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. Unicron

    Unicron Boss Monster Mod Moderator

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    Plot magic. :D Same reason Wikus was able to still use his personal codes at MNU, despite the fact that they were hunting him for his altered organs. Overall, I enjoyed the movie.
     
  2. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Actualy that was pretty believable. I doubt even the mose efficent and well-run company would change a "fired" employee's access codes with three days of him leaving. ;)

    I mean that stuff takes time, papers have to be filed to IT, that IT guy has to work it into his schedule, memos have to be sent out as notification of procedure changes, etc. ;)
     
  3. backstept

    backstept Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I noticed that the Prawns did have an actual language
    like 'no' for instance kind of sounded like 'no' . . . it seemed to be made up of sounds that are unpronounceable by human mouths, but that the words were consistent
    it's also conceivable that the humans that lived around the prawns, as well as the prawns themselves after 20 years developed a mutual understanding of each other's language . . . like I speak english to some prawn, and he understands it but can't speak it, and he says clickgruntsqueak and I understand it but can't speak it


    I hope we get a LOTR EE level of behind the scenes material :D
     
  4. Unicron

    Unicron Boss Monster Mod Moderator

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    Awesome Possum posted this in TNZ, and I couldn't resist sharing... :D

    [​IMG]
     
  5. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    I'm going to play the UT card. ;)

    :lol:
     
  6. Jono

    Jono Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Another thing you have to take into account is that he is at the time he is getting a documentary filmed round him/about him. Some people over exaggerate their emotions for the camera or do odd things to appear cool and likeable.

    When it started to change him I thought, evil alien conspiracy to conquer the world!
     
  7. Agent Richard07

    Agent Richard07 Admiral Admiral

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    ^ Yeah, when the two prawns were talking about what they had just put in the canister, I thought they were up to no good.
     
  8. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    I though Christopher was working on a virus to mutate humanity at first.
     
  9. Ryan

    Ryan Commodore Commodore

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    I'm amazed that aspect of the movie has slipped under the radar. It's got to be the most blatantly racist portrayal in cinema this century, right down to freakin' voodoo and xeno-cannibalism.

    The movie has a bit more thinking than the usual actioner and has some original ideas but the plot is far too slapdash; District 9 is the kind of film you could poke holes in all days long. Here you have a huge alien population that has super advanced weapons and the knowledge to cross interstellar space and the first order of business is to antagonize the hell out of them?
     
  10. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    Wilkus' metamorphosis is really a metaphor for "see what happens and how you feel when you become one of the abused."

    This is one of those films that has left me thinking two days after I've seen it. A good sign that.

    Yep. Your spelling puts it across better. The thought still makes me laugh. :lol:
     
  11. Nerroth

    Nerroth Commodore Commodore

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    One thing I noted was that on one of the tables in the MNU office, there was a post-apartheid South African flag, rather than the one they would have flown at the time the mothership arrived.


    If that was intentional, would it mean that at least the human form of apartheid went away in the 20 or so years post-contact?
     
  12. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    In the D9 world the aliens arrived in 1980 or so. It's a big enough change to the human race to have ended Apartheid.
     
  13. Mr Light

    Mr Light Admiral Admiral

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    It looks like both races came together in equality to hate the prawns in unity. After all, what does the color of someone's skin matter when there're seven foot tall crustaceans walking around? :p
     
  14. dru

    dru Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Already annoyed with the "documentary" style, I saw through the veil immediately and walked away shortly after the trucks came to District 9 for the eviction. :rolleyes:

    I didn't find them even slightly clever in apartheid via stand-ins. I still remember the real thing; I didn't need this preachy crap. :borg:
     
  15. Sabataage

    Sabataage Commander Red Shirt

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    You know, I just watched Schindler's List. Nobody even says "Holocaust" during the movie so obviously its not really about that since it wasn't even addressed by name.

    The Nigerian gangsters are there because the aliens are vulnerable to exploitation (what with it being a slum and all). The fact that the gang leader eats prawns for vagelyy religious purpsoses doesn't seem that much of a stretch. I would concede that it was racist except for the fact that absolutely none of the whites came across in a particularly favorable light. Especially the hero, who is totally okay with throwing these creatures out of their homes (and sending them somewhere he knows for a fact is even worse), incinerating their unborn children and threatening to remove a child from his father in order to extort a "legal" signature. Then there's Koobus who cackles with joy just before shooting a prawn in the head. Then there are the scientists who are fine with killing them for experimentation, not to mention the hero. Even the hero's pretty wife wasn't smart enough to realize her father was an evil bastard of Dick Cheney proportions. Excluding Cristopher Johnson and his son, the only (human) character who comes off clean is Wikus' black subordinate who --after figuring out his employers are up to no good, exposes their dirty dealings to the world, and winds up in prison.
     
  16. HaplessCrewman

    HaplessCrewman Commander Red Shirt

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    Ha Ha. Agreed. Some SF fans are so literal-minded, some days I think there is no hope for intelligent SF.

    Example: Silent Running is not about environmentalism because it doesn't take place on Earth!

    The Road Warrior is not about nuclear holocaust because they never mention it!

    What a world! We have to educate one another, please!!!
     
  17. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    Being SF I didn't see it that way. Unless there was an actual date mentioned in the film I missed then I just assumed the aliens arrived around our present time and then our story takes place in the 2030s.
     
  18. cal888

    cal888 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I just saw the movie for a second time. The aliens arrive in 1982, and the modern day action takes place in August 2010.
     
  19. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    Glad I missed that actually because I think it's silly when writers do that. We obviously freakin' know recent history so why the alternate history setup? It's stupid.

    Either don't mention an actual date or just project it a few years into the future.
     
  20. USS Mariner

    USS Mariner Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    If that wasn't the case, though, you'd still end up having to explain what happened with "our" apartheid, which would make the idea and goal of the film redundant. Even if the date isn't mentioned, it's pretty obvious that the timeframe is close to modern-day, given the presence of the internet, cellphones, GPS, etc. Given all that, It'd be silly not to state the year.

    Besides, it's fiction. It's already an alternate world, so what's the problem with alternate history? The point of the film was to explore the aspects of apartheid itself, but using more "attractive" stand-ins for those who wouldn't necessarily be interested in such a concept.

    The timeframe of the film, when you get down to it, is really irrelevant, because human nature is timeless, as well as blind. Apartheid itself is merely racism under government enforcement, so the setting itself isn't all that important either. Neill simply wanted to give the audience a stylized impression of the racism that saw and experienced growing up during apartheid in South Africa, but the setting could just as easily have been Germany during the holocaust or any other racial oppression in human history. One of the novel things about District 9 is that they use South Africa as a setting, where as anyone else would have simply had a holocaust retelling, which has become such a common practice as to become a cliche itself.