Book Review: Elysium: The Art of the Film

Going through this artbook reminded me of The Art of District 9. Director Neill Blomkamp teams up again with his District 9 production designer Phil Ivey and Weta Workshop for the concept art and models. Elysium is no sequel to District 9, but the art does feel like they could have come from the same world, except in Elysium, it's year 2154.

The content can be roughly split into two main parts, that on earth and on Elysium. There are designs for the Exo-Suit, robots, spacecrafts, weapons, environments and other concept paintings. Designs for everything that appears on Earth would be more weathered, showing signs of prolong usage, as compared to those on Elysium which are cleaner and sleeker. The contrasting style is interesting.

The robot policemen look pretty cool. Designs involving Max and his Exo-Suit can be gruesome because Blomkamp doesn't like to be constrained by PG-13 ratings.

For the Elysium, Syd Mead has contributed several pieces of artwork that are in the book. You get to see the detailed sketches and the final renders of Elysium that took 10 months to finish building.

Overall, the art is great and there are lots to read about the designs and on how they film certain scenes.

It's a fantastic art book companion to the film.

Elysium: The Art of the Film is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

Error in description spotted. It should be year 2154 instead of 2159.

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エリジウム ビジュアルガイド:
Amazon.co.jp