District 9 - some inspiration for Indies

I saw the 2pm show today and without ruining anything will just say that it is a PHENOMENAL movie.

As far as the Doc style...it drops it for the conventional narrative about a quarter of the way in then ends again with the Doc style.

My only gripes were the backstory...they downplayed the first contact HUGELY. Second, in the trailers, there was a big focus on "why won't we let them leave?" when in all actuality...they can't. (Won't spoil why) Also, in the TRAILER ONLY interrogation scene that doesn't appear in the film, the interrogator keeps asking about the weapons when in the movie, we know all about their weaponry and how it works.

Other than that...this was a PHENOMENAL movie that I plan on seeing two, maybe three more times. No ****.
 
RodThompson said:
My only gripes were the backstory...they downplayed the first contact HUGELY. Second, in the trailers, there was a big focus on "why won't we let them leave?" when in all actuality...they can't. (Won't spoil why) Also, in the TRAILER ONLY interrogation scene that doesn't appear in the film, the interrogator keeps asking about the weapons when in the movie, we know all about their weaponry and how it works.
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I took those trailers as back story after I saw the Feature. They obviously represented what happened soon after they arrived. Gave us the back story we needed and allowed us to easily catch up with the film which took place 20 years later.

Great stuff.
 
RodThompson said:
But how were WE keeping them here?
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SPOILERS!!!



Maybe had they been allowed to return to the ship freely after their health returned and not been treated like criminals they could have developed the fuel much faster. :thumbsup:

Hard to do under the circumstances they were put in.
EDIT: Not even counting the substance abuse they fell under. It was a clear addiction that was used against them.



SPOILERS!!!
 
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Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
SPOILERS!!!



Maybe had they been allowed to return to the ship freely after their health returned and not been treated like criminals they could have developed the fuel much faster. :thumbsup:

Hard to do under the circumstances they were put in.
EDIT: Not even counting the substance abuse they fell under. It was a clear addiction that was used against them.




SPOILERS!!!
Click to expand...

By addiction, do you mean the cat food? I never thought about it like that...interesting. I am SO going to have to watch this again tomorrow.
 
he he he, finally aliens land somewhere else than the USA, he he.

I'm from Johannesburg, South Africa, so it's gonna be great to see a movie with jo'burg in it, and SA actors. It's starts the 21st here.

I'm curious, what did you guys think of the SA accent and the acting of the South African actors?

thanks,
Derrick
 
This movie is going to make the studio alot of money, $30m movies that are this well done are very rare. My very tuff movie critic friends are giving it a 3.5 out of 4 stars.
 
Saw it - My Short Review - DISTRICT 9 - SOME POSSIBLE SPOILERS:

-The first half of the movie is basically throwaway. Its this mockumentary that supposedly frames the plight of the prawns into some kind of relevence. But its really just a lot of back story. The movie does nothing more for the morays of apartheid, refugee status, or whatever social commentary its trying to make beyond the assortment of interviews meant to set up the second half of the story. It's just a cute premise that serves as backstory for the "real" movie.

-The "real" movie starts the moment Wikus finds the tube of liquid and gets infected. The camera calms down and the "documentary" camera gets replaced by a neutral camera and cinematic action style we're all familiar with. The shift in perspective is disconcerting. What POV are we really seeing? It's like a movie within the movie.

-The movie is oddly dispassionate and unemotional. While the CG character animation is top notch, I never cared for the prawns, for the most part they seemd like a bunch of random bugs running away and on a rampage and only the father and son prawns were midly sympathetic. There was no villain I really hated - the MNU mercenaries were just nameless thugs and the head of MNU / the father was never much of a character. I loved no characters either. I liked the choice for Wikus - Sharlto Copley - hes an atypical hero, uncaring, selfish, nerdy bureacratic type. He's different enough to be interesting but I can't say I rooted much for him or loved the guy - except at the very end of the movie when he has a change of heart and has his orgasmic heroic battle like every good action hero must do. His wife seemed hardly a character at all so his empathy with and from her had little weight.

-Lots of stuff made no sense. Why did the prawns give up all their weapons? For cat food? Why didn't they just take what they wanted? Why did the command center drop down from the ship when it was such a pain to get it back up again? It was never clear at what point they were at with some/most/all prawns getting moved to the new concentration camp.

Overall it lacked the thematic unity of great science fiction like "Children of Men" or even the flawed "BladeRunner", movies where I felt deeply involved with the characters. I can't believe some fans and reviews put it in that league.

The mockumentary reminded me of independent and student films like "American Zombies" and others of that genre. But the devolution of the movie into a well done but typical action sci fi flick seems to give the movie a schizo personality, with competing tonalities.

Camera work, while not Cloverfield shaky, was kind of wonkishly bad video shaky and can make you sick (as it did my date).

I was mildy entertained by the film, but my review is in response to the suprising laudations given to it by the reviewers and fans. I wonder who wrote those and why?? I guess pro critics just want us to go out and watch movies so they'll have more movies to review in the future. Makes sense. Possibly one of the most audacious SciFi films of the summer, but it lacks the thought and conviction for it to be anytning more.
 
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I thought it was great. I appreciated it more for the racial conflict allegory (particularly having lived in South Africa myself and having witnessed some of the leftover effects of the apartheid era), but at the same time I'm a big fan of mindless action movies (e.g. Transformers) and I respect any movie that can accomplish that level of entertaining "popcorn" material and compelling drama at the same time.
 
loved this movie...

i kept thinking Ive played this as a video game... I dont think the idea is new but a new spin on a familiar subject
 
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