District 9

[noops]

Another cool-looking sci-fi movie coming out this year...sounds good to me, although I think I'm more excited about Avatar than this one. Still, I would like to see this when it comes out.

don't think it's sci-fi...filmed liked a documentary

Cloverfield + March of the Penguins

DUDE. HOW CAN THAT NOT BE AWESOME.

No, this movie looks interesting. I want to see it. I won't read Slaps' ridiculously long tower post, on account of his spoilers, but apparently it's no good. I'm going to see it in spite of this, seeing as how I've disagreed with Slaps on such things before.

[Tanner]

I enjoyed it and I thought it was a good film.

[bobaganuesh_2]

saw it yesterday with friends. I wasn't completely bedazzled, but it was an excellent movie for what it was. I agree with SlappyMcGee on the points that a better relationship between Wikus and his inlaws needed to be established, and the battle at the end with the "mech" and the miliatery was a bit lame, I didi indeed find allegories, both political and survivalist. There are so many sides of the story that can be shown, but the audience can only see what goes on while trying to move the aliens from District 9 to District 10. (I'll continue this review tomorrow)

[SlappyMcGee]

saw it yesterday with friends. I wasn't completely bedazzled, but it was an excellent movie for what it was. I agree with SlappyMcGee on the points that a better relationship between Wikus and his outlaws needed to be established, and the battle at the end with the "mech" and the miliatery was a bit lame, I didi indeed find allegories, both political and survivalist. There are so many sides of the story that can be shown, but the audience can only see what goes on while trying to move the aliens from District 9 to District 10. (I'll continue this review tomorrow)

I think I was just completely retarded when it comes to allegory.

[bobaganuesh_2]

saw it yesterday with friends. I wasn't completely bedazzled, but it was an excellent movie for what it was. I agree with SlappyMcGee on the points that a better relationship between Wikus and his outlaws needed to be established, and the battle at the end with the "mech" and the miliatery was a bit lame, I didi indeed find allegories, both political and survivalist. There are so many sides of the story that can be shown, but the audience can only see what goes on while trying to move the aliens from District 9 to District 10. (I'll continue this review tomorrow)

I think I was just completely retarded when it comes to allegory.

how so? I found that the idea that humans are manipulative and malicious basterds was displayed efficiently on two levels -- with the MNU and the Nigeran gangsters. one of the most confusing components of this movie is how it was directed; it goes from mockumentary to following Wikus around and all the conundrums he gets into, then back to the mockumentary a the end. I'm guessing that the director wanted the audience to witness Wikus's transformation (and ritualistic death, when a character destroys a part of himself to move on), while the documentary-style parts serve to provide background information in the beginning and put things into perspective in the end. I agree that the blood-spattering on the camera is useless, it's totally out of place and unnessecary.

[SkyPanda]

basterds

That's a different movie. ;)

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

basterds

That's a different movie. ;)

Speaking of which, I just watched that.

Click to show/hide spoiler

So apparently, Hitler's cause of death was 48 machine gun rounds to the face from a golem, all the while a cackling jew smoke ghost set ablaze a theater containing himself, Goering, Goebbels, and Herman. This was shortly before the entire top of the Nazi Party pyramid exploded. I'll amend Wikipedia post-haste.

[Tanner]

I think I was just completely retarded when it comes to allegory.

how so? I found that the idea that humans are manipulative and malicious basterds was displayed efficiently on two levels -- with the MNU and the Nigeran gangsters. one of the most confusing components of this movie is how it was directed; it goes from mockumentary to following Wikus around and all the conundrums he gets into, then back to the mockumentary a the end. I'm guessing that the director wanted the audience to witness Wikus's transformation (and ritualistic death, when a character destroys a part of himself to move on), while the documentary-style parts serve to provide background information in the beginning and put things into perspective in the end. I agree that the blood-spattering on the camera is useless, it's totally out of place and unnessecary.

I think it's funny that you just assume that Slaps' first sentence must have had a typo in it.

[bobaganuesh_2]

typo or not, the question stands

[SkyPanda]

I found that the idea that humans are manipulative and malicious basterds was displayed efficiently on two levels -- with the MNU and the Nigeran gangsters.

Yes, these two groups in the film are both portrayed as manipulative and malicious. However, you need to look at some other aspects of their construction. The Nigerians (the black guys) are superstitious and unintelligent. They run a cat food scam in a refugee camp. They think that eating Wikus's arm in some crazy voodoo ceremony will give them alien powers. They're leeches in the camp built by the white guys.
The MNU (the white guys), while also a bunch of dbags, are intelligent and modern. They reseach weapons and technology.

So essentially this movie is a huge steaming pile of "apartheid is bad" which also happens to contain more racial stereotyping than your average hollywood blockbuster.

I really hope that in a few days the director is going to make a statement in the media saying "ha, fooled you all, you're all a bunch of racist pseudo-intelligent dicks."
That is all that can redeem this film.

[bobaganuesh_2]

I found that the idea that humans are manipulative and malicious basterds was displayed efficiently on two levels -- with the MNU and the Nigeran gangsters.

Yes, these two groups in the film are both portrayed as manipulative and malicious. However, you need to look at some other aspects of their construction. The Nigerians (the black guys) are superstitious and unintelligent. They run a cat food scam in a refugee camp. They think that eating Wikus's arm in some crazy voodoo ceremony will give them alien powers. They're leeches in the camp built by the white guys.
The MNU (the white guys), while also a bunch of dbags, are intelligent and modern. They reseach weapons and technology.

So essentially this movie is a huge steaming pile of "apartheid is bad" which also happens to contain more racial stereotyping than your average hollywood blockbuster.

I really hope that in a few days the director is going to make a statement in the media saying "ha, fooled you all, you're all a bunch of racist pseudo-intelligent dicks."
That is all that can redeem this film.

the humans in the film were not stereotyped. notice Wikus's assistant, the guy who hacked the MNU computer archives, or the big meatshield that accompanied Wikus during evictions? Both of these characters are black. also, there was a mix of races that work for MNU. the CEO of the company is a black man for godsake! The movie employs two different classes of humans exploiting the aliens, hence displaying the corrupt tendencies of humans interested only in general.

there are other themes besides apartheid: Wikis's self-sacrifice, Christopher practically becoming an angelic figure to his people, and the consequnces of scientific curiosity. I'm not entirely sure if this also applies, but the Watchmen model; Johannesburg watches the aliens, the rest of the world watches Johannesburg, but who watches Earth? that relates to our limited knowledge of the universe, compared to the aliens, who seem to know quite a bit (witnessed when Christopher is cycling through galaxies and planets when taking off in the command module/small ship). This also relates to irony -- what the aleins know that we do not know. Using the weapons is an obvious example, band in terms of how far advanced their species is next to ours. This raises the question: who is really in power? red flags fly everywhere when Christopher and little CJ take off in their ship, leaving ecverybody asking what they are going to bring back in three years.

In the end, when the audience sees a now fully-transformed Wikus making a flower from scrap metal, I realize that love does prevail over all, despite everything that has happened to him and what he has changed from physically and psychologically (again, the irony is he conformed to what he feared the most; yet he maintains his core values, like love for his wife/ex-wife; reverse-conformism if you will). Bah, I might be deluding myself yet again.

[capt_weasle]

No one listen to Slappy. He doesn't know what he's talking about. It was an incredibly awesome movie.

[SlappyMcGee]

No one listen to Slappy. He doesn't know what he's talking about. It was an incredibly awesome movie.

I actually generally do know what I'm talking about when I'm expressing my opinion. And I've seen little done to refute any of the things I said, except for boboga_fett endlessly posturing on loosely connected ideas rather than actual themes.

[MattKestrel]

Oh, I've got one?

How the fuck do you make a movie about aliens who can't survive in our atmosphere or pressure? Can we even assume that aliens /can/ exist without an oxygen base atmosphere and normal gravitational pressure?

I saw it a few hours ago, and I thought it was epic. End of.

[Drathmoore]

Oh, I've got one?

How the fuck do you make a movie about aliens who can't survive in our atmosphere or pressure? Can we even assume that aliens /can/ exist without an oxygen base atmosphere and normal gravitational pressure?

I saw it a few hours ago, and I thought it was epic. End of.

Please note that Matt here hasn't seen Evolution yet.


Besides, I thought the movie was very good. It's plot is slightly cliche: normal man, goes against outcasts, starts becoming outcast, teams up with outcasts, blows crap up, outcasts gain freedom (or the possibility is hinted at, at least).

I did like the special effects for the characters. Wikus' Krauser arm was pretty nicely done, if you ask me, and some of the effects... Well. The effects that seem like they could be possible (such as fingernails coming off, teeth falling out) do start to make you think "Errugh". But things like throwing up black sludge... It didn't really seem to work.

The same effect for the lightning... Like Slaps said, it's pretty overused. The most annoying thing about that is early on they show some of the other weapons that the aliens had. Why couldn't they use some of those, and mixed it up a little? I mean, for a short while Wikus had a damn "badassery" gun, which he was using to blow up Nigerians with (they had it coming. What would you do if they were planning to cut off your arm?).

But the lightning also reminds me of Abe's Oddessy. The explosions are a bit like those in that.

There are slight bits of humour there as well, which seem a little unecessary from a critical point of view. They don't subtract from the movie but... I'll quote this:

Here

"I thought you said not to kill them."

"He shot at me!"

Also, to scare other people from Wikus and his "contagious disease", they advertise that he made love to one of the aliens... I'm not going to go much further with that one. It's just a weird idea to go with, really.

It seemed like they were trying too hard to be funny there. However, stuff like picking up a pig and shooting it at the army forces was humourous, and somewhat ironic when reflecting upon it.


Now. I have one major gripe with this movie. And that is... The ending.

The ending was pretty good; firefight, people killed by lightning, the old "you go ahead, I'll fend them off" sort of event... But then Christopher (one of the aliens. And yes, I don't like the fact that his name is Christopher either.) says that he will be back. And one of the mockumentary interviews does say "We don't know if he'll be back at all, or mount a rescue mission. Or he may even come back and declare war on us."

No. This movie was awesome, but I really don't like the fact that it has been left open for a sequel. It doesn't need one, and I cannot see a good angle they could take for one.

Overall though, I liked it. 8/10, I would say, and a recommendation to watch it. Just don't make the mistake that I did in buying a large drink. I literally ran out of the room during the firefight in excrutiating pain...

Lesson learned.

[capt_weasle]

I think one solution to the overuse of the lightning effect would be that that is the main form of weaponry. Think about a bunch of aliens sitting around watching a movie about humans seeking refuge on their planet, when one gets up and says, "Man, what's with all the lame 'bullet' things? Yeah, we get it. It fires out of the weapon and it make a small hole in the target. Repeat 500 times. Booooring."

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

I think one solution to the overuse of the lightning effect would be that that is the main form of weaponry. Think about a bunch of aliens sitting around watching a movie about humans seeking refuge on their planet, when one gets up and says, "Man, what's with all the lame 'bullet' things? Yeah, we get it. It fires out of the weapon and it make a small hole in the target. Repeat 500 times. Booooring."

They'd be justified in complaining if every round fired was glorified with a bullet-time pan around it as it flies through the air, like someone used to CS:S playing Sniper Elite. It gets old very quickly.

[capt_weasle]

I don't think that the lightning was glorified too much. Although I admit the scene where Christopher is standing for like three minutes being sad while everyone is shooting at him - and misses - is a bit ridiculous.

[SlappyMcGee]

I think what a lot of people have addressed here are logical errors in the film's continuity that make sense if this were actually a documentary and not just a film shot in faux-documentary style. (Shot that way throughout, although they abandon the gimmick about thirty minutes in and leave the rest of the camera stuff unexplained.) If -we- were in a world where the aliens had come and only had one type of weapon, then the plot of this movie would make sense. But we're not in that world; that world is contained to the realm of fiction. Fiction should be first and foremost interesting, entertaining. While this lightning effect was cool the first three or so times, with so much talk about a variety of alien weaponry, I was hoping for, well, variety. They could have just as easily made other weaponry. What it shows here is not a lack of inventiveness on the aliens' part, but rather on the part of the directing and writing staff.

As far as the idea that aliens can't survive in our atmosphere, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief as long as this is addressed at some point in a film. In fact, thinking about this for just half a minute, I thought of a much cooler plot for a movie; the corporation controls the containment field within which the aliens can live and breathe their alien gases. While Wikus is originally going to be used by the Corporation for it's own purposes, he gets used just as badly by the aliens who see him as a tool for getting in and out of the containment.

Point being, these are merely nitpicks I have with the movie's internal logic. (Although I suppose the former is also a nitpick about the awful direction of the film.) I'm more concerned with the substandard plot and cliche'd overt "theme". Movies don't have to look great or make sense to be good movies. They just have to not be shit.

[Rhekatou]

I WANT TO FUCKING SEE IT SO BAD!!!!
But my parents say no cause it's R.
All my friends have seen it though >:(

[SlappyMcGee]

Incidentally, the director of this film described Master Chief as a victim of the military industrial complex.

Master Chief. of Halo. That green dude who shoots shit?


Fucking pretentious idiot douchebag.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Oh, I forgot to mention that I saw this. I'm going to keep it around because I very much liked how practically the aliens were portrayed. They weren't acting like all the faggoty aliens from Star Trek or whatever; they were refugees, and they damned well acted like it. Despite a handful of things that rubbed me the wrong way, overall I very much enjoyed the movie as a work of entertainment.

[otters~1]

Oh, I forgot to mention that I saw this. I'm going to keep it around because I very much liked how practically the aliens were portrayed. They weren't acting like all the faggoty aliens from Star Trek or whatever; they were refugees, and they damned well acted like it. Despite a handful of things that rubbed me the wrong way, overall I very much enjoyed the movie as a work of entertainment.

I agree with most of this. It was a very original concept for a movie (compared to the rest of Hollywood's output this decade), but it wasn't carried off perfectly. Well enough to be enjoyed, however.

[Tanner]

It was a very original concept for a movie (compared to the rest of Hollywood's output this decade) ...

Wait, what? Do you realize that refugees and immigrants are often called aliens in real life? I liked this movie but it wasn't a fucking original concept. It's an old concept, redone, reasonably well, with badass Kenyans. And what's this about Hollywood's output this decade? What does that even mean? I hate you and your kind, flagmyidol.

[SlappyMcGee]

I will agree with Tanner on that point; Damn, Kenyans are badasses.