District 9 - Review, Discuss, Commentary ***SPOILERS*** possible

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Captain Craig, Aug 14, 2009.

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District 9 - Your grade

Poll closed Dec 12, 2009.
  1. Excellent

    90 vote(s)
    60.8%
  2. Above Average

    39 vote(s)
    26.4%
  3. Average

    11 vote(s)
    7.4%
  4. Below Average

    5 vote(s)
    3.4%
  5. Poor

    3 vote(s)
    2.0%
  1. firehawk12

    firehawk12 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 4, 2002
    I just go back from this tonight and I'm not sure where I really stand on the apartheid issue anymore. Of course, maybe the easy solution would be that Western directors simply avoid doing SF with racial allegory at all, because you really can't win either way.

    But I'm sure all the points I could bring up have been discussed already. Regardless, I think it was a bit shallow on that end... to the point where I wasn't even sure if miscegenation was the real theme of the film.

    I hate to say this, but I think this would have been better if it was called Halo. The games don't try to do anything really meaningful with the narrative - just a generic alien invasion and random (white?) guy in armor blasting things to bits. The verite style is very striking and not as distracting as in other films, so if all Blomkamp had to worry about was things going boom, he would have been able to make a stronger film.
     
  2. The Habs Fan

    The Habs Fan Commodore Commodore

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    Mar 4, 2005
    Location:
    Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
    Just got back from the movie. I thought it was Excellent. A great and unique science fiction movie to close out the summer.
     
  3. Agent Richard07

    Agent Richard07 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2001
    Thanks. I found an interview where he answers the following questions...

    Read the response.

    He also talks about Christopher...

     
  4. The Boy Who Cried Worf

    The Boy Who Cried Worf Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 12, 2008

    Maybe if he had actually made a movie about this and not a pseudo-intellectual message film he might have had a good movie on his hands.
     
  5. Bisz

    Bisz Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 20, 1999
    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    Exactly would it have been too much to ask them to thrown in something like this:

    Guy1: Thats damned convenient that the aliens came to South Africa, we can take all these fancy "No Blacks" signs and easily conver them to "No Prawns" signs.

    Guy2: Yah, I mean, had they gone anywhere else, that place would have had to make those signs from scratch!


    :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

    Dude, come on! How blatant, in your face does the movie have to be for you to not want a literal line in there that yes, this movie is in fact about apartheid?
     
  6. Bisz

    Bisz Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    But why would he want to downgrade to a 'good' movie? From this poll its clear he's already got an 'excellent' movie. Clearly he chose to do the right thing in making this movie the way he did.
     
  7. Garibaldi O'brien

    Garibaldi O'brien Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Jul 1, 2001
    Location:
    FL, USA
    It was a good movie. It was as close to a modern Twilight Zone as I've seen in ages. Great FX, no pussy PG-13 crap, and some really first rate allegory.

    I will rate it with Planet of the Apes. The Prawn CGI gave me the kind of realism the ape makeup did when I was a tot.
     
  8. DarKush

    DarKush Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 18, 2005
    I'm talking more about the international audience. Also, even in the USA there is are different interpretations of history. In my native South, some call the Civil War the War of Northern Aggression or the War for Southern Independance for example.

    As for the natives, I can only speak as an American, and there is quite a bit of history not taught in schools and a quite a lot of stuff Americans don't know-by choice or design-about their own government and its policies. Regarding your examples, from what I can recall, MLK and Rosa Parks were taught, but they were not the sum total of the Civil Rights Movement. Many other Civil Rights leaders, ideas, events, etc. were not taught. I don't even remember going over Korea-it's been almost twenty years since I went to high school, but Vietnam was pretty much the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, TET Offensive, protests, and the fall of Saigon, there was a lot of important things that happened between and during those perhaps larger, or seminal events during that period. With history there's quite a bit that's left unsaid, for whatever reasons. I can't assume that native Russians or S. Africans, etc. are taught their history, just like I can't assume Americans are. It's one thing conservatives sometimes complain about, the lack of American history courses in schools.
     
  9. DarKush

    DarKush Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Nov 18, 2005
    That's debatable that this movie is specifically about apartheid, even if it was based in apartheid S.A. Some feel, including posters on this board, that it was a broader indictment of intolerance in general. I've also read that the director said that D9 was more about contemporary issues in SA. But since it was based in apartheid-era S.A., I would've liked a mention of it.
     
  10. chrisspringob

    chrisspringob Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2003
    Location:
    North Ryde, NSW
    It wasn't based in apartheid-era South Africa. It was based in modern day South Africa, with a few pieces of footage from apartheid-era South Africa (the aliens' initial arrival on Earth).
     
  11. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2003
    Location:
    Brockville, Ontario, Canada
    I've been hearing a lot of people talking about a sequel or prequel to D9 even amongst the departing crowd right after I saw the film as well as online.

    I may be wrong, but my gut feeling is that I don't expect to see a followup to this. I suspect it will be more like The Iron Giant with open questions left dangling. The main difference is that we'll likely get some extra stuff in the DVD release that may clarify one or two things, but that's it.
     
  12. Gepard

    Gepard Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2007
    Fantastic movie, and very disturbing; never before have I taken such savage pleasure in the mass deaths of so many people during an action finale.

    Perhaps this is a stretch, but I wonder if the presence of an outside and very alien presence might blunt racial tensions between blacks and whites--after all, they're both human races while the Prawns are creepy bug-things both sides can hate.


    Sequel Hook
    was my first thought about the dangling threads. (In fact, District 9 already has an entry on that page.) District 10 and the fate of Wilkus work as open-ended threads, but the specific promises Christopher made to return and fix Wilkus and rescue his people felt like it was intended to set up another film.

    IMO, the only way to make a follow-up work, though, would be to have Christopher just vanish. Set the next movie, say, ten years later, Christopher hasn't returned and the Prawns (and Wilkus) have to come to grips with the fact that rescue isn't coming as they start to assimilate into human society, and focus on the problems that arise from that.
     
  13. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    Dec 11, 2006
    Location:
    Moncton, NB
    Wikus retained his human intelligence even after his physical transformation was complete (at least, the ending suggested that), so for full irony they could have Wikus become a leader among the Prawns if they ever do District 10.
     
  14. Checkmate

    Checkmate Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 23, 2009
    Personally I hope Christopher never comes back. Wilkus was the worst "hero" I've ever had the displeasure of seeing. Going around laughing about how baby prawns pop like popcorn, offering abortion souveriers, lying to a child about his father, backstabbing his "friend," and just all around being completely selfish in everything he did after being infected. Pathetic.

    All the movie did was make me hate South Africans even more than I did beforehand. Not even Humans in general, just South Africans. Wilkus first and foremost. I even liked the army colonel guy more; at least he was straight forward. Not a sniveling, backstabbing little fuck.
     
  15. Captain Craig

    Captain Craig Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Dec 7, 2003
    Location:
    Nashville,TN
    :wtf::wtf:
    Please tell these people to let the stereotype die. It is the 21st century and it was the Civil War. As you can see I'm in Nashville, TN and I'd appreciate it if they kept their ignorance to themselves.

    "Better to keep ones mouth shut and be assumed ignorant than open your mouth and confirm it for all."
     
  16. 777

    777 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    May 7, 2004
    Location:
    Milky Way Galaxy
    What the hell?!! Generalizing much? What did South Africans (and all of them on top of it) ever do to you?
     
  17. tauntme

    tauntme Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Nov 16, 2008
    You're just a generally pessimistic guy. Wilkus was never supposed to be your typical hero, although he did go back and save Christopher at the end. He was full of flaws, an anti-hero if you will. And I didn't hate him, his humor was dark, that's true, but if you go around, you will notice that much of our humor is dark as well. At that time, no one could relate to the aliens, and the humor is an attempt by the humans to relate to them, no matter how twisted. It's exactly like racial prejudice.
     
  18. Agenda

    Agenda Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jul 28, 2009
    I have a theory about the events leading up to the ship's landing. As I think the Director stated, there was a virus that killed the queen. Once that happens, the ship is programmed to automatically head to a habitable planet like Earth. Or maybe they were already at Earth when the virus hit.

    But since there's no more queen, you have a bunch of mutinous, uncontrollable aliens running around without guidance. Christopher doesn't want these guys to have possession of a ship that can ravage an entire planet, so he intentionally grounds the vessel on Earth because it's the lesser evil. Maybe, in doing so, he actually saves the Earth from his own shipmates.

    So that's where the little command ship comes in. It's the key to the whole vessel...the bridge if you will. Detaching it renders the entire ship unusable. Maybe Christopher detached it or maybe it detached automatically because it's standard procedure. The little liquid device is a power source, but it's moreso of a key, a fail safe. Either it automatically disintegrates when the command ship detaches or maybe it was accidently lost/destroyed.

    Without the key you can't power the little ship or the big ship. Maybe only the pilot of the vessel or an engineer (which Christopher probably is) has knowledge of how to make the liquid that powers everything.
     
  19. DarKush

    DarKush Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 18, 2005
    I think you're partly right. I think the movie was based in an alternate reality where the apartheid system continued to the present day.
     
  20. chrisspringob

    chrisspringob Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2003
    Location:
    North Ryde, NSW
    Is there any evidence whatsoever that (human, not alien) apartheid was still going on in the present day in the movie?