Supermallet

I have seen Moon, Aliens, Wall-E, and Blade Runner. I love all of those movies. And it's not just about the message but also how it's told. And I really don't think it's as black and white as you make it out to be. The opening portion is a pretty spot-on recreation of what happens in a lot of refugee situations. At first people gather together to help, but then, when the refugees don't just disappear, the crusaders go home, and the locals become resentful. The refugees, unable to synthesize into the main society, lash out against it, causing tension on both sides, and eventually the minority gets placed in a cultural and/or physical ghetto. That's a pretty complex series of events, and it has little to do with corporate malfeasance or military might. The fact that corporations and governments end up exploiting the events is something that has been historically demonstrated time and time again.

The fact that you're dismissing the elements of the film that disagree with your point of view (the wife, the protesters, the change in Wikus himself) makes it difficult to argue with you, since you try to shoot down any evidence that might put a hole in your theory, which I assure you is not airtight. This movie displays a series of emotions, actions, and reactions from different people and aliens, and your simplistic summation does not do it justice. But then you accuse it of not being smart enough. Maybe you just don't want to see it as smart, I don't know.

Baron Of Hell

They would be arrested and if not they would probably be killed by their own people. These are law abiding citizens. These guy to part in a number of illegal activity that would get them life sentences.

Supermallet

Oh, and more characters who aren't depicted as horrible are Wikus' parents and his assistant, who actually goes to jail for exposing MNU.

Neil M.

Sessa, I'm curious as to what you would add or delete from this film if you had made it since you do not seem to want to argue about the plot holes that you've mentioned. It sounds like you wanted to see the good that some people do when horrible atrocities occur. I'm not sure you could have fit that within the framework of this movie because the film leaves such an unresolved ending to the prawn problem and it doesn't really add anything to Wikus' storyline. Good people would not hunt him down so the last third of the film has no room for any good people. But having said that, wouldn't any attempt at showing the good that humans can do when they care be just as heavy-handed as the message you say Blomkamp is trying to shove down our throats? I just think the film portrays the world the way our world really works. Governments and corporations do not always have our best interests at heart. People only care about a cause when it is fashionable to do so. When problems are kept unresolved, the common person becomes less and less interested in the solutions as time goes on. I think portraying people in any other way would seriously detract from the film. But that's why they call these things opinions.

On a completely different note, did anyone get a Man Bites Dog vibe from the whole mockumentary part of the film? Wikus' enthusiasm for what he was doing was just as funny to me as Ben's was in that film. I have to believe there was some influence there not only because of the style but just the fact that Wikus seemed to enjoy being on camera more than doing his "job". Both characters are completely devoid of any emotion other than excitement about being filmed.

Sessa17

I am not dismissing them, I'm just saying they are near insignificant components of the film. If anything they only further my argument to the anti-human theme of the film. The wife is really only portrayed as clueless, she doesn't know anything about what's going on. She is not good or bad, just a plot device. The protesters, I mean is this really your only proof of good in humanity in this film. People protesting for the rights of Alien creatures from another planet? And the change in Wikus? How is that good? He starts off the film as an embarrassing schmuck, & ends up murdering countless people not caring who or how many he kills as long as his needs are met. And yes, I do see how he is simply trying to survive, but that doesn't make it not murder.

Well, there you go, that is what this really all boils down to. Just another case of , I don't agree with other people on the utter brilliance of a film that simply must be flawless since you like it, so my views are wrong & I simply just don't understand the masterpiece of film making that you do.

Again, I get it, you don't have to keep posting to try & change my mind, you don't mind seeing the same theme brought up in another sci-fi movie, I wish I felt the same way, but I don't. It's been done over & over, yes this movie wraps it in a different context, but it's still just another in a long line of evils of corporatism sci-fi tinged films. Isn't there another injustice of the world that filmmakers can harp on by now.

Groucho

My biggest problem with the film was all the "cheats" in the documentary filming. Either it's a documentary, or it's not. I hate the half-assed way they approached things in this film.

Solid Snake

That's like bitching of a basic good vs. evil plot. Why are you griping about the, if you boil it down to it's extreme, standard type plot? It's not what the plot is about it's how you do it.

TomOpus

I had a really nice theater-going experience today. Not only did I enjoy the movie immensely but the 10am showing was filled with adults... no teens, no kids. Nice!

GuessWho

Didn't bother me the way it did you & Ebert.

The TV news footage is great so the scenes where it makes sense... but obviously there wasn't a CNN cameraman in the underground shuttlecraft when he was hiding out so those scenes would need to be straight-up movie.

Numanoid

As one of this forum's famous theater haters, I had the same experience (a Saturday 3:25pm showing). Only my third trip to the cinema this year, but once the opening titles for this film started, I didn't hear a peep from anyone for the duration. If all theater experiences could be like that, I wouldn't mind going more.

Numanoid

Yeah, I was puzzled by Groucho's remark as well (haven't read Ebert's review). There would be no way to explain much of the on-screen action with a strictly documentary style. I had no problem with it being a melange of styles, it's certainly been done before and works for me.

Also noticed that there was no music (I think...not positive) until the part where Christopher discovers the medical testing. Then it starts and never stops.

MBoyd

I thought it would bug me when it happened and it took me out for a second. After that, I was fine with it.

MBoyd

Our theater audience was great too . . . well, there was one guy who got too excited and shouted "Kill that MF'er!" My main complaint this time was the Regal Cinema employee walking in and out with one of those red lightsaber things you'd bring a plane in with. He'd walk across the theater then stare at the audience for 5 minutes and walk out. They always do this at Regal in Austin.

dino88

Maybe the "Kill that MFer" guy was referring to the employee.

MrSmearkase

My Regal does the same thing, with varying degrees of success and deterrance.

If you're in Austin, why not go to the Alamo Drafthouse? I saw District 9 there last week on vacation, and the in-theatre server explained how strict they are on distractions through the movie.

Supermallet

So, in other words, you're dismissing them. They're clearly not insignificant to other people here.

She's clueless because she's being kept in the dark by her father, getting different information from Wikus, and doesn't know who to believe. If your significant other was sick, then taken away by the government and/or a corporation, was then seen on TV having sex with an alien, and he was calling you and telling you it was all lies, you'd be clueless, too.

And yes, I would say that people protesting for alien rights would be an example of the good in humanity. I also mentioned the commentators, Wikus' parents, and his assistant as examples of non-despicable human beings. The way you make it sound, it's as if you want every character to be a main character and every main character to be good.

He starts off as naive and a bigot, and ends up understanding the plight of the prawns. On the way, he goes from being selfish to selfless. I don't see how that's a bad thing. And what you see as murder I see as self-defense. It's not like those Nigerians were just minding their own business. They were planning on cutting off his arm and eating it. And the MNU guys were trying to cut him into pieces, too. If someone were about to do that to you, you'd just lie back and say, "Go ahead, I wouldn't want to defend myself, because that might mean murdering you"?

I'm not saying you're not getting it. I'm saying you made up your mind about it and are rejecting all evidence that might disagree with you. Your gut reaction was "this is shallow and unoriginal" and now you're shaking your head at everything that might prove your reaction wrong. So, no, I think you do get it, but you're purposefully skewing it to fit your view.

Did you have the same complaint about Syriana and Michael Clayton?

Sessa17

Did everyone miss the parts of my posts where I said I actually liked the movie?

You ignore the good & only focus on the bad, no wonder you all have no problem with the film

MBoyd

I like most everything about The Alamo except the food. Now, my wife has me on a drinking embargo since our vacation. Basically, I feel guilty going into theaters like The Alamo and not ordering anything.

mndtrp

I suppose it makes sense, especially when looking at what happened with immigrants into the U.S.


I really liked this movie. The documentary style in the beginning wasn't as distracting as most movies that try to implement it usually are. Even when it abandoned that style, it didn't bother me much. The story itself was quite good, and I had no problem with the theme. Quite a bit of science fiction has a pretty heavy social commentary running throughout. The visual effects were great, even without mentioning the low cost involved.

I had more fun with Star Trek, but this is the better movie. I kind of hope there isn't a sequel, as they rarely add anything positive to the original movie.

Draven

I had an odd theater experience. There was a 40 something couple sitting two seats down from me that was laughing or chuckling throughout the entire movie. They laughed the first few times we saw the Prawns, they chuckled again and again as the movie got going, they laughed at things like when the Nigerians were going to cut off his arm. I kept looking at them and they seemed to be enjoying the movie but it was a little weird.

Of course, these are the people that actually said out loud during the Sorority Row trailers: "Oh man, they are really scraping the bottom of the barrel." "Yeah, they really are." I didn't realize people actually said things like that to one another, especially during something so obviously stupid as Sorority Row.

I guess I'm just glad they found each other.

slop101

As far as my theater experience with D9 goes, the audience was great and well-behaved, the projectionist however, had the projector pointing too low, and there was a strip of black on the top of the image and the bottom was obviously cut-off, as some of the subtitles were off-screen. I should've gotten up to complain right away (I noticed this during the trailers - probably the only person to notice), but I just kept getting into the movie and didn't worry too much about it later.

And just the very next day, when I saw Thirst, the projector was obviously out of focus (easy to notice with the sub-titles), I complained right away on this one (missing about 20 seconds of the movie), and they fixed it.

For me it's never the audience that annoys (I suppose because of the types of movies I go to), but always a problem with the theater and how they might fuck up the movie's presentation.

GuessWho

Suspicious that it'll take 3 years for Christopher to make more liquid... and 3 years is a very typical turnaround for a sequel

Dr. DVD

I used to live in a town that had the most flippant attitude concerning movie presentation. Since I lived about an hour away from a major city, I would sometimes go there to watch the ones where I knew the presentation would make a difference.

dino88

I don't think he meant that it would take 3 years to get more fluid, because he'll be back on his planet where it is readily available. I took it as it will take him 3 years to travel there and back.

Mopower

I wonder if the 3 years Christopher talks about is how long it will take to get back to his home planet and then back to Earth. Like 1.5 to get there and 1.5 to get back. When he was setting the navigational controls on the ship it looked like the Prawns weren't even from our galaxy.