District 9 - some inspiration for Indies

Finally got to this yesterday, and... wow. An actual god damn science fiction movie. (Nothing against T:S or Trek, but let's be honest, they were action movies that just happened to take place in the future and/or in space. :) ) If I was a Hollywood guy, and had the choice whether to make something like Transformers 2 or five or six movies like this, I would so make five or six movies like this. (Which, I'm sure, is only one of the many reasons I will never be a Hollywood guy. :D ) Seriously, though, this may very well be my favorite movie of the year. My one minor gripe is that sometimes the blood, gore, & etc. got a little much for me; but it never seemed entirely gratuitous, so I can't be too annoyed by it.

As for a sequel, and SPOILERS ahead: You know, I'd like to see another story set in this universe (I'm going to go ahead and call it an alternate universe since it pretty much seems to be taking place now rather than 20 years in the future), but what I don't think I want to see is a very direct sequel where "Christopher Johnson" comes back with the prawn equivalent of the Colonial Marines and proceeds to kick the snot out of MNU and the rest of the human race in general. I'd love to see them come at it from another angle; certainly I want to see Christopher come back and "fix" Wikus, and the prawns left behind get rescued, but I just don't see any realistic way that the Earth can fight off a mothership-load of those kick-ass battlesuits. Here's a thought: if they keep Wikus as the viewpoint character, maybe they could start with the mothership coming back, Christopher "beaming" him up... and then skip ahead six months or a year (or however long it takes to "fix" him), to when humanity has already lost the war, and then... well, I dunno, and even if I did, that's all you're getting for free.

One question I had, and this will have SPOILERS as well: what, exactly, was Christopher's original plan? That "command module" didn't have nearly enough room for all the prawns, even if Christopher (as presumably a better pilot) could have gotten it through the SAM coverage, so was he always planning on just running back to the homeworld and getting more help? Or are there "shuttlecraft" on the ship that they just couldn't use when they arrived for some reason? Or was he going to use that "tractor beam" thing to bring them all up if he had more power? Or, for that matter, did he even have the plan that far ahead before MNU screwed it all up, or was it just along the lines of "OK, we'll get the command module back up to the mothership, and then we'll figure out what to do next"? :)

BTW, did anybody else recognize the chairman of MNU as Jason Ironheart from Babylon 5? :D
 
I think it's good that they left it wide open. They can take this story anywhere now... since nothing was answered in the beginning. A good sequel can work with that... by revealing an original purpose in the third act... and giving the entire audience an "ah-ha" moment.

I may have missed something (did I?)... but I saw the movie as concept study... sort of a cinematic experiment that went 95% right... so the loose ends didn't bother me. I'd like to see it again and see if the story was really as simple as it seemed.
 
I felt it was look at alien refugees caught in war and hunger bordering on racial tensions etc... (mirroring our own problems right now) and the sequel will be 3 years later when the prawns come back to fix you know who.... cheers
 
DEPTH OF PHIL said:
I felt it was look at alien refugees caught in war and hunger bordering on racial tensions etc... (mirroring our own problems right now) and the sequel will be 3 years later when the prawns come back to fix you know who.... cheers
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Not saying they should go this way... but it would be easy to mod the storyline in any direction... maybe by THEN he wouldn't want to be fixed. A lot can happen in 3 years... they could take a sequel to this thing ANYWHERE... who knows if the prawns experience life the same way we do... since they're more evolved a guy might prefer prawn life. :beer:

You know... once he got used to it. :huh:
 
I just went and saw this.
I must be one of the only people on earth that thought it was pretty weak.
 
MattinSTL said:
Not saying they should go this way... but it would be easy to mod the storyline in any direction... maybe by THEN he wouldn't want to be fixed. A lot can happen in 3 years... they could take a sequel to this thing ANYWHERE... who knows if the prawns experience life the same way we do... since they're more evolved a guy might prefer prawn life. :beer:

You know... once he got used to it. :huh:
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I think, that is right, it could contain a outline that Prawns are a more civilized and evolved species than humans, cool we both got it!!! Cheers
 
This started out with an interesting idea, but quickly devolved once the story structure template kicked in. I also think the mocumentary feel worked against the Die Hard heroics.
 
Some spoilers...

Finally went to see it. I expected it to be just ok, but ended up really liking it...for the most part.
I cared about Wikus. I found his transformation (as a character, not the mutation) both from his POV and from his peers' to be quite effective. I also found myself actually caring about Christopher later on.

My biggest complaint is that I sat closer than I usually like to, and it took me a bit to adjust to the queasy-cam.
 
I loved it.
9 out of 10 or 10 out of 10.
It's working on so many levels and it's so well executed.
A really great movie IMHO. If I made something that works on this many levels with such a great non-hollywood** character I'd be damn proud to have a bunch of guys on the internt nit pick it to death.


**yes his arc is "formulaic" but how can it really work any other way? Is he just supposed to be a self serving prick the whole movie? Or is he just supposed to be some saint the whole time? I thought his character was far more interesting than say DiCaprio in blood diamond. We have seen the jaded oportunist do something good in the end a lot sure. And we'll continue to see it in films of varying effectiveness. But here we have an ambituous idealist. Not someone who thinks "the world is crap might as well look out for #1" as per DiCaprio's character, but someone who thinks "I can make a difference. I'm doing the right thing. I believe in serving the government and I can get accolaids and recognition for it." Maybe he thinks he's 100% doing it for service of government and the spotlight never enters his mind even though that's largely what's at the heart of it. So that's where he starts. Then .... SPOILERS ... he gets a dose of his own medicine, and is put in a horryfying place of his body rebelling and mutating and acting out of self preservation - not for diamonds or money - but for something even more primal, and has to overcome even that. And yes I know my footnote is longer than my post.
 
Captain Pierce said:
Finally got to this yesterday, and... wow. An actual god damn science fiction movie. (Nothing against T:S or Trek, but let's be honest, they were action movies that just happened to take place in the future and/or in space. :) ) If I was a Hollywood guy, and had the choice whether to make something like Transformers 2 or five or six movies like this, I would so make five or six movies like this. (Which, I'm sure, is only one of the many reasons I will never be a Hollywood guy. :D ) Seriously, though, this may very well be my favorite movie of the year. My one minor gripe is that sometimes the blood, gore, & etc. got a little much for me; but it never seemed entirely gratuitous, so I can't be too annoyed by it.

As for a sequel, and SPOILERS ahead: You know, I'd like to see another story set in this universe (I'm going to go ahead and call it an alternate universe since it pretty much seems to be taking place now rather than 20 years in the future), but what I don't think I want to see is a very direct sequel where "Christopher Johnson" comes back with the prawn equivalent of the Colonial Marines and proceeds to kick the snot out of MNU and the rest of the human race in general. I'd love to see them come at it from another angle; certainly I want to see Christopher come back and "fix" Wikus, and the prawns left behind get rescued, but I just don't see any realistic way that the Earth can fight off a mothership-load of those kick-ass battlesuits. Here's a thought: if they keep Wikus as the viewpoint character, maybe they could start with the mothership coming back, Christopher "beaming" him up... and then skip ahead six months or a year (or however long it takes to "fix" him), to when humanity has already lost the war, and then... well, I dunno, and even if I did, that's all you're getting for free.

One question I had, and this will have SPOILERS as well: what, exactly, was Christopher's original plan? That "command module" didn't have nearly enough room for all the prawns, even if Christopher (as presumably a better pilot) could have gotten it through the SAM coverage, so was he always planning on just running back to the homeworld and getting more help? Or are there "shuttlecraft" on the ship that they just couldn't use when they arrived for some reason? Or was he going to use that "tractor beam" thing to bring them all up if he had more power? Or, for that matter, did he even have the plan that far ahead before MNU screwed it all up, or was it just along the lines of "OK, we'll get the command module back up to the mothership, and then we'll figure out what to do next"? :)

BTW, did anybody else recognize the chairman of MNU as Jason Ironheart from Babylon 5? :D
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I think, what would be a neat sequel, would be instead of Christopher coming back in 3 years, he comes back in 15, much later than wikus had originally anticipated. but in those 15 years, district 10 has multiplied, and with the inter-species sex, new biological disease have dominated the world. People are living in fear, and wikus the only man/prawn hybrid is the key to the cure for humanity. This way the main focus is still on him, as he then becomes the worlds most sought after prawn.

What i was thinking, Christopher claims he can make wikus back to normal. What if the black fluid, is there primary energy source. (like humans and oil.. ahem). But the consequence of using that energry source is becoming a prawn. What if, all prawns are similar humanoid beings who have opted to travel the universe, and chose to be in that form?. Alot of things would work very will with that scenario.
 
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whatever they do, I hope wikus won't be made into "THE ONE" who has to save the world or something like that.
I've heard a theory that the prawns are all slaves and christopher is just a slave trader who had to crash-land on earth. Would explain why he is so much more intelligent than the rest and why everybody else was trapped on the ship. But christopher also showed strong emotions while they were fighting in the MNU labs, among the dead prawns. so the theory isn't strong.
 
Blomkamp said in interviews the prawns are leaderless. They are like drones, simple workers. When their leadership died the ship went into autopilot and brought them to the nearest planet that could sustain life.
 
Mattykins said:
Blomkamp said in interviews the prawns are leaderless. They are like drones, simple workers. When their leadership died the ship went into autopilot and brought them to the nearest planet that could sustain life.
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Sounds very much like the insect world of this earth we live in. It's a very entertaining film with quite an original idea...my thought.
 
I enjoyed this film but found it vastly overrated. Yet another 'reality' style fau-doc styled shoot.

Don't get me wrong, I liked it, will watch again, but the accolades and hype and box office surprises me.

Out of 10 Stars ?

6.5
 
I think the only reason there was hype was that this summer was full of junk movies that were just a bunch of Will Ferral comedies.
 
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