignore it; and the military craft flying up to Elysium seems to have some sort ArtificialGravity, but when said craft carrying the main characters lurches to the side near the Elysium torus everyone falls sideways "down" to Elysium. Your head can spin trying to figure out what is going on here - did the gravity switch off? Elysium can't pull the characters down - is the craft flying along the curve of Elysium? If so... why? A lot of FridgeLogic in that scene for physics nerds to sort out, but this happens this way because RealityIsUnrealistic and RuleOfCool.
153	* GrenadeTag: Kruger has [[HomingProjectile homing drones]] and explosive shuriken that attach to a person and detonate. He appears to enjoy the YouAreAlreadyDead nature of them, so it's LaserGuidedKarma when he goes out the same way. In the FinalBattle, Max attaches a grenade to him, but Kruger [[TakingYouWithMe hooks a carabineer onto Max's exoskeleton]]. Max then breaks off that part and [[RailingKill shoves Kruger over the railing]] whereupon he explodes.
154	* GuileHero: Frey appeals to Max as a friend to get him to help her and her daughter.
155	* GunsDoNotWorkThatWay: Max's 7.62 airburst rounds are used to improve fragmentation damage, but it's hard to imagine that fragments from a small bullet will be more powerful than a whole bullet.
156	* GunsVSSwords: Kruger is able to survive taking on several gun-wielders with his katana. It helps that he has an energy shield and other pieces of tech to give him an edge.
157	* HammyVillainSeriousHero: Taciturn, blue-collar thief Max Acosta (whose only concern is saving his own life from radiation poisoning) is the direct opposite of Agent Kruger, a renegade, cackling, AxCrazy government thug who takes joy out of causing as much collateral damage as possible.
158	* HeavenlyConcentricCircles: The space station Elysium is a lush, high-tech utopia that gets its name from Myth/GreekMythology's name for the abode of gods, heroes, and divine beings. It has a torus shape with two coaxial rings connected by bridges of sorts. Everyone on Earth looks up to it as if it were literal heaven of safety, commodities, health insurance, and food abundance --which to be honest it is.
159	* TheHeavy: As the leader of Elysium's secret police force on Earth, Agent Kruger serves as Delacourt's primary instrument against Max and the band of freedom fighters with whom he aligns himself. [[spoiler:He later replaces Delacourt as the film's main antagonist by murdering Delacourt in a plot to seize control of Elysium for himself.]]
160	* HeroicBystander: The little old lady who hides Max from Kruger and his crew by getting him to crawl under her cart of pigs, defeating their FLIR.
161	* HeroicSacrifice:
162	** [[spoiler:Julio is killed by Kruger when he shoots at the latter to get his attention away from Max when they hijack Carlyle's brain. It does buy Max enough time to shoot at Kruger and get away.]]
163	** [[spoiler:Max knows the data in his head will kill him if it's removed, but lets Spider do it so Frey's daughter will survive.]]
164	* HollywoodHacking:
165	** While hacking is shown with console text and code on believable interfaces, it's still bizarrely easy to [[spoiler:reboot the whole space station and rearrange the government and/or citizen registry. This may be justified, as they were using a stolen piece of software that had been written by the original developer explicitly for mounting a coup on Elysium]]. Also, Spider seems to instantly understand the function of an avalanche of code that is whizzing by his screen.
166	** Although played straight in some instances (as above), usually where time is limited (in movie convention sense), over the scope of the entire movie this trope is arguably subverted. For example, actually writing the code for the [[spoiler:Elysium reboot]] requires the original developer to sit down and write out the program painstakingly before it can be used. Furthermore, just getting through the doors in Elysium requires Spider to sit down and use his pre-packaged computer to hack it. In fact, that takes so long on one door that an entire fight scene has time to take place. And even [[spoiler:syncing and downloading the data from Carlyle's brain to Max's takes time]].
167	* HopeSpot: A lone ship manages to make it past and evade Kruger's missiles but are apprehended upon landing. One of the immigrants from the shuttle that manages to make it to Elysium manages to get to a Med-Pod and heal her daughter's leg enabling her to walk. Only to get tazed and arrested immediately afterwards. All things considered, though, that woman got ''exactly'' what she came for. It's highly unlikely she expected to stay there.
168	* IdiotBall: Max sasses the robot policemen in the beginning, despite being a parolee who should be well aware they are humorless and overly aggressive. He only does this because the plot needs a way to show just how bad things are on Earth, which is accomplished fairly well by sending Max to the overcrowded hospital and police station.
169	* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: Kruger expresses this toward Frey and her daughter.
170	* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: During the data heist, Manuel, the black underground weapons operative, blindly opens fire at the approaching security droid despite Max and others being in the firing line; this ends up fatally shooting [[spoiler:Carlyle.]]
171	* ImpaledPalm: Happens to [[spoiler:Spider]]. It doesn't slow him down for long.
172	* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Kruger doesn't just use that sword for cooking. He stabs his sword full length through [[spoiler:Julio]] and into the ground beneath him without difficulty.
173	* ImprobableAimingSkills: One of Carlyle's bodyguard droids throws a grenade almost carelessly to the side and still gets it under one of the crew's cars.
174	* InsecuritySystem: Carlyle encrypts the data in his head with a defense system designed to kill anyone that tries to use it without his authorization. What it doesn't do is actually encrypt the data, allowing anyone to read it (Kruger's men actually intercept it over wifi), which given its intent is monumentally stupid. Furthermore, given the data can be transferred easily, the less scrupulous could just find someone to sacrifice and not tell them about the failsafe. By the time it does get used, [[spoiler:Max is dead anyway so he doesn't mind the failsafe killing him first]].
175	* IronicNurseryTune: Kruger tries calming Frey's daughter, Matilda, with an Afrikaans children's tune as they're being taken to Elysium. She's being "comforted" by the man who beat her mother and stated his intent to [[RapeAsDrama "settle down with her"]], on top of a man with a live grenade being in close proximity. Worse, it's a song of a married man and woman going about their life after spending a night together.
176	* {{Irony}}: Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) gets Carlyle to [[spoiler:write a reboot code for Elysium to perform a coup and keep it safe from the people on Earth]]. In addition, she hires [[spoiler:a complete psychopath to do her heavy lifting for her. He ends up murdering her in cold blood, and the code ends up used to grant access to Elysium for the illegal immigrants she was trying to protect it from.]]
177	* {{Jerkass}}:
178	** The head of Armadyne. His first concern on discovering one of his employees has been blasted with radiation? Keeping the bedding on the gurney in the medbay clean. Oh, and don't let your dirty Earth germs get on him, cover your mouth.
179	** Max's foreman, who [[PragmaticVillainy only cares about his fracture in a way a broken tool needs to be replaced]] and causes Max's irradiation in the first place by forcing him to fix a stuck pallet jamming a blast door. However, [[EveryoneHasStandards it does look like he feels bad when it's announced that Max has five days to live]].
180	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Spider. He's effectively a crime boss and unapologetically uses Max's irradiation to force him into a dangerous job, but when it turns out that [[spoiler:Max has found a program that will let them take control of Elysium]], he immediately wants to use it to save ''everyone''.
181	* JitterCam: To an astounding amount, especially during the action scenes. [[http://i.imgur.com/f4A08tV.gif This gif]] gives behind the scenes details.
182	* JustEatGilligan: Every single person who risks their lives to get up to Elysium is doing so to access a [[AutoDoc Med-Pod]], something that is a completely minor part of the lives of people on Elysium, but which is almost magical by standards of Earth where medicine is not much more advanced than present day. The Med-Pods could easily be supplied to Earth and hence stop the problem of people trying to access Elysium so desperately in the first place (or at least reduce the occurrence substantially)... and this becomes really sickening when it turns out that ''[[spoiler:there are THOUSANDS of these Med-Pods just sitting around in ships that never get used and could have easily been sent down to help people]].'' It would only take a comparatively tiny portion of money to give everyone medical treatment in the first place (or if not everyone, at least have ''some'' access to the technology rather than none at all). The fact that this is very much TruthInTelevision with regards to modern day medicine (and illegal immigration to some extent) makes it much less stupid than the premise would first imply.
183	* KatanasAreJustBetter: Kruger, a South African commando, carries around a katana as part of his standard gear and whips it out in a few situations where bullets still might be flying. Defied when he tries using it against Max's exosuit - the blade is ruined in just a few swings. Reasons why he is using katana in the first place are unclear, other than the cyberpunk aesthetics being at play.
184	* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Kruger,]] whose favorite method of killing people seems to be exploding them, gets torn apart by his own grenade in a [[spoiler:failed TakingYouWithMe moment]].
185	* KickTheDog: Carlyle shows zero concern for Max after he suffers a lethal dose of radiation.
186	* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: Most of the guns seen in the film seem to work pretty much just like their modern day counterparts, though there are a few incredibly powerful future guns like the AK that shoots explosive airburst rounds or the full-auto Chemrail gun that Max uses to shred one of Kruger's goons into gibs (along with the entire section of wall around him).
187	* KnownOnlyByTheirNickname: Spider.
188	* LargeHam: Delacourt is hammy enough, though she has absolutely nothing on Sharlto Copley's [[AxCrazy batshit insanity]] as Kruger.
189	* TheLastDance: After being fatally irradiated and given only a few days left to live, Max isn't going down without a fight to get his way to Elysium.
190	* LightIsNotGood: Delacourt has platinum blonde hair and dresses entirely in white suits, and she's also a WellIntentionedExtremist.
191	%% * LightningBruiser: Max, Kruger, Drakey, and Crowe all qualify.
192	* LittlestCancerPatient: Leukemia, specifically. Part of the reason why Max is going on his mission.
193	* LivingMacguffin: Max becomes one when [[spoiler:all the security coding for Elysium gets uploaded into his brain, coding that would let the user do anything they want. Spider and his crew want the information to disable the Elysium security systems and make everyone on Earth register as a citizen, Delacourt wants it to overthrow Elysium's current leadership, and Kruger just seems to want to kill Max, with killing the rest of Elysium being an additional bonus.]]
194	* LudicrousGibs: Just like in ''Film/District9'', there are a few glorious instances of people exploding (as well as one droid turned into scrap metal in a similar fashion).
195	* MagicPlasticSurgery:
196	** A feature of the Med-Pods.
197	** The opening sequence features a young woman using the bays to completely change her appearance. Possibly to highlight the difference between the people on Earth who could use them to survive, and the people on Elysium who are using them primarily for cosmetic purposes.
198	** Carlyle is referenced to get cosmetic treatments done on his face. He has a noticeable seam on his forehead and what is likely to be a brand logo on his cheekbone.
199	** Elysium's President Patel also has a brand name embossed in the same area of his own face.
200	** [[spoiler: When Kruger gets his face reconstructed, the process ends up removing the distinct facial implants, and ends up de-aging Kruger significantly. He's no longer weathered and wrinkled, and it ends up removing a lot of the gray hairs out of his his beard and mustache.]]
201	* MeanBoss: Max's foreman docks him a half-day for coming in late and wanting to work with a bum hand, which is somewhat reasonable but still helps to establish him as a jerk. Later on, he forces Max to walk into a radiation chamber which had already been primed (but not activated) to clear a door jam, leading to Max's irradiation when the door slams shut once the jam is cleared. At least he clearly feels bad about this, but he nevertheless forced Max into an extremely unsafe situation. However, the foreman isn't nearly as bad as Carlyle, who is more concerned about Max ruining the bedding in the medical bay than his condition, and even tells his foreman to cover his mouth so they won't breathe the same air.
202	* MeaningfulName: Elysium was heaven in Greek mythology. Specifically, it's the heaven set aside for heroes, gods, and other divine beings. [[spoiler:Sure enough, the Hero dies there.]]
203	* MechaMooks: Manufactured by Armadyne, these security bots take care of neutralizing any and all threats that arise down on Earth and in Elysium. Max holds a grudge against them, especially since they end up breaking his left arm when he was resisting their attempts to find out what was in the bag he was carrying (an extra work uniform, a water bottle, and what appears to be a thermos).
204	* MegaCorp: Armadyne, who makes everything from security robots to the all-cure machines known as the Med-Pod 300s.
205	* MessianicArchetype: Max himself. In his childhood, the nun that he lives with states that he's bound to change the world. He ends up on a quest to save humanity [[spoiler:by hacking Elysium to make everyone its citizens]], gets "crucified" with exosuit parts drilled into his body, [[spoiler:willingly sacrifices himself at the end, which enables all the people on Earth get access to Elysium's medical facilities, basically giving them access to heaven.]]
206	* MoreDakka: Besides some ''glorious'' shots of an AKM slow-motion exploding a robot, the two varieties of Elysian assault rifle fire at a minigun-like buzz, along with one of the gang members' chainsaw-gripped machine gun and a door-mounted gauss heavy machine gun.
207	* MotherlySidePlait: Frey is introduced with her hair like this.
208	* MultinationalTeam: Delacourt is French and the President of Elysium is Indian. Only three characters in Los Angeles are White Anglos (the WhiteMaleLead [though with the name [=DaCosta=] and his Spanish-speaking childhood, he could be a White Hispanic], his unnamed supervisor and Carlyle), and there's a token black coworker at both Max's and Frey's workplaces, but the rest are Latino, and Max is fluent in Spanish. The only East Asian we see is an Elysium biotechnician in one scene.
209	* MundaneMacGuffinPerson: Max becomes one when [[spoiler:all the security coding for Elysium gets uploaded into his brain, coding that would basically let the user do anything they want. Spider and co. want the information to disable the Elysium security systems and make everyone on Earth register as a citizen, Delacourt wants it to overthrow Elysium's current leadership, and Kruger wants it to take over Elysium and do... unpleasant things.]]
210	* MundaneUtility: Kruger uses his katana to help him cook food over an open fire.
211	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:Delacourt]] refuses treatment from Frey after she's [[spoiler:stabbed in the neck, murmuring "no" in remorse for what she did.]]
212	* NarratingTheObvious: The beginning has a bit of this: onscreen text explains that Earth is an overpopulated WretchedHive, while Elysium is an idyllic space station where the rich hide from the masses, but the accompanying flyover visuals and first couple of scenes make all this perfectly clear.
213	* NeuroVault: Carlyle is carrying data that [[spoiler: can be used to reboot the Elysium mainframe]] in his head, which is later transferred to Max's brain.
214	* NervesOfSteel: Carlyle [[spoiler:is impressively composed when his Bugatti SSTO is shot down, and even sets an ambush, immediately after crash-landing, for Max and Julio by sending only one of his droids out to kill them, and waiting for them to leave cover before deploying the second.]] However, he (like Delacourt, and, it's somewhat implied, many Elysians), seems slightly robotic, which may be the source of his imperturbability. Mind you, he still had the occasional small spazz and yelp. It's still impressive that he wasn't screaming and flailing. Another explanation could be his age: the guy is over 140 years old and also one of the few Elysians who regularly conduct business on Earth, so it's not unreasonable to assume that this isn't the first time he's the target of such an attack, thus turning his weirdly nonchalant behavior into [[ButForMeItWasTuesday a practiced routine]].
215	* NiceGuy: Julio. Although he's a car thief, he's never shown to be anything but friendly and an unfailingly loyal friend to Max.
216	* NiceJobFixingItVillain: The plot to open up Elysium to everybody on Earth is only possible because of [[spoiler:Delacourt's desire to overthrow the current government, requiring an underhanded reboot code. Then Max gets a hold of it...]]
217	* NoNameGiven: Max's foreman at the factory.
218	* NoOSHACompliance: Max's foreman threatening people with doing really dangerous things (like go inside a radiation chamber to fix a door jam) or get replaced. Worse still is the fact that the radiation chamber automatically energizes upon closing, can't be opened from the inside, and has no emergency shutoff button or deadman switch. It's worth noting that the radiation chamber, once active, does have sensors to detect if something is in there that shouldn't be. It doesn't ''turn the chamber off'', of course; it's more like "By the way, you're cooking some dude." The whole thing is made pretty ironic due to the intercom in the factory constantly blaring on about working safely, and in a contemporary environment an arm fracture would all but require a supervisor to replace that worker for the time being.
219	* NotUsingTheZWord: All mechs are called [[Franchise/StarWars droids]], not robots.
220	* OlderThanTheyLook: Thanks to Med-Pod technology, citizens of Elysium are effectively immortal. Kruger was born in 1970, according to supplementary material, making him almost 200. Carlyle's biography (seen during the data heist) lists him as having been born in 2010, making him 144. This is also why neither Delacourt or Carlyle think it's odd to have an arms contract with a 200 year lease: they'll both live that long, accidents notwithstanding.
221	* OneLastJob: Spider offers one to Max. If he can obtain some data from inside an Elysium citizen's head, such as CEO Carlyle, he can get a ride up to Elysium to cure his radiation poisoning. Since Max doesn't really have much of a choice at this point, he accepts it.
222	* OneWordTitle: Also an example of ThePlace, as the characters are trying to go to Elysium.
223	* {{Panacea}}: The Med-Bays used by the wealthy residents of Elysium will treat anything, from a crow's feet to a compound fracture to [[spoiler:a face that has been mashed to bits by a grenade]] to [[spoiler:terminal leukemia]]. Just about the only thing they don't cure is ''death''. [[spoiler:Spider reminds Max of this when he sacrifices himself at the end of the film, and Max [[FaceDeathWithDignity accepts his fate]].]]
224	* ThePlace: The characters are trying to go to Elysium. Is also a OneWordTitle.
225	* PleaseWakeUp: Max to [[spoiler:Julio]], after Kruger stabs him through the chest.
226	* PoweredArmor:
227	** Max [=DaCosta=]'s third-generation Exosuit gives him the strength to rip machines apart with his bare hands in his quest to reach Elysium.
228	** Later, [[spoiler:Kruger]] is outfitted with a sleeker model, which appears to be a fifth-generation exosuit. That said, the armor part of the suit is shown to be distinct from the exoskeleton that allows the protagonist to walk and move. Unlike Max's older model Exosuit, [[spoiler:Kruger's]] has more extensive armour components, including better protection for his torso. [[spoiler:His version is also mounted to his existing implants]], rather than having it grafted to his bones like Max's.
229	* ProductPlacement:
230	** It looks like Max's Exosuit, and possibly all other Exosuits, are made and manufactured by Kawasaki; there's also a Med-Pod with a large Versace logo on it.
231	** In the beginning, there is a closeup of Max's Adidas, possibly a nod to ''Yellow'', the commercial Blomkamp did for the shoe company.
232	** Carlyle's personal space shuttle is an in-universe badged Bugatti, with design cues from the Veyron.
233	** Delacourt's wristwatch/communicator has the Bvlgari brand.
234	* PsychoForHire: Kruger; his profile mentions him committing numerous human rights violations. [[spoiler:Kruger is one of those rare psychos that backfires against their employer!]]
235	* PsychoKnifeNut: Aside from being a katana fan, Kruger has a big combat knife strapped across his chest, plus remote-explosive shurikens. He also uses a shard of broken glass to [[spoiler: kill Delacourt.]] His exo-suit also has multiple knives concealed on it in various compartments. That he still uses blades in a setting with high-tech weapons and combat droids marks him as particularly bloodthirsty.
236	* RageAgainstTheReflection: Kruger punches and partially shatters a mirror after his face is reconstructed. [[spoiler:Seeing one of the shards is what gives him the idea to kill Delacourt with it.]]
237	* RagnarokProofing: Judging by the the data thieves' ride and the cars along the street, no new cars have been manufactured on Earth for over 150 years. The land yachts shown on the street at one point would be considered in visibly good shape if they were found ''today,'' much less found in a slum after 150 years.
238	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: President Patel is considerably less reactionary than Delacourt.
239	* RedShirt: The men who go with Max to hijack Carlyle's brain, and later, one of Spider's guards on Elysium. [[spoiler:His friend Julio turns out to be MauveShirt, surviving just a little longer and having more screentime, but still ultimately dying.]]
240	* RequiredSecondaryPowers: Using an exosuit requires skeletal implants, which explains why Max can tear off a droid's head without ruining his fingers or [[spoiler:Kruger surviving a grenade that reduces his face to a bloody mess.]]
241	* RetroUpgrade: Max wonders why he's being given an antique AK to use and is promptly shown the futuristic explosive rounds that allow it to remain viable.
242	* RingworldPlanet: Elysium is a massive Stanford Torus type of space colony.
243	* RippedFromTheHeadlines: It doesn't need to be said that in 2013, wealth disparity and societal division in spite of constantly emerging technologies that have the potential to improve everyone's lives is a hotly debated issue.
244	* RoboSpeak: Max gives some back to his "parole officer" after it (a robot) extends his parole for sassing some robot officers. Amusingly, it detects his sarcasm.
245	* SacrificialLamb: Alas, poor [[spoiler:Julio]], we hardly knew ye. In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpTpGweD74A this interview]], Creator/NeillBlomkamp, says he partially cast [[spoiler:Creator/DiegoLuna]] for the ability to evoke sympathy from the audience which meant that they would [[spoiler:hate Kruger even more for the way he kills Julio]].
246	* SanitySlippage: Not that he was entirely sane to begin with, but Kruger becomes noticeably more unhinged following [[spoiler:his facial reconstruction.]]
247	* SceneryGorn: Los Angeles (and most of the Earth-based scenes in general) looks like a wasteland. Contrast this with...
248	* SceneryPorn: Elysium itself, if you happen to like that building/landscaping style. It looks absolutely ''gorgeous''.
249	* SchizoTech: Kruger dual wields a katana and a force field.
250	%%* ScienceHero: Spider.
251	* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: One of Spider's henchmen does this when Kruger's ship arrives at Carlyle's crash site. He doesn't make it very far.
252	* ShoutOut:
253	** The Civil Cooperation Bureau, who provides most of the weaponry in the setting, shares a name with the real-life Civil Cooperation Bureau, which was a government-sponsored hit squad within the South African Defense Force, during UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra. Agent Kruger, played by South African actor Sharlto Copley, is a member of the CCB who works as a Sleeper Agent for the Elysium Defense Forces. The members of his team are also white South Africans, very tellingly.
254	** Sharlto Copley has mentioned that he and the production team based Kruger's look and accent on a composite of different things. The camo that Kruger wears, as well as Drakey and Crowe is the exact camo worn by the SADF during UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra. Kruger's beard and shorts is a reference to the 32 Battalion, which was a special light infantry battalion for the SADF. The accent is particular to the Cape Flats region of South Africa. Judging by Kruger's age, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that he was with the 32 Battalion of the SADF and hails from Cape Flats.
255	** Kruger's name is a reference to [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet Freddy Krueger]], and has the personality to match.
256	** To ''Film/JohnnyMnemonic'': Brain up/downloading and a rogue techie named Spider?
257	** One of the screens on Kruger's ship shows a computer rendering of the [[Franchise/StarWars Death Star]].
258	** The Exo-suits used by both Max and Kruger look similar to what the [[VideoGame/Borderlands2 Hyperion corporation]] uses for its {{Mooks}}.
259	* ShownTheirWork:
260	** The [[spoiler:Elysium reboot]] code is seen on screen before being compiled, and it is Intel-syntax assembly code. The next time we see this code on-screen, it is shown as escaped strings with hex characters; this is how shellcode usually looks like. Actual exploits will contain code like this, for pretty much similar purposes as the one shown on the film.
261	** And on the contrary, the [[spoiler:reboot screen]] just looks a ''tad'' goofy in the 22nd century showing IDE master and slave drives, which were starting to be phased out when the movie was being made.
262	* SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty: Elysium gets the shiny, Earth gets the gritty.
263	* SpaceIsNoisy: While more subdued than space-opera-style explosions, the missiles that explode in space can still be heard.
264	* SpaceStation: The eponymous Elysium is a man-made Stanford Torus orbiting Earth, where the privileged of humanity live apart from the destitute masses.
265	* TheStarscream: Delacourt plans a coup because she feels the current president doesn't have what it takes to lead. [[spoiler:Kruger later kills Delacourt in order to seize control of Elysium for himself.]]
266	* StopOrIShootMyself: Max does a variation of this, by holding a [[DeadManSwitch primed but not live grenade]] (pin pulled, spoon still attached) to his head when he meets up with Kruger to get a ride up to Elysium. He tells the latter not to try anything funny, or he'll blow his head off, destroying everything that was hijacked from Carlyle. Kruger pretends to fold and coaxes him on board the Raven...where he has Frey and her daughter prisoner, [[MexicanStandoff so if the grenade detonates Max kills them as well]].
267	* StrawmanPolitical: Delacourt refuses to allow any non-citizens to get into Elysium, justifying it by banking on the fear of overpopulation and rioting.
268	* StrawVulcan: Also Delacourt, though she's a crafty enough operator that she has no problem invoking emotion to make a point. But, the slightly robotic way she does it (and everything else, for that matter) indicates that she probably doesn't actually feel it, but is simply just that bigoted.
269	* SuperStrength: Aside from being able to rip off the heads from droids and throw people around like dolls, the Exosuits increase the user's physical performance dramatically. They move more quickly than the average combatant, and Kruger was able to leap a great distance and height using his Exosuit. Max was able to rip himself from a gurney, and pulverize Crowe into the floor of the Armoury before throwing him like a shotput. Earlier, we have Max running away from the botched heist, on foot, at high sustained speeds. Considering the amount of distance that was put between him and Kruger, he had to be moving at least 35 mph.
270	* SurveillanceAsThePlotDemands: Elysium is able to follow the data heist in real time via satellite when Carlyle is involved, but they somehow lose track of Max after his encounter with Kruger so Max won't be immediately captured. It's possible Delacourt deliberately engineered this (note Kruger is conspicuously pixelated), but it's not made clear.
271	* SwissCheeseSecurity: For a habitat supposedly concerned with keeping the riff-raff out, there doesn't appear to be anything actually stopping people from flying up there aside from Kruger, and the government does not like Delacourt using him. During the first trip up, their first and last line of defense is essentially to ask politely for the ships to turn around. Droids do show up to round up the immigrants once they actually land, but even this response is ignored when Spider's men show up in the final act (justified only with a throwaway line when Spider tells the rest of his soldiers to [[WeNeedADistraction keep the robots busy]] while he locates Max). This is actually a plot point, as Delacourt is chafing under the restrictions that have made Elysium laughably easy to invade. If she had her way, the station would be armed to the teeth to prevent that sort of thing.
272	* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler:Kruger tries to blow up both Max and himself with a grenade after [[NauseaFuel his exosuit's cranial implant is forcibly removed]]]]. It doesn't work out as he intended; see KarmicDeath.
273	* TattooedCrook: Max spent several years in prison and is on parole, and as we can see from his scenes in the beginning, is very inked out.
274	* ThinkOfTheChildren: "Do you have children, President Patel?" This is Delacourt's response to President Patel [[EvenEvilHasStandards chewing her out]] for ''killing dozens of people'' trying to enter Elysium. This is also her rationale for trying to take over Elysium.
275	* TimeShiftedActor: Creator/MaxwellPerryCotton plays a young Max.
276	* ToCreateAPlaygroundForEvil: [[spoiler:When Kruger finds out about the codes in Max's head and gets tired of Delacourt's scolding for his violent antics, he goes on to initiate his plan to turn Elysium into one of these.]]
277	* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler:Delacourt for up-close confronting a complete psycho like Kruger without any protection or guards.]]
278	* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The teaser was fairly opaque, but one of the full-length trailers has two specific shots (Max yelling "I have five days to live!"; Max carrying an ill girl) give away the plot. Another goes into even more detail, summarizing the first half-hour. The only thing any of them preserve is Kruger.
279	* TrailersAlwaysLie: The trailer heavily implies that Max's exosuit is what gives him the ability to override Elysium's system. It doesn't, but the reboot code it lets him download from Carlyle's brain does. It also implies some shots of Kruger are actually of Max (such as Kruger's walk when he [[spoiler:begins the coup and specifically starts gunning for Max]]), and that Kruger is assisting the hero. The trailer also implied that Max's exosuit can remotely crash a ship, which was just gesture by Kruger (activating sticky homing explosives).
280	* TheUnintelligible: Kruger, for viewers unused to South African accents.
281	* UnwinnableByDesign: The ARG website contains [[http://www.itsbetteruphere.com/ a short "test"]] supposedly conducted by a robotic official to check if the player (supposedly a person from the impoverished Earth) is fit for a free move to Elysium under some charity program or another. All the questions, however, are rigged, and every possible choice will only ever result in the robot mocking the player before eventually deeming them unfit (for example, in order to test their English skills, the robot will ask the player to type down the word they hear: four/for/fore. Since they all sound exactly the same, naturally every response would result in the robot calling out the player on lacking linguistic skills and deducing points). This does an excellent job of getting future viewers both to sympathize with the frustration of the Earth people and to hate the self-righteous hypocrisy of the Elysians.
282	* VomitDiscretionShot: Most of the shots of Max puking don't show the puke.
283	* VomitIndiscretionShot: After Max suffers a lethal dose of radiation, his friend takes him inside to figure out what is wrong and help him. Right as Max walks in the door, he pukes on the table in full view.
284	* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: Delacourt's strange accent. She's the only character with an accent that doesn't sound like an existing modern one. Given that she's French, it's probably supposed to be a faint French accent over Foster's native American.
285	* WhiteMaleLead: Max is a light-skinned Hispanic, but is played by the very [=WASPy=] Matt Damon. This stands out because almost every other character in the movie is played by an actor of a matching ethnicity.
286	* TheWorfEffect: Max falls victim to this in his first encounter with Kruger. Even with his PoweredArmor he has trouble just barely escaping from the latter.
287	* WorldHalfFull: [[spoiler:Max's HeroicSacrifice grants everyone on Earth citizenry of Elysium, and Med-Pods are flown out to Earth, providing everyone proper and adequate enough health care service.]]
288	* WretchedHive: Los Angeles and presumably all major cities.
289	* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler:Kruger does this to Delacourt after he sees her near the end of the film. It's likely he was intending to kill her regardless of what happened, since he didn't trust politicians in the first place, but her criticizing him for his recent actions probably gave him the excuse to do it sooner rather than later.]]

Context Film / Elysium