Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

A matter of opinion. To say that they are "not even in the same league" is laughable. Star Trek, 500 Days, & Thirst are far superior IMO, & none had distractions or major flaws that took me out of the movie experience that D9 did. D9 has huge flaws IMO, exasperated b/c it's a film that tries so hard to be grounded in modern day realism (as much as one can for an alien movie), politics & social decay. D9 is dreadfully negative, has annoying editing & camera work at times, & for a movie that tries so hard to set it's self in realism, has tremendous plot holes & inconsistencies. I liked it, it has very good qualities as well, but it's not even close to the best of the year & what is a good laugh are people saying it's a masterpiece.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

I wonder how some of you can ever just enjoy a movie. I know I'm not critical enough, but damn!

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

500 Days had such poor filmmaking and was utterly unfocused. It is definitely laughable to say it's even near the same league as District 9.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

Saw it, loved it. Sure there are better films this summer/year. But I'd still say it was one of the year's best. My favorites so far are still:

"The Hurt Locker"
"500 Days of Summer"
"Star Trek"
"Sin Nombre"
"District 9"
"Up"
"Drag Me to Hell"

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

I say it.

I don't laugh.

;)

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

But I do. :)

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

It's funny you mention Star Trek, as that's a movie that I thought was loaded with distracting flaws that took me out of it. Maybe I just noticed them more with ST than in D9, but while it was a fun enough movie, it's more of a forgettable distraction when compared to D9.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

Just saw it - loved it. Best movie of the year for me behind The Hurt Locker and Star Trek. Original, well-acted, funny, scary, shocking, and just plain cool.

Loved it, had no issues with the plot (I think it was all very clear) and can't wait to pick up the Blu-ray.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

Christopher Johnson and his son were the highlights, though the whole movie was really excellent

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

I'm referring to the scene where Wilkus goes to buy meat from them. They know he's the most wanted man in the world. It just seems odd that they don't care.

The film makes it very clear that the alien weapons are of great interest to them. Maybe they do leave them lying on the floor and don't react when people try to use them. I'm not saying its impossible but it is lazy film making.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

It's interesting how you divide up the characters into 2 basic camps: good and evil, despite everyone's motivations are based on different levels of self interest. That's one if the reasons I liked Wikus as the protagonist - he's the "Everyman" who has no idea what in the heck to do and conducts himself mainly in various degrees of self interest for most of the movie.

There's no one to cheer for because there really isn't anyone you're actually suppose to cheer for. You say Christopher is a "good guy" but other than wanting to go home, what in the heck are his intentions plus if he were one of the "leaders" on the ship, what happened?

I know I have zero chance of convincing you of anything, so I won't even try, but it's no wonder you are so vehement against the movie by placing such simple tropes of "good" and "evil" to what's going on.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

How do you know that they know? Maybe the fucking gang butcher on prawn duty inside District Nine doesn't watch BBC World News. Or maybe he doesn't read the journal from cover-to-cover everyday. From what I understood, it appeared as he was surprised and amused that a Caucasian man was in line for some real meat in his disgusting kiosk. He may not have been subscribed to the CNN podcast.



It appears to me that they had a problem with real estate. It's not like they created District Nine with intentions for spacious warehouses to be built in an industrial coded area. They were short on storage, and didn't want the authorities watching them remove massive stockpiles of arms out of D9, so they just kept them there.

E

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

I loved this movie. I had to sit one seat back from the front row. I completely forgot about the pain in my next from looking up for 2 hours and was lost in this movie. The acting was spot on. The special effects were great. I thought the world was believable enough once you except a few things.

I didn't see anyone address the question on why some aliens are smart enough to do things the first ones couldn't. I think the movie hinted at this but didn't come right out and say it. It was mentioned that the aliens that were rescued were workers, not very smart and only good for minor labor. I believe they are kind of like ants where some ants are born to be workers, some soldiers, some farmers, and some queens. Even though all of rescued aliens were workers they were still able to produce any type of alien. So I believe a few scientist aliens were born. The little boy alien was probably one of these smart aliens. The knowledge is probably past down the same way ants do it, somehow they are born with the knowledge they need to know.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

I didn't divide the characters, I said that there were no good characters in this film, only that the aliens were almost portrayed as such.

He is the closest thing in the film that would be a "good guy", with his portrayal as a protective father as well as a somewhat innocent personality.


I don't really see where I once claimed this movie was in simple "tropes of good & evil". My constant gripe with the film, is that there is only one side to humanity in this film, that is evil. It doesn't matter at what lever, corporate, military, political, or the every man, they are all evil in this film. Clearly, people here enjoy villainous portrayal of mankind, my own personal tastes, I don't care for such a heavy handed, pessimistic view of mankind.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

I had never seen Star Trek prior to this relaunch of the franchise. I felt all the movie tried to be was a fun space adventure to get a new generation of fans into a potential updated franchise, & it succeeded with me. It is not a film trying to be a heavy handed sci-fi message film, like District 9, it makes no attempt to ground itself in any type of realism, so when a film like D9 does so,
IMO, it better be as smart as it attempts to be, & clean up it's inconstancies, of which D9 does not do.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

Even the human protesters that were against MNU involvement? The ones with signs that said "Aliens are my friends"? :hscratch:

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

As mentioned earlier, the reason they didn't leave earlier is that all the WORKER aliens are pretty much idiot thugs. Their leaders die off and these idiots don't even think to GET OFF THE SHIP when they're dying of malnourishment etc., so it's totally believable to me that they don't know how to synthesize fuel from that green fluid. Christopher Johnson is clearly an exception and much smarter than the rest - it takes 20 years to get enough fuel because like a litre of green fluid from their tech yielded a single drop of the fuel.

Also, the MNU badass guy does try to shoot down the command console ship when it's being beamed up to the mothership - many times, but Wikus stops him, even catching a missle out of the air (and the rest of MNU isn't interested in blowing it up because they were only ever after Wikus).

Sure, humanity for the most part is painted as intolerant, but when they say the Prawns liked to cause riots and derail trains for leisure, can you blame them? It's taken to the extreme and a lot of the way they are treated is horrific, but the movie definitely tries to let us know that some of these Prawns definitely have a mean streak to them.

Seeing it a second time there are lots of great little details here and there that really make the story work extremely well. I'd definitely bump my rating up to 4.5 now.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

I've never been much of a sci-fi fan, but after this and Moon I'm gonna hafta explore the genre a bit more.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

So, basically, you're holding your own expectations against it; ST was exactly what you expected from it, and therefore it was great. D9 was not what you expected and/or failed to meet your expectations, so it's not so great. That's how the above reads.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

Does everybody at your place of work have the same intelligence and skill-sets?

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

They are scenery, not characters in a film. They don't have names or even speaking roles, they are not portrayed in any manner outside of just that, being protestors.

Re: District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) — Ex-Halo director fleshes out "Alive in Joburg"
 

Nope, that was odd question. Why do you ask?