Neill Blompkamp's follow up to District 9 was something of a let down. While the visuals were stunning, the story and the characters felt a bit flat. The film's message about the conflict between the upper and lower classes as well as immigration issues was very, quite extremely, in-your-face. In addition, Jodie Foster's Delacourt twirled her mustache just a little too often. Her character may have been a "well-intentioned extremist" for her part, but there was never any doubts about who you wanted to come out on top at the end.
Intentions:
My aim was to clean up the film as much as I could by mostly removing Delacourt and focusing solely on Max (and Frey a bit as well) and his journey to Elysium. I've also tweaked the introduction to suggest that no one from Earth who was born there ever made it to Elysium at all.
Change List:
This list is far from exhaustive as I made this edit a couple of years before submission and didn't keep a detailed list. - New introductory text sets up the premise that no one from Earth has been to Elysium. - Cut the first scene (and subsequent deportation) of Earth refugees trying to land on Elysium. Parts of this were re-purposed for the intro. - Cut the opening flashbacks with Max and Frey and moved them to later in the film. - Re-edited a sequence that I call "Max De Costa's Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." He gets his arm broken, is nearly fired from his job (twice) and then gets irradiated and nearly dies. Made a few trims around these cuts. - Cut Kruger being fired. - Cut Kruger and his posse getting called in to stop the data heist. - Cut ALL scenes of Delacourt planning and scheming to take over Elysium. She now only appears in two scenes at the end.
Additional Notes:
My main goal was to streamline the film as much as possible while maintaining the remaining characters as much as possible.