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

[OdoWanKenobi]

As far as the language understanding goes, it's not far fetched. If you're in another country and are exposed to a different language for long enough, you start to pick it up. The scene in the shuttle down below showed that Wikus was not entirely fluent in the alien language. He just recognized certain words.

 

[Trekker4747]

^^ Well said. And you make sense.

My feeling is that whatever the circumstances that led to it the Prawns were perhaps refugees of some kind.

I got the impression that perhaps it was maybe a slave-ship. Didn't one of the "news clips" at the begining say something about a command module detaching and leaving?

 

[Warped9]

The one phrase that has stuck in my head as well as the others who saw the film with me was "fucking prawns" as said with a South African accent. We were joking about it all day today at work.

"Man, what a shitty day."

"Yeah. It's all because of them fucking prawns."

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

^^ Well said. And you make sense.

My feeling is that whatever the circumstances that led to it the Prawns were perhaps refugees of some kind.

I got the impression that perhaps it was maybe a slave-ship. Didn't one of the "news clips" at the begining say something about a command module detaching and leaving?

They said that something fell from the ship and they never found it. I think it's assumed that's what was underneath Christopher Johnson's shack.

 

[Anwar]

It was. When it went back up it was the opposite of the opening scene where it fell out.

 

[Daneel]

Final weekend box office numbers for District 9: $37,354,308. That's the eleventh-best opening weekend for a film in August. Average per theatre take was a solid $12,251.

Last week's champ, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra fell to second place with $22,324,341 over the weekend. That's a 59.2% drop from what it made last weekend; fairly steep, but the picture has still done reasonably well for itself. It does seem to suggest that it isn't going to have much in the way of legs, however.

I'll be seeing District 9 on Wednesday -- lookin' forward to it.

 

[melancholymecha]

The one phrase that has stuck in my head as well as the others who saw the film with me was "fucking prawns" as said with a South African accent. We were joking about it all day today at work.

"Man, what a shitty day."

"Yeah. It's all because of them fucking prawns."

fookin prawns! I loved Wikus's accent!

there's some polarization over wether Wikus deserved to be pitied at the end of the film, some think he deserved no sympathy. I felt really bad for him. I mean he was brought up in this culture to treat the aliens like that. Im not saying his treatment of the aliens was right but ...he wasnt a bad horrible person, he loved his wife. Some people are comparing him to a mass murderer(ok its at IMDB but still.) At the end he pays dearly for following orders & MNU gets a slap on the wrist. Life's not fair & all that.

 

[Endymion]

A link to my review...

click

 

[Trekker4747]

I wonder if his finger grew back? The "prawns" seemed crustacean-like and crustaceans have regenerative abilities.

I also think it's interesting that he so gleefully torched the prawn-egg incubator but refused to fire the alien-weapon at the prawn when he was being used as a test subject for firing the weapons.

 

[DarthPipes]

Very cool weapons, although it does raise a significant question: if you've got that kind of weaponry at hand then how do you allow yourself to be so victimized?

Spoiler: Spoilers

It is a good question, but you have to remember how 'first contact' was made. The humans cut into the ship because it hadn't done anything for months, the aliens were all just wondering about inside, sick and starving. They weren't exactly in shape to fight back, and given that kind of start, with the humans having such an upper hand right off the bat, I don't think it would have been very feasible to fight back later on either. I'm sure that the first Prawn who tried anything got his head blown off and the rest fell in line pretty quickly.

If that doesn't convince you just think back to the end of the movie where the security Colonel went up against the Prawns. He had powerful weapons, they had their bare hands... its just that they had more hands than he could handle, even with his gun. Same thing goes for how the Prawns managed to become victims of the less advanced humans

Well said.

Not to mention, even with the advanced weaponary, they are massively outnumbered by the rest of humanity.

 

[Anwar]

I wonder if his finger grew back? The "prawns" seemed crustacean-like and crustaceans have regenerative abilities.

I also think it's interesting that he so gleefully torched the prawn-egg incubator but refused to fire the alien-weapon at the prawn when he was being used as a test subject for firing the weapons.

Well, that Hatchery he found was illegal and against the Prawn Breeding laws they enforced. So it was actually part of his job to torch them. That one prawn, as far as he knew, hadn't done anything. He did some pretty monstrous stuff but he didn't have a specific malice for the Prawns.

 

[romulus]

That's what I figured too. They where not dumb, they probably knew after a while that the humans had an air force and bombs that could make short work of even their advanced weapons, maybe even their ship. Then their would really be no hope of going back home.

 

[Mr Light]

It's one thing to kill a squiggling egg and quite another to kill a grown adult with intelligence and feelings that's looking you in the eye with terror and fear.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, but he was down-right gleeful about torching the hatchery.

 

[Blue_Trek]

Where I work I sell insecticide, people are very gleeful to kill insects, prawn babies are like the larva in a hornets nest, most don't feel bad killing them.
And some are gleeful about it too.

I typically do not kill insects for no reason, if they aren't bothering me, let them be.

I have to say larva pods verses a sentient being staring you in the face is two different thing.

 

[melancholymecha]

Wikus was nothing compared to those MNU scientist, werent they going to cut him apart to experiment on him or preserve his organs? even without sedating him or even giving him pain killers? and the way they didnt even flinch or bat an eye while he's begging him to stop the testing? its one thing to be treating a squealing animal or a insectoid alien whose wierd clickings & grunts you dont understand that way, but Wikus was a fellow human!!!

 

[Trekker4747]

Wikus was nothing compared to those MNU scientist, werent they going to cut him apart to experiment on him or preserve his organs? even without sedating him or even giving him pain killers? and the way they didnt even flinch or bat an eye while he's begging him to stop the testing? its one thing to be treating a squealing animal or a insectoid alien whose wierd clickings & grunts you dont understand that way, but Wikus was a fellow human!!!

They were going to give him a vivisection, yes.

 

[Anwar]

Geez, the dad-in-law must REALLY have hated him. Don't know why, I mean the dad in law was hardly a He-Man himself.

 

[Agent Richard07]

^ I thought he looked like a gruff manly looking man.

 

[DarthPipes]

Yeah, he was the father-in-law from hell. He would have gutted his wife's husband without batting an eye.