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"District 9" Best Sci-fi Movie of 09?
Travis wrote in with a story that says much of what my friends have been saying to me all weekend: "Slashdot covered 'District 9' back in July. I was originally excited to see this movie for its exhibition of exoskeleton robot 'mechs' (see images and video at Hizook.com ). After watching the film this opening weekend, I can honestly say that it was an amazing science fiction movie! Everything was spot-on: the plot, the human elements, the alien elements, the technology, and the seamless blend of special effects with real camera capture. This film should vault Neill Blomkamp into sci-fi stardom, on par with George Lucas and the Wachowski Brothers (of Matrix fame). This is certainly a must-see movie — easily the best movie of the year."
You forgot Moon.
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Go ahead and cross off the Time Traveler's Wife from that list, its not really Sci-fi and its been getting low to mid range review scores anyway.
The Surrogates does seem kinda cool though, looking forward to see how that one does.
Here ya go.
Alien Nation was a social comment on racial tension in the USA, while District 9 is based on Apartheid, but the similarities are definitely there.
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There were definite plot holes, the hero (Van De Merwe) I had a hard time rooting for instead of rooting that we would just get shot. He was weak and pathetic, and only had courage while in the exo-suit, and even then, he was wishy-washy.
A protaganist and a "Hero" are not the same thing. Hollywood forgets this, and in turn, many moviegoers forget this. I'm sorry you had a hard time rooting for an ignorant, racist, cowardly protagonist, but that was the point of the character.
and I just couldn't believe the government would allow the Nigerians to become so powerful inside the district, especially when they knew how dangerous they were.
This is a very Amero-centric point of view. Just because something like this is not plausible in the United States, does not make it far-fetched. The situation with the Nigerian warlord happens all the time in less wealthy or stable countries.
The father in law was evil for no apparent reason, and his wife suddenly believes Wilkus without explanation why?
You complain about the depth of the main character than complain about the one-sidedness of a minor character with minimal screentime? We don't see enough of the father to know much about him, aside from his greed. As for his wife, that's called a romantic subplot...she chose to love her husband regardless of the lies around her.
A lot of the gore was unneeded, and made me turn away from the screen a few times... Did we really need to see him biting off his nails?
Yes, I happen to think we did. The nails being lost did exactly what it was supposed to: sent a shiver up your spine. I prefer a movie that doesn't shy away from the dirty details of it's events. It potrayed the messy and tragic reality of Wilkus's condition.
why weren't the aliens using the weanpos to revolt instead of selling them to the Nigerians?
Explained directly in the plot. Almost all the aliens were worker drones with little free will of their own, bred to follow orders. They were very good at building things, but only rarely did any have the drive and wit to form complex plans (Christopher). I have to question if we watched the same film.
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It is precisely the main human protagonist's flaws that make him interesting and give meaning to his redemptive acts near the end of the movie.
Dangerous to whom? District-9 was completely sealed off and by well-armed corporate mercenaries, so the Nigerians were not much of a threat to the citizen of Johannesburg. And as for being dangerous to the "prawns", well, it's pretty clear the powers-that-be didn't really give a shit about them.
Just because a facet of someone's personality (which one would likely normally keep a secret) comes to the surface later in a story does not mean there's no apparent reason for it. Besides, the reason for the father-in-law's action was apparent: greed (and the fact that he didn't much care for his son-in-law).
The aliens did not stage a revolt using their superior technology because they were stupid drones who lacked initiative. This was all explicitly stated near the beginning of the movie, and repeatedly demonstrated throughout it (e.g. trading the mech-suit for a hundred cans of cat food).
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it's now widely known that the first movie's plot was actually stolen from another author, Sophia Stewart
A quick look on the net bears another story, Snopes is a good place to start.
Other than that, you are spot on.
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Ever here of Snopes? http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/matrix.asp Case was dismissed for no evidence. (She didn't even show up.)
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IO9 has an interview with Neill Blomkamp giving a lot of the back story explaining #1, #2. See http://io9.com/5331799/district-9s-director-tells-us-all-about-his-alien-back-story
What makes you say that it's not scifi? The fact that it's a chick flick, too, doesn't make it not science fiction
Probably related to the fact that the writer says that she "never thought of it as science fiction, even though it has a science-fiction premise" (source).
(it's now widely known that the first movie's plot was actually stolen from another author, Sophia Stewart)
Other people have corrected you on this, but it's worth pointing out the limits of the similarities between the Matrix and Stewart's story:
- It's set following an apocalyptic war
- It featured a character who was subject to a prophecy that he would right all the wrongs in the world
- This character was repeatedly called "the One"
- It portrays black people positively (she actually called this out as a similarity, and tried to convince us all that no white script author would do this)
- It has a black character known as "the Oracle" who makes prophecies
And, err, that's just about it. The actual plot, it appears, is somewhat different (although the self-published book is apparently no longer available to buy, so it's hard to be certain of this).
It also features time travel and a character sent to protect "the One"'s mother from some kind of attack or other before he is born, leading her to also accuse The Terminator of being ripped off from her story. Obviously this is just as much total bullshit as the Matrix claim, particularly seeing as most of the elements that she claims were ripped of from her were actually ripped of from a Harlan Ellison TV script, written and produced nearly 20 years before Stewart wrote her book.
The ONLY negative I have towards the movie is that the lead character drops the F-Bomb well over 200 times throughout the course of the movie. The last 20 minutes was a constant barrage of "Fuck...fuuuuck! Oh Shit, oh shit, Ahhh! FUCK!" It got to the point where it was almost laughable for how many times he cursed and made me question the intelligence of the lead character.
I think that is part of what they were after. The lead character wasn't supposed to be an all-american, square-jawed ridgy-didge action hero. He's a middle-management screw-up who leads a boring life, is bigoted against the aliens, is quite happy to treat them as less than human and then he has the events of the movie thrust upon him. He's an unwilling participant in the whole affair, and he's quite typical South African. The swearing wasn't over the top, I hardly noticed it as it fitted in quite well with the rest of the plot.
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