District 9

[Jefe]

Thought-provoking film, I liked it a lot.

[ChooChooTrain]

Spoiler: show

I think people are just irked with the potential plot hole of "If Christopher had the ability to fly the ship at the end, why couldn't he have done that before it came to Earth in the first place, before the control pod broke off?"

I just assumed that the 'fuel making' process took 20 years (they never really explain if it actually took him 20 years to collect it all, or if part of that 20 years was developing a process to make it), and went on enjoying the film.

Spoiler: show

christopher says in the movie 'It took 20 years to find that amount of fuel' meaning, they did not have fuel to get off of earth. All he had to do was find enough fluid to fill that container.

[Faris]

DISTRICT 9, COME TO MY COUNTRY PLEASE!


sorry, but did anyone think this movie is addressing discrimination against minorities? lol
in a subtle way..(blacks, hispanics, middle easterns, muslims, jews)

[Priran]

subtle

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/7749/1240342627749.jpg

[Epical]

Going to have to agree with Priran here, it was very obvious the prawns were akin to a racial minority in the reals.

[EternityEnd]

Spoiler: show

It looked to me that the part that detached from the Mothership when it first landed in Johannesburg was Christopher's buried ship. If you had to pilot the Mothership with Christopher's ship-- which is what Christopher and his son did-- then I would assume Christopher was actually the prawns' pilot/leader.

If his ship dislodged accidentally, then the prawns would've been stuck there. It would explain why Christopher seemed the most educated and intelligent of the prawns, and why he didn't have enough fuel stored in the pilot-ship to get back to the Mothership.

[Alderaan]

DISTRICT 9, COME TO MY COUNTRY PLEASE!


sorry, but did anyone think this movie is addressing discrimination against minorities? lol
in a subtle way..(blacks, hispanics, middle easterns, muslims, jews)

I had assumed that the location of the movie would have been a dead give away that it was about Apartheid. But then i told my friend, who happens to be black, about the movie. He then asked me what Apartheid was....

[fishstix]

I dont think that's so surprising, having a black person not know what the Apartheid was.

[Elesirdur]

Wow, just wow. I saw this movie last night and was absolutely blown away. It's been quite some time since I've been moved like this while watching a film in the theaters. The first third, involving MNU evicting all the Prauns, was just ethically disgusting at times.

Spoiler: show

When the MNU team torched that Praun hatchery I was just so stunned, staring mouth agape at this kind of atrocity. Seriously, I actually felt ill when Wikus described it like "popcorn going off."

Absolutely, the best movie I've seen all summer, and probably this year. Moving like Schinder's List, but with some feel-good action towards the end. I'm a big addict to TV Tropes, and I loved how the film paid homage to, subverted, deconstructed, and played straight so many sci-fi, video game, and action tropes.

[Neosutra]

Just got back, was a decent movie. Felt they could do better with some parts:

Spoiler: show

1. Even if the prawns on the planet were "worker types", wouldnt they at least think to use the massive arsenal of super weapons they all seemed to have? "Im stronger than humans and have weapons that can annihilate them, but Im a worker bee so ill just take what I get".

2. Seriously, the entire world didnt step in at the 3rd world treatment of this alien species? I realize the director was trying to emphasize human being's lack of compassion for anything that doesnt look like us, but the lack of government involvement and direct representation was silly.

A 2nd movie would be nice, but would most likely be humanity being systematically wiped out, albeit with really cool weapons.

[Kwijiboe]

Just got back, was a decent movie. Felt they could do better with some parts:

Spoiler: show

1. Even if the prawns on the planet were "worker types", wouldnt they at least think to use the massive arsenal of super weapons they all seemed to have? "Im stronger than humans and have weapons that can annihilate them, but Im a worker bee so ill just take what I get".

2. Seriously, the entire world didnt step in at the 3rd world treatment of this alien species? I realize the director was trying to emphasize human being's lack of compassion for anything that doesnt look like us, but the lack of government involvement and direct representation was silly.

A 2nd movie would be nice, but would most likely be humanity being systematically wiped out, albeit with really cool weapons.

In response to your spoiler tags: The movie addressed both issues at the beginning of the film. At the beginning of the film, they mentioned that human rights groups are keeping a close eye and it shows a group of protesters that hold up I<3 Prauns signs. It's understandable that they didn't go into this further; what we were shown was sufficient enough to get the point across to the audience that this wasn't okay with everyone. Also, remember that the "documentary" aspect serves as not only as a film technique, but also as an exposè on the MNU.

I also thought it was peculiar that they didn't use weaponry, but they explained that worker prauns had no initiative and humans attributed it to the prauns being incapable of making their own decisions due to, they claimed, some form of mental illness. That being said I do not know why the director decided to show prauns with/shooting weapons and firing upon the MNU. That demonstrates that at least some prauns are capable of making their own decisions or at least are responding to the commands of some type of leader. Or it could be that the smart ones have been round up (do you have a license for that?), leaving very few left over the course of twenty years. Overall, somewhat inconsistent, but forgiveable seeing as they at least addressed those issues at the beginning of the film.


I still thought it was good though, however I really wish the ending tied up a few more loose ends.

[Yangsing]

Overhyped. Good but not that good.

[Xno Kappa]

It was alright. Definitely applaud the originality as well some of the undertones the film dealt with.

[grantlogan]

I can think of two other reasons why the aliens didn't revolt/use their weapons.

-It's been 20 years since they have been on Earth. The more aggressive aliens were probably killed off, leaving the more docile.

-The aliens are basically drug addicts, addicted to cat food. Why hold onto a weapon when you can pawn it off for some Fancy Feast.

[Neosutra]

Ok, but if the humans have cut into the ship and moved all of the aliens off, why are there not like 500 humans currently on the ship doing research..

Like really, we are going to leave this big floating space ship up there by itself and not disect every last inch of it.

And the movie vastly underated our ability to backwards engineer technology. "oh, only aliens can use it, guess we will never be able to use these weapons".

20 years after the aliens landed and I didnt see one piece of human tech that had been obviously upgraded/stolen from alien tech.

[Korietsu]

Ok, but if the humans have cut into the ship and moved all of the aliens off, why are there not like 500 humans currently on the ship doing research..

Like really, we are going to leave this big floating space ship up there by itself and not disect every last inch of it.

And the movie vastly underated our ability to backwards engineer technology. "oh, only aliens can use it, guess we will never be able to use these weapons".

20 years after the aliens landed and I didnt see one piece of human tech that had been obviously upgraded/stolen from alien tech.

Its the DNA that was holding them back. We're good, but we can't genetically engineer whole species make everything work backwards.

[Neosutra]

Ya, we know nothing about DNA and could never determine what genome sequence activated the weaponry and how, or even take the weapon apart and determine exactly what made physics of the system happen...

Seriously, in the tech industry if you make a vast technical leap, the competition will have a similar product on the market within weeks of your product being out, even if you completely reinvented the technology. This isnt the dark ages, we dont get technology and treat it like magic. We have a pretty good idea on how shit works in our universe and this directors depiction of humanity was pretty adolescent.

Backwards engineering is not limited to "try and fire it until it works"...

[Seraph]

Ya, we know nothing about DNA and could never determine what genome sequence activated the weaponry and how, or even take the weapon apart and determine exactly what made physics of the system happen...

Seriously, in the tech industry if you make a vast technical leap, the competition will have a similar product on the market within weeks of your product being out, even if you completely reinvented the technology. This isnt the dark ages, we dont get technology and treat it like magic. We have a pretty good idea on how shit works in our universe and this directors depiction of humanity was pretty adolescent.

Backwards engineering is not limited to "try and fire it until it works"...

It seemed like it was implied that the alien DNA wasn't just a trigger for the weapons, but might have also have been involved in how they were powered. There were attempts in the movie at trying to gene splice aliens with humans, and they state that all attempts to do so had failed.

[Knightmare]

It was my understanding that most of the alien technology was biological. Meaning we couldn't just figure it out, that is why the MNU had that whole alien DNA splicing lab and why they were trying to harvest the main dude's body for cells.

As for why the prawns didn't use the weapons I think it just showed that they weren't a hostile race and even when they are betrayed/pushed around they usually don't resort to violence.

[Neosutra]

Like I said, DNA isnt magic juice, it is a combination of amino acids. It is silly to assume such a trivial thing would stop us from using their tech, and making our own tech from it.

Edit: As for prauns not being a hostile race: Id buy the "worker types dont think/motivate for themselves", but you dont have mega arsenals of body exploding lightning guns and mech battle suites without being experienced in war and kickassery.