FAQ

Former car thief Max da Costa (Matt Damon), now a parolee working for the Armadyne weapons factory in 2154 Los Angeles and recently exposed to a lethal dose of radiation bound to kill him in five days, agrees to steal "organic information" (e.g., bank codes and passwords) from the brain of Armadyne CEO John Carlyle (William Fichtner) in exchange for passage to Elysium, a man-made space station inhabited by Earth's elite, in hopes of gaining access to a Med-bay, a medical chamber capable of healing him. However, what begins as a desperate effort to save his life leads to something far greater.

Elysium is based on a screenplay written by South African-Canadian filmmaker Neill Blomkamp.

Elysium spins, like a wheel, and the resulting centrifugal force creates artificial gravity on its inner edge. This keeps both its inhabitants and the atmosphere effectively pinned down to the surface. It's an old concept for a practical way to achieve artificial gravity in space.