District 9

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Really? Because Rumpelstiltskin seems like the kind of thing that would really appeal to you. The antagonist does the protagonist a favour in return for the promise of goods or services returned at a later date. The protagonist later reneges on the deal and instead proceeds to manipulate the antagonist through underhandedness and subterfuge. Just so that I can understand better what we're talking about, what do you take issue with in the fairy tale, particularly.

And what does Rumpelstilskin teach you? Make shady, underhanded dealings so long as you're confident that you can be the bigger asshole? Sounds like something that a mob boss should be showing his son.
To me, a good story is (aside from plot) one that involves some skill or talent, or whatever other effortful thing that brings success, but fairy tales are far too driven by randomness. The protagonist is plucked from his or her normal way of life and faces supernatural circumstances, and then succeeds through blind luck. Top it off with the fact that it's impossible to walk away from one of these things with a good message for the target audience (hell, I'd even be fine with, "Once upon a time, there was a boy name Timmy. Timmy didn't eat his vegetables, so a gremlin ate his fucking head. His sister ate her vegetables, so he left her alone. The End."), and you get a genre that you can only enjoy if you shut down your entire prefrontal lobe before reading. The reader who finds fairy tales enjoyable and meaningful would probably be equally enthusiastic about jingling keys.

[otters~1]

Tanner, none of those movies was an allegory involving aliens.

I like this line a lot, mostly because I'm genuinely unsure of the level of seriousness here.

It was a joke, but I'm starting to like the way it sounds. To add to what Suki's saying, most fairy tales are very similar. There are only so many morals you can draw out of someone eating someone else's gingerbread house.

[bobaganuesh_2]

in the end, I think that District 9 portrays aliens creatively compared to how aliens are usually characterized in film -- although the fear of aliens in District 9 is consistent with any other alien movie (as far as I'm concerned). I find this movie to be creative in that sense, not because it is a reworking of the apertheid theme, but because of the aliens themselves. they weren't trying to take over the world and fucking blasting us to bits like in Independence Day or War of the Worlds; they weren't taking people hostage for greedy purposes like in Men in Black; they weren't hunting us down maliciously like in Alien; and they weren't psionically fucking us over like in Communion. They were seeking help and ended up getting buttraped by the South African government and for a long time took it like a dog. Instead of sending the message "humans should fight for peace" to the audience, District 9 tells us to "face our fears and befriend them". after all, aliens in general are the ultimate incarnation of fear for humans; the unknown. and instead of taking the negative route, where the aliens are bad, this movie takes the positive route and having the aliens be the good guys, while they are labelled as the bad guys. This movie analyzes human nature; what will we do when we are paralyzed with fear and neurosis? we will either blow the aliens to smitherens or lock them away -- both methods are utilized to help us feel more safe in the dog-eat-dog universe. And it is very difficult to endorse the third method and immeadiately start alien-hugging, because our natureal intinct is to get the farthest away from the aliens, because in a situation such as this nature beats common sense. Basically, in my opinion, this film is an allegory for a possible outcome steming from human fear.

[SkyPanda]

ultimate carnation of fear

I would watch this movie. :P

[a happy song]

I really enjoyed this film (I scored it 8/10 on imdb).

-

The main protagonist was brilliantly 'written' (he ad libbed his lines) and portrayed. I found the technique produced a very realistic and engaging character who was very human and reacted to each situation like an average, slightly cowardly worker drone would.

There was no leap from human to super killing machine as there usually with this plot type (The Matrix, Star Wars, etc..), what we see is a highly flawed man being thrust into a fantastical situation and stumbling through it with his negative traits flaring and dictating his behaviour. The only reason he manages to pull off what he does is his ability to use the vastly superior alien tech, and even then he uses it ineptly and frustratingly just like an untrained person would.

(and before anyone gets on this, the aliens were so easily subdued because they lacked the intelligence to use the tech efficiently. Christopher and his son were anomalies.)

I really liked that it took the entire film for the protagonist to realise the flaws in his ideals and opinions regarding the Prawns, and that the only real reason this occurred was due to his transformation and subsequent ostracism from his fellow man. The kind of prejudices he held before would only ever be broken by something so drastic.

That my emotions towards Wikus flitted between sympathy, support, and disgust, only cemented my opinion that the character was portrayed effectively and realistically.

-

The relationship between Wikus and his family and friends didn't need to be portrayed any deeper. We were given all we needed to make the human connection with him at the start. A director doesn't need to spoon feed the audience to achieve this, he just needs to be efficient and I believe, in this case, he was.

-

The Sci-fi elements were perfectly done. I was satisfied with the explanations and techno-speak. I honestly see any criticism here to be highly pedantic and pretentious.

Also, the argument that humanoid aliens who can breath our atmosphere is lazy is a ridiculous one. It's as much of an assumption that alien life would differ from us so as it is that it would share similarities. Again, pedantic and pointless.

-

I've read that some people believe the film to be racist toward Nigerians. Bullshit. The film portrayed HUMANS as intolerant, greedy, malicious, etc... That we have a group of Nigerian militia in a country that is rife with such groups was as realistic and fair as the rest of it.

-

The action here was 100% better than the over-blown trash that Mr Bay produced earlier in the year. It was clear, humorous. awkward (a good representation of the ineptness of the protagonist), and the effects were stupendous.

-

The ending: I love how open they left it, and I don't believe it was done to leave room for a sequel. It felt much more like the director wanted his audience to go away with mixed emotions and aspirations for the characters and events and letting them fill in the rest for themselves. I love it when film-makers do this effectively, which is very rare.

Of course, if there is a sequel I won't be disappointed unless I'm disappointed. :p

-

My main criticism of the film is the over-use of Wikus' hesitance and awkwardness to produce tension. Even though I consider it realistic in keeping with his character, the frustration I felt toward him at times (taking far too long to get into the mech-suit, running from the highly inferior human soldiers while using the mech suit, etc..) was quite off-putting.


-

So, yeh, I enjoyed the film. It was a very competently directed, acted, and written piece of science-fiction that took cliched themes and added human elements that are very rare to the genre.

Highly recommended to all sci-fi fans.

[noops]

Why... Why did you post your review twice?

[bobaganuesh_2]

why do you have to make such an irrelevant post?

[SlappyMcGee]

why do you have to make such an irrelevant post?

Or you? Stop it.