District 9 - some inspiration for Indies

Deepfocus88 said:
Another thing that bugged me about this film: (and certainly not just D9, they do it all the time)

The humans and aliens have a comprehensive conversation, although human is speaking English and alien is clicking and beeping away.

"Click click beep click bloop"
"What? 3 years? I gotta wait 3 years?"
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To me that makes much more sense than other alien films, where the aliens suddenly know english. The Prawns might not be capable of producing the required sounds our spoken languages require. It's feasible that we would be able to translate alien tongue and they would be able to translate our language especially after what, 25 years?
 
OldCorpse said:
OK, I missed the "do we have a trace" moment - but this continues to be super stupid, because it assumes that W is unaware of the fact that he can be traced on his phone - I mean a 6-year old knows this. So how is he running while keeping the phone on him? And why doesn't he at least remove the battery, cause you can trace the phone even if he's not talking on it - the way it's shot it seems to imply that the dangerous moment is when he talks on it - which is bullshi*... it's traceable even so - and we know he doesn't even switch it off (!), cause the moment it rings he grabs it. And if we assume that both he and the bad guys know about the cell phone - then I gotta say, it's a pretty incompetent job they are doing tracing him... the way he's operating, it would be child's play to nail him. Not realistic AT ALL.

Like I say, this may seem a minor issue, but when you get something so basic so very wrong, you undermine the rest of what you ask us to believe.
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Well, the point is they were tracing him and that was a beef of yours when you thought they weren't. :)

I also believe he leaves the phone behind purposely and sets them up when he goes back to MNU in order to get the canister. Remember... they've traced the phone and they are sure that they have him, SWAT bursts in only to find that he's not where he should be. Then BOOM! Explosion right outside MNU headquarters. They thought they knew exactly where he was (thanks to the phone) and he wasn't there. He obviously set them up.

I think a second viewing will clear up some of your issues. Maybe not all, but some.
 
Mattykins said:
To me that makes much more sense than other alien films, where the aliens suddenly know english. The Prawns might not be capable of producing the required sounds our spoken languages require. It's feasible that we would be able to translate alien tongue and they would be able to translate our language especially after what, 25 years?
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No to mention some African languages include clicks and such.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c246fZ-7z1w

They had decades to learn how to communicate with them.
 
OK, right, I'll buy the theory that Earth linguists working with the prawns could decipher each other's languages. No problem.

But not that bumbling doofus Wikus. :grin: I kid, I kid.

Hey, it worked for Han Solo and Chewbacca, of course it's possible for communication between interplanetary species.
 
Deepfocus88 said:
OK, right, I'll buy the theory that Earth linguists working with the prawns could decipher each other's languages. No problem.

But not that bumbling doofus Wikus. :grin: I kid, I kid.
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I think it would be a prerequisite of his job to learn the alien language, and learn it well.
 
I'm not dumping on this film, it's great. I just can't wrap my head around the concept of humans and the aliens understanding each other as easily as they do in casual conversation.

Especially someone who doesn't strike me as the smartest fellow, more likely a guy who got his "job" through nepotism. But I guess anything is possible in the movies, right?

Again, this is just a personal stumbling block I had with grasping the plot of the film. I think a second viewing is in order for me as well.
 
Deepfocus88 said:
I'm not dumping on this film, it's great. I just can't wrap my head around the concept of humans and the aliens understanding each other as easily as they do in casual conversation.

Especially someone who doesn't strike me as the smartest fellow, more likely a guy who got his "job" through nepotism. But I guess anything is possible in the movies, right?

Again, this is just a personal stumbling block I had with grasping the plot of the film. I think a second viewing is in order for me as well.
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I assumed that they could understand each other because they had been there for 20 years.
 
Deepfocus88 said:
I'm not dumping on this film, it's great. I just can't wrap my head around the concept of humans and the aliens understanding each other as easily as they do in casual conversation.

Especially someone who doesn't strike me as the smartest fellow, more likely a guy who got his "job" through nepotism. But I guess anything is possible in the movies, right?

Again, this is just a personal stumbling block I had with grasping the plot of the film. I think a second viewing is in order for me as well.
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As someone who lives in a bi-lingual city I'll tell you that it's very easy to learn to UNDERSTAND a language. Speaking is a whole other ball-park. I know some very unintelligent people, and they speak either only english or only french, but they usually understand the other language. Not perfect, but they understand.

I also understand spanish as my mother and aunt are colombian, but I've always been terrible at languages, so I could never speak it. You don't need to learn all of the words, nor do you need to understand structure, conjugations, etc. You just need to pick up on a few key words when they speak and you can peice it together. As my french isn't the best I've had conversations with francophones where we'd both speak our own language. Not difficult. I also have conversations, me speaking english, my aunts speaking spanish, and we do just fine, with the occasional "what's that word?"

Perhaps the only hitch with learning a language is that it's easier to learn at a young age than when you're older. So perhaps it could be argued that he shouldn't have understood chris all the time. However perhaps chris was speaking a bit more fluently, taking his time so that dumbo could understand it. Also near the begining of the film it seems like dumbo was having trouble understanding everything at times, just not showing it.

ALSO, it could be argued that people have strengths and weaknesses. Languages is something different all together from books smarts, or common sense, or spacial intelligence, etc. Intelligence can often be divided into several sections, with some of the dumbest people being intelligent in certain aspects. So perhaps Dumbo is highly intelligent when it comes to languages.

So for me, it was actually very realistic, and I enjoyed that they didn't try to speak each other's language, because then it would have been more difficult to grasp. It's far more realistic the way they approached it.
 
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You cant nit pick at the film so much. You have to assume that we would learn their language after 20 years, just assume stuff in the movie. They cant go into detail about everything.
 
Austinv said:
You cant nit pick at the film so much.
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Wait a minute, that's why the internet was invented*. So nameless, faceless dweebs could complain about the littlest details and plot inconsistencies of TV and movies.

How interesting would these threads be if everyone uniformly said, "Good film, loved it."




(* Also created for porn)
 
Deepfocus88 said:
OK, right, I'll buy the theory that Earth linguists working with the prawns could decipher each other's languages. No problem.

But not that bumbling doofus Wikus. :grin: I kid, I kid.

Hey, it worked for Han Solo and Chewbacca, of course it's possible for communication between interplanetary species.
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Great point. Hell, my 1 year old can't say a whole lot of words in english but he understands a ton.
 
Just saw D9... I give it an 8 out of 10... possibly a 7.5

SPOILERS!






The long, docu-drama setup at the beginning started to bore me by the time the movie got going... the sexual implications seemed out of place... especially the "national enquirer-esque" image on the papers... and I was perplexed about why you'd constantly RUN when inside of that amazing suit... and only fire back occasionally in desperation... but yeah I understand that was the difference in personalities... but still, I couldn't help but find that frustrating to watch... and finally... in reading another review that spoiled the arm thing... at that instant I pretty nearly guessed the whole story accurately... I knew going in that the robot missile catcher was going to have that guy inside of it... I just didn't realize how bad-ass it would be.

I wonder if they could pull off a decent sequel to this? I'd love to see a war declared... They provided the justification and declared the possibility. Would it be weird to go see an aliens vs. humans flick and spend the whole time rooting for the aliens?!~
 
I loved the film. It was fun and exciting but also had real substance. Really shocking how much better this was than all the other summer fare, with a few exceptions being Inglorious Basterds and Moon. Hey, whadda know, all original films by writer-directors? Are you listening Hollywood?

SPOILERS



Now that they're talking about a possible sequel, and the fact that the film sorta set up a possible sequel, I'm torn. On one hand we might get an Aliens or Wrath of Khan, while on the other hand it could get all hyped up (we all know it will) and will be a major let down for most of the audience, kinda like the Matrix or Pirates of the Caribbean sequels.

I think this film works just great on its own. I prefer not knowing specifically whether Christopher Johnson comes back with reinforcements. Do all the Earth bound prawns eventually die off by the end of the 21st century? I find these questions more interesting than anything a sequel will probably deliver.

Either way, hopefully Blomkamp will grow and do another original film eventually. I'd hate to see him just become another big budget studio film remaker.
 
Nektonic said:
I think this film works just great on its own. I prefer not knowing specifically whether Christopher Johnson comes back with reinforcements. Do all the Earth bound prawns eventually die off by the end of the 21st century? I find these questions more interesting than anything a sequel will probably deliver.
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SPOILER!!!!!


I think there's a really interesting story to be told about a prawn/human war with Wilkus stuck in the middle as a prawn/human hybrid.
 
Batutta said:
SPOILER!!!!!


I think there's a really interesting story to be told about a prawn/human war with Wilkus stuck in the middle as a prawn/human hybrid.
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I almost posted this same comment.

This was definitely really original... and I'm still thinking about it days later.
 
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