District 9 - some inspiration for Indies

I really liked it. Unfortunatley I read a few posts before this so...

...the formatting: yep, there it was.

Barring that detail, I really enjoyed it and thought it was really original. Is that an oxymoron? It seemed to move really well like it was written very well. A lot of dynamics happening. (It felt, don't call me on that right now. I'll have to see it again:))

Anyways, cool movie. I'll watch that one again asap.
 
I just saw it, and found it terrible but entertaining.

The documentary style is wrong. If the story were true, the shown documentary would have been an MTV style comedic doc instead of the social doc they were trying to portray.

Johannesburg is too distracting as a location. There's too much baggage. The "allegory" argument doesn't work at all (Unless they're trying to tell us that Africans are aliens.)

Entire story rings false. If this did happen, it would have been handled completely differently by governments, and perceived differently by the population (as shown through the news reports).

Governmental organizations (like the MNU) don't work as depicted in the movie, ESPECIALLY UN ones.

Why not show the documentary filmmakers when flipping over to "movie style"? Jarring, and kicked me out of the movie.

Bad clash of styles by shooting the "movie style" parts with the same shoulder-held shakycam as the documentary portions.

Just a few plot holes out of the dozens (mostly the ones I lol'd at):

-Why didn't they just keep them on the ship and feed them?
-Everyone knows that you can be tracked through a turned-on cell phone. Everyone.
-Why does his access codes still work, and why does he have codes for restricted areas?
-Keys in cars. How convenient.
-Why do so few security guards go after them after they steal the liquid?
-People would be on the mothership permanently - scientists, military, etc.

However, awesome action sequences -- should have been a much much better movie. I'm disappointed. ;-(
 
pmark23 said:
....The documentary style is wrong. If the story were true, the shown documentary would have been an MTV style comedic doc instead of the social doc they were trying to portray.
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Huh? You mean because you found the whole story a joke? Obviously the director disagrees as to how the doc would be. I can see that you'd think the doc SHOULD be different - but I don't really know what you are talking about the doc WOULD be different???

Johannesburg is too distracting as a location. There's too much baggage. The "allegory" argument doesn't work at all (Unless they're trying to tell us that Africans are aliens.)
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Except that that's the way an allegory works ... substitutes one thing for another ... where something has symbolic meaning ...

Entire story rings false. If this did happen, it would have been handled completely differently by governments, and perceived differently by the population (as shown through the news reports).

Governmental organizations (like the MNU) don't work as depicted in the movie, ESPECIALLY UN ones.
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Except that it's inspired by / allegory for government actions / agencies in real life events.

Why not show the documentary filmmakers when flipping over to "movie style"? Jarring, and kicked me out of the movie.
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Agree that it would make since to show the doc filmmakers, disagree that it was jarring (I'm a very game viewer though).
Bad clash of styles by shooting the "movie style" parts with the same shoulder-held shakycam as the documentary portions.
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Or would have made it even more jarring to have super smooth hollywood cam in juxtaposition to the doc style.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
Huh? You mean because you found the whole story a joke? Obviously the director disagrees as to how the doc would be. I can see that you'd think the doc SHOULD be different - but I don't really know what you are talking about the doc WOULD be different???
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No, I don't think you understand.

IF the story was true, and the documentary we were watching (which was an edited, completed documentary -- not some found footage being shown), then the style and tone of the documentary is comedic, like "Religulous", "Supersize Me", etc., trying to be serious, but really the purpose is to mock the subject while still providing information. It doesn't ring true because IF the story were true they wouldn't have made the documentary like that. I have worked on and edited enough docs to know to edit out the natural awkwardness most people have in front of the camera so they don't come off looking like a complete goof -- unless we want them to look like a goof, which is almost never done except if trying to be funny. They're trying to make a poor sympathetic character look like an idiot. There may be a case if they did it on purpose to spin the alien-molester story against him, but it still wouldn't work story-wise because he especially doesn't look like the molesting type after that sort of story. The best explanation is that it's funny to us, the viewers of the real film.

The end result is that it doesn't feel real.

Jack Daniel Stanley said:
Except that that's the way an allegory works ... substitutes one thing for another ... where something has symbolic meaning ...

Except that it's inspired by / allegory for government actions / agencies in real life events.
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How is it allegorical? Aliens=Africans? Are they trying to depict Apartheid in terms that we would understand? In that case it especially fails because it was the Dutch and English settlers that "crashed" in South Africa, not the other way around. Believe me, I've given that a lot of thought (and I've lived in Africa so the notion has an interest to me), but I can't figure out what they're trying to say. My feeling is that they just disguising a jumbled mess of ideas under the cloak of "allegory" because it's cheaper to film in South Africa and it was the director's dream to film there. Story-wise I don't see how it makes sense.


I disagree with everyone else you said too, but too tired to argue over it. :grin:
 
I absolutely loved this film.

I previously had no clue it was shot on red. Saw it last night, a few of the quick pans had some skewing and i almost jumped out of my seat to scream RED.. THIS IS SHOT ON RED. I'm glad i didn't, but damn i would have been right.
 
I think the argument here that it's, "ONLY A MOVIE" works great here. I don't see how you could say the movie is supposed to be handled realistically. When aliens didn't land in 80's and have not lived here for 20 years.

So I guess a movie like Alien Nation is supposed to be completely realistic, and not be aloud to be tongue in cheek? or that in the movie Terminator it makes no sense to have a liquid terminator but time travel is completely OK?

So it's okay for District 9 to have aliens land on the planet but they can't land in Johannesburg? For what reason? It's okay for other films to be set in our world and not have things happen that are not realistic. However, when a movie that is made in a different country by a director from the country it's not aloud to be set there because it's unrealistic for the aliens to land there?

I don't follow, because it was a hell of a lot more interesting to watch than to have them land in L.A. or New York.

Also, the fact that the movie was half-documentary, half-movie I think is done tongue-in-cheek. Why is this movie not aloud to have comedic elements? Aliens are not invading earth, just as there was no real doc crew filming this movie.

I just don't get how we can trash a work of fiction for being to fake. If this was fiction set in a real event I would want to see some accuracy. Just pick a movie that takes place in history that is fairly accurate and possible. Saving Private Ryan, There will be blood, The Godfather. Etc, etc.

These are movies that are deathly serious of themselves, and understand the meaning of accuracy. I just don't think when they were making District 9 they were trying to make some sweeping dramatic film.

Keep your G.I. Joes, and Tranformers, I'll take District 9 any day. I'd hate to see what people think of other movies if they hate District 9.
 
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Because the more realistic a film is, the more we can talk about it seriously. Debate even.

The more realistic a film is, the more attention-to-detail the filmmakers spent on maintaining the illusion of realism. Doing things like saying it's the early 80's while having 21st-century cars driving around the in background is just lazy. Why should audiences invest their time and energy in the film if the filmmakers don't care enough about the audience?

I don't think anyone is saying that GI Joe or Transformers is "better"!

Don't get me wrong, D9 is still a pretty-good movie (and I'll definitely watch it again). It just could have been better.
 
pmark23... I really enjoyed the film... and didn't have a problem with the... er... "problems" of it, but still... I'm enjoying your intelligent and very logical analysis. I love when somebody offers a dissenting opinion and can then back it up so effectively. Your breakdown of the issues makes perfect sense.

Let's not pull this off-topic, but the South Park episode that slammed Family Guy LITERALLY killed FG for me. The points made by the SP show were so spot on... that I've never thought much of FG ever since. I hope you didn't kill D9 for me... I won't know until I watch it again :)
 
mookid said:
the alien ship arrived in the early 80s, the rest of the movie was set 20 years later.
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Indeed, thus the language thing worked for me.

But seriously guys, no real aliens would ever land in Africa. Unless they were stupid aliens. You aren't a real Alien unless you land in NYC, Washington DC, or LA.
 
mookid said:
the alien ship arrived in the early 80s, the rest of the movie was set 20 years later.
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I'm referring to the shot showing the arrival of the ship, with the white car (Ford Focus?) parked in the background.

Usually I'm a sucker for being sucked into the illusion of the film world, but this didn't do it for me -- I think because I was looking forward to it too much and expected it to be better than it was.

Still, some parts were excellent. As I said before I'd watch it again.
 
PaPa said:
I previously had no clue it was shot on red. Saw it last night, a few of the quick pans had some skewing and i almost jumped out of my seat to scream RED.. THIS IS SHOT ON RED. I'm glad i didn't, but damn i would have been right.
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I didn't know until I saw the logo at the end of the credits. Now, admittedly, I don't have an eye for these sorts of things, but I had no idea until that point that it was not film.
 
One of the best sci-fi movies to come out in a VERY long time.

Just shows that creativity can trump big summer blockbuster budgets.

Incredible work, and done very uniquely.

9/10 stars for me.
 
This movie was even better for me the second time watching on blu-ray. Any questions I had about it were pretty much answered. Everything is there, you just have to pay attention to the details, which is hard on first viewing because much of the first act goes by pretty quickly, and by design is kind of disjointed. The behind the scenes pieces are very informative about all aspects of production. While much of the film was shot on the RED I was surprised to learn a lot was also shot on the Sony EX-1. You can also see how Blokamp's knowledge of and approach to CGI made the imagery seem so photo real and seamless. Awesome movie.
 
looks like i'm in the minority here, but i thought the movie sucked. i guess i was expecting a different movie based off the trailers.
 
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