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District 9- The Movie Avatar wasn't

As for the movie's themes, it felt to me like the movie just didn't dig deep enough or go much beyond "the way we're treating these people is wrong."

Like, no duh. I kind of figured that out in the first 15 minutes of the movie. lol
 
No, the aliens arrived in the late 1980s. That point wasn't hammered home, though, so it was easy to miss.
 
District 9 is a very good film, but it is saddled with a couple of plot holes that deny it greatness, IMO:

1. Where did the mech and all the weapons come from, if all the aliens were shipped down by MNU? (except for the small dropship)

2. The extreme convenience that a fuel for the dropship also happens to be a compound which is capable of transforming any living organism into a prawn. (while it lives!) Also they spent 20 years collecting enough of it, yet I guess the amount that sprayed on Wilkus didn't seem to matter. (wouldn't they look for more after that, to top it off?)

Beyond that, I like the film a lot. I'd give it an A- grade.
 
I liked both films about the same, overall. I did appreciated, however, that District 9 asked us to sympathize with creatures that no one would consider attractive, and that the protagonist is never depicted as somehow noble and enlightened for switching sides. He does so out of pure self-interest, and so does the protagonist of Avatar, but the latter tries to obscure that point to make him look more heroic than he really should. Both films also have terribly over the top villains that are difficult to take seriously, and that more than anything else holds them back from greatness in my estimation. Still, I enjoyed them and will probably watch them again at some point in the future.
 
District 9 is great, but it's not as original as some think. The premise is basically Alien Nation and the uniqueness of the setting does a lot to make it seem pretty fresh. But why do we need to build it up and tear down Avatar at the same time? Oh, wait, this is the internet.
 
Alien Nation was about assimilation, District 9 was about segregation. There aren't any Prawns joining the police force, or opening businesses, or breeding with humans (in any normalized fashion), etc.

I'm mostly speaking about the Alien Nation television show, of course, since the movie manages to be an incredibly formulaic buddy cop movie, especially given the science fiction trappings.
 
Avtar is a blue apple and District 9 is an orange.

They are different movies, different styles. One also cost $300+ million and the other one cost $30 million, and they aren't trying to be the same thing. How about we stop trying to compare every single movie because each movie is better in their our ways.

District 9 story is better in my book because the slums they used are real slums!
 
Avtar is a blue apple and District 9 is an orange.

They are different movies, different styles.

Perhaps. But I can tell you I got much more enjoyment out of District 9 than I did out of Avatar – though I did enjoy Avatar – and while I own D9 on DVD and have watched it several times, once in the theater for Avatar was enough. So in that respect, D9 is a much better film.
 
^Agreed. The visuals were awesome enough to distract me from the mediocre plot of Avatar...once. I doubt I'd be able to sit through it again without falling asleep.

District 9 blew me away with the FX of the prawns, and it also managed to make me feel sorry for the main character.

Avatar blew me away with the FX in general, and the 3D was really neat, but I can't say it made me feel anything for the characters, simply because everything they did was so predictable.
 
Avtar is a blue apple and District 9 is an orange.

They are different movies, different styles.

Perhaps. But I can tell you I got much more enjoyment out of District 9 than I did out of Avatar – though I did enjoy Avatar – and while I own D9 on DVD and have watched it several times, once in the theater for Avatar was enough. So in that respect, D9 is a much better film.

And??? :) I can tell you that I feel the opposite. Now what does that prove? :lol:
 
That we can still make personal comparisons of value, in defiance of the desire to pretend we can't.
 
Both a are good movies, I liked Avatar a bit better though. In fact, I consider them the second-best and third-best science fiction movies of 2009.
 
I'm kind of annoyed that Avatar came out right at the end of 2009. I feel like it came out of nowhere right before the cut-off and is now going to win everything. At least if it had come out at the beginning of 2010 somebody could make something to compete against it for next year.
 
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