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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."
This film should vault Neill Blomkamp into sci-fi stardom, on par with George Lucas and the Wachowski Brothers (of Matrix fame).
Are you saying that this movie is as good/groundbreaking as Star Wars orThe Matrix? I am somewhat dubious.
Don't get me wrong, it looks a whole lot better than most sci-fi movies. I especially like how the first commercials I saw for it were public service announcements about District 9. Then commercials with non-human sympathizers being arrested. Then later you see a commercial with "glick gluck mcglorlock" (translation: "We just want to go home.") and you kinda realize that there's going to be more depth to the story than Starship Troopers (the movie, not the book). Looks interesting, I'll definitely Netflix it.
It might be the best sci-fi movie of '09 but you've still got
While a lot don't have release dates yet and could be pushed back and most will probably suck, that's a lot of competition to dismiss at this point. And lastly, I have great hope for Franklyn (to be released here in the states).
My work here is dung.
The third act is where the movie devolved into traditional Hollywood tropes.
The long-awaited shootout with the asshole who has been hounding the protagonist since the first act. Pitting two factions, MNU + Nigerians, against each other. The hero being saved by the downtrodden prawns at the very last minute.
The little alien Wesley Crusher who's in the downed alien craft and after 20 years discovers how he can wake up the mothership to save the day.
How the love for an adult and his child can make anything happen.
Finally two adversaries become friends much like Dragonball Z.
Everything leading up to the end was good but it's like they ran out of ideas.
Okay, they ran out of good ideas.
I think "Moon" has been the only other major sci-fi non-sequel I've seen in the theaters in a long while...
I liked D9 and hope it does well.
/sig
That is a fucking insult if you ask me.
The film has a great look. I think alien films in daylight and with the psuedo-documentary looks are the hardest things to film.
The viral ad campaign has been very interesting with the fake NMU ads and such.
I have much hope for this movie, but if it ends up being just another EVIL CORPORATION movie, I will be disappointed.
You guys in america probably won't have seen it, but Moon was awesome. And didn't "Star Trek" count as sci-fi, at least to most people?
So, the Wachowski brothers are famous, but not famous enough for people to remember what they're famous for?
Can't we all at least agree that while this movie may have had its weak points, it also had some very strong ones, and all things considered it is in fact a decent sci-fi film in a year that seems likely to produce a few of those; which, last time I checked, is the exception? From my perspective the past few years have been on average a baron wasteland of terrible purely "Hollywood" style sci-fi films not worth half of what I had to pay to go see them in theaters.
Go see it. Money well spent. The film was really enjoyable (coming from a person who hates most Hollywood films). I think I was most impressed because it was a completely original idea and not a reboot or a sequel. I have to admit though I was partial I was familiar with some of Neil Blomkamp's earlier work.
FWIW District 9 was based on one of his short films titled "Alive in Joburg. Watch it here.
Also I enjoyed Tetra Vaal, an amaing short film about a police bot in South Africa. Stunning CGI. Enjoy =)
Okay, thanks for heads up! I will definitely avoid the sequels!
If there is one movie you see all year, see District 9. There's action, aliens, a little romance and one very well written story with some nicely animated cgi. I'm usually picky about sci-fi and almost never wanted to see the latest cool new release, but this movie really is tops. I was even more surprised that parts of the movie brought forth some relatively strong emotions. Also, I think the movie does try to send a message and does a good job of it. Ok, I don't want to be anymore of a movie reviewer here so go see it for yourselves.
I suppose I can agree with the summary if we are talking about the George Lucas that made "Jar Jar" -- but not the George Lucas I imagine existed before that. The movie has a strange mix of incredibly awesome and stunningly amateurish or "dumbed down by committee" pieces that kind of made me angry that it fell short of its total awesomeness potential. Kind of like making a Transformer movie and then produce toys that don't transform. Who would think that's a good idea? Thank god Hollywood would never do something like that, so I wouldn't ever have to explain to a three year old on Christmas, "No, honey, it doesn't transform into a semi truck; it's just a robot" ANYWAY you should see District 9 if you haven't but don't expect it to be soo awesome in total, it's pretty good, though. My wife is the true sci-fi fan so I'll wait for her report back tomorrow.
Saw this yesterday, thought it was awesome. At its heart the plot isn't necessarily that original, but the execution is sublime. The "hero" and many of the other characters and weapons/vehicles/etc. feel so much more vulnerable than in any other holywood movie.
In every other movie you shoot at someone and miss completely if they're the good guy. Or your car/spaceship/cat is invulnerable to missiles conveniently. Not in this movie.
HOWEVER, the combination of shaky cam and gore left everyone I went with feeling a bit nauseous. I'm really not even sure if it was the shaky cam or the gore that did it. Please put a bullet in these shaky cams. For whatever reason they're being used, it's not worth it.
It's high time the Academy recognized Joe, the epileptic cameraman, and his trusty pogo stick named "Earthquake".
Seriously dude, it would still have that extra realism if the jerkimeter was at 5 instead of 11.
most people have never heard of them since Matrix, which was ten years ago, which means they need to have their claim to fame mentioned. While many on this site know who they are I bet you could find some readers who don't. If anything getting into the same sentence as Lucas is probably more important to the W brothers than their movie.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I just briefly scrolled through the list and for a half of a second thought I saw "90210" listed as an up-and-coming Sci-Fi movie.
Karma: NaN
I saw District 9 this Friday, and I have to agree that it was a great piece of cinematic sci-fi: an allegory for apartheid with a very human unlikely hero and some great popcorn-fodder action sequences. I'd like to remind everyone, though, that it still has some competition for year's best sci-fi movie in the form of Moon, which is a drama of isolation, loneliness, and ethics set in the stark, cold beauty of space, very reminiscent of 2001. While it doesn't match the action of D-9, it makes up for it with its emotional intensity and thoughtfulness. I highly recommend any Slashdot movie fans out there see both.
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Ok, comparing them to the Wachowski brothers probably isn't the compliment the submitter intended. I would assume...
The first Matrix movie was superb. I remember literally leaping out of my seat in the theater while watching it. It was incredible. The second movie suggested some fantastic things but really hinged on the third movie to determine whether it was great or not - were those hinted elements executed properly or were those hints just me reading into things? And the third movie sucked so hard that it actually dragged down the first movie's greatness while simultaneously revealing just how terrible the second movie really was. In the second movie, they hinted at and suggested some elements which would have created a wonderful lore for the franchise but their complete lack of ability to craft a story (it's now widely known that the first movie's plot was actually stolen from another author, Sophia Stewart) and their inability to subtly finesse a plot showed through in glaring detail when the third movie came out. Their special effects and fight sequences have had a profound impact on action/sci-fi movies since but, as storytellers, they are enormously subpar, to say the least.
Actually, given that the other comparison the submitter makes is to George Lucas (another absolute master of the visual art but novice of storytelling and script writing...), I'm now forced to wonder if District 9 is just pretty pictures and cool fight scenes with a piss-poor plot and an infantile script... Regardless, I know I'm going to see it but the comparisons to Lucas and the Wachoskis makes me wonder...
this movie was meh.
Overall, was tremendously impressed with the look, feel, cinematography, etc. Documentary style absolutely made the movie. And I generally loath shaky-cam. Thing is, shaky-cam has generally been used to imply that you *are* someone, so you never see what the hell is happening, whereas in District 9, it makes you feel like you're *watching* something, so you follow the action but feel the peril. Very effective.
There were some *amazing* scenes - I can't go into it due to spoilers, but really, unbelievably cringe-inducing moments of humanist horror. There is a richness to the interaction of the main character with his world that I just haven't seen elsewhere.
My friends and I kept looking over at each other with wild grins on our faces, unable to believe how intense, crazy, and just totally new the whole thing was. I really can't recommend it highly enough.
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I smell a viral marketing campaign.
District 9 is liquid cocaine fed intravenously to your veins for two hours. It is a visual 2 1/2 hour orgasm. Watching this movie will be the most important event of your life and by far the most pleasurable. District 9 was better than my wedding, better than watching my first son born, better than the time I had sexual intercourse with an entire college cheerleading squad while high on peyote.
Words cannot express it. It is like viewing the face of God. Forget the trailers, forget any stills you've seen, forget whatever anyone else has told you. Forget religion, forget God, forget science, forget everything you thought you knew. There is only District 9, and it is beautiful.
Neill Blomkamp is brilliance incarnate. He is divine. I am not sure how exactly he created this masterpiece of visual neurological cues which induce pure pleasure, but I now owe him absolutely everything. He has perfected visual neural interface with the genius stroke of a Renaissance Master and the prowess of an angel.
Watch this movie, repeatedly. You will want to take off work for the next week (perhaps longer) just to watch uninterrupted back-to-back showings. I am currently writing this from a netbook that I sneaked into the early matinee showing. I must now continue to watch.
-Travis
Is it just me, or has "science fiction" basically come to mean action/adventure/horror/whatever with rayguns and aliens?
What ever happened to science fiction that used the premise as a tool to tell us something unpleasant about ourselves? Or to explore human behavior taken to extremes? Or to give us a unique perspective on the world around us?
Looking back on what science fiction used to be... I'd suggest that District 9 is the only sci-fi movie of 2009...
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
...but I thought it was a mediocre movie at best, with good CGI. I walked out with a Starship Troopers taste in my mouth, but maybe that was just remnants of a soldier that got disintegrated by an alien man-zapper.
I'm sure I will be in the minority here, but I left feeling empty because of the gaping holes in the plot. I left the theater feeling like I had taken about 6 restroom breaks and missed storyline, only I didn't leave once.
Here are the issues I had:
1) Where did the aliens come from, why were they in our galaxy? why did they leave? Would it have been so much to ask to piece together some of the back-story for the viewer so we could relate better to their plight?
2) WTF happened to all of the aliens who knew shit about how to run their starship? Why is it their population consists of 99.999-percent idiotic worker-class drones and what happened to their intelligent leaders? Why did precisely 1 intelligent alien survive this?
3) How believable can it be that this fluid has a very specific dual purpose of a) turning humans into Prawns, and being unleaded gasoline for your starships?
4) The gore was completely over the top and detracted from our enjoyment.
5) We made the mistake of sitting close to the screen and the shaky camera gave me a splitting headache.
I felt like this movie is a lot like the Defying Gravity series on ABC. The movie is trying so hard to tell a heart-wrenching story that the sci-fi aspects become a crappy afterthought for the writers.
I suppose Peter Jackson's name was the only thing that kept this from being laughed out of Hollywood. 'District 9' and 'Moon' are the best sci-fi movies I've seen in awhile.
I feel that Star Trek and Terminator were both better Science Fiction movies than District 9. Overall, I feel the acting was much better in the Star Trek and Terminator. The fact that the Trek fans hate it because it goes against the Prime Objective and this and that is irrelevant. It was still a great movie if you are completely unbiased about it. As for the best movie of the year, The Hurt Locker was a better movie in my opinion, the acting, plot and filming were all done perfectly in it. It was probably one of the top three recent war movies made with Private Ryan and Letters from Iwo Jima
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
I enjoyed the film quite a lot. I think it has had one of the best ad campaigns in years. I've seen billboards with advisories against picking up alien hitchhikers (warning of a $10,000 fine). The best was the ad banner on a bus simply saying "This bus is for humans only!" and the prawn icon with the red slashed circle. Brilliant, and massively attention getting. I can't recall the last time I heard people at work discussing a billboard.
Firefly was well known for use of lens flares and shaky cam, particularly in the outer space scenes, to make the effects much more realistic. They were the first to bring it back, but they did it on purpose. Google "shaky cam firely" and see for yourself.
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Thanks for the heads up about shaky cam. That puts "District 9" on the "maybe when I can watch it for free" list.
I don't want to have to concentrate physically to be able to follow the story.
I go to the movies to entertain my mind, not my eye muscles or my vestibular system.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Warning, might be spoilers:
:-/
Let me say that I was highly disappointed with this movie, and surely I can't be the only one. I went to see it last night, and walked away not recommending it to anyone. 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. His character was sort of like Borat, the sound effects sounded like the Matrix, 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. The father in law was evil for no apparent reason, and his wife suddenly believes Wilkus without explanation why? I don't know, I just don't buy it at all. 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? And yes, I did think the parts where the humans blew up from the alien weapons were cool, but it just begs the question, why weren't the aliens using the weanpos to revolt instead of selling them to the Nigerians?
All in all, I just found the movie to be simply unbelievable (yes, I KNOW it is only sci-fi, but still, c'mon!) that were this situation to occur, I just can't see people acting like that. I'd expect tighter government controls, with more international pressures. If this movie wanted to be about apartheid, which is a good social justice issues movie, it needed a little more believability to it, and a little more on the interactions between humans/aliens when the aliens first arrived.
Mod me up or down, I don't care, it was just that I was expecting so much more, and left feeling like I got a better deal on the popcorn
huh. I always thought the shaky-cam was to cut costs on special effects. Your CGI doesn't have to look half as good when the viewer can't even tell what's going on in the picture.
Moon is real SciFi.
The Hollywood studios have hijacked the term and many people are sheepishly obliging with gusto.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The problem with the movie is that the whole premise is flawed. The humans don't act like humans. They have no knowledge of the aliens and don't even seem interested. They shove ET into a ghetto and there are no scholars, philosophers, doctors, scientists or even media trying to gain access to them? No one on the whole globe cares at all, except for an evil haliburton type company. Really? Sitting in the audience I couldn't help but think that someone involved in this glossy, shiny turd would have pointed out that their core audience is going to be made up of people who would be on the first plane to Johannesburg to see an alien.
And that is not a spoiler, that is just the trailers. It felt like it just missed some key plot points. A sequel has the potential to be much better, especially if it explains why the aliens are so ineffectual, another serious gripe.
I had the opportunity to interview writer/director Neill Blomkamp and Sharlto Copley, who plays Wikus van der Merwe. Here's the link to the interview and to the review I published this past week. I think that Blomkamp will continue to impress us if he keeps focused on further developing the story and the characters in his future films. Is it a perfect film? No. Most sci-fi is far from the depths of where cinematic drama can reach, but this is a respectable start for a first time film director who was spared, I will say, of the critical failure that Halo is destined to become. As someone else mentioned, I've also followed Blomkamp's work from Tetra Vaal to his CitrÃen and VW ads, and the film short "Alive in Joburg" which I've linked in the interview page URL I've posted here.
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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Wikus is a bureaucratic simpleton thrust into a situation far beyond his grasp. One of the major things I enjoyed about the film was watching the development of his character. With every plot twist, I had to wonder -- is he beginning to see? Does he understand now what he's been a part of? Is he beginning to get a better sense of life from the Prawns' point of view?
It was that constant character suspense -- do I want to root for Wikus yet or not? -- that was part of what made the movie such an edge-of-the-seat experience for me.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
More like the Evil United Nations, if you get the "slight nudge" of the acronym and the all-white "peacekeeper" vehicles and choppers.
It is not a movie about aliens, it is a movie about humans and humanity. Everything you see in it as human-alien attitude and relationships, already has a precedent in human history. It is a social commentary and not a sugar-coated hollywoodcraprollercoasterride. The violence is unglamorized and borders on sickening.
If you want mindless entertainment with satisfying blows and asskicking, look elsewhere.
If you want to be exposed to the gut-wrenching experiences millions of human beings still face as a part of everyday life, this is just the ticket for you.
After seeing this, I can now say, yes, I can imagine how people in fugitive camps / slums feel. And, if you look at laws applied in "urban gentrification" projects, you will see we treat our "poor" in similar ways. The "social services" scene confiscating the child for it's own good was a brilliant example. Not even made up.
Star Wars gave us an attempt at a solid future universe with magic and technology to match our imagination. The (first) Matrix gave us a satisfying universe based on the core omnipresent premise that we live in a dream/virtual world.
District9 gave us a taste of our dark side, the atrocities we cheerfully commit against each other, the worst kind, coming from the "civilized" good citizens with clean desks. It is not a pleasant one, but important.
It is an important, masterfully created document, wrapped as a sci-fi movie.
Not everyone is ready for it.
All the TV interviews were real unscripted questions asked of real South Africans on illegal immigrants in South Africa. I quote from here: To give the short a realistic feel, Blomkamp interviewed real people about the influx of immigrants into real-life Johannesburg; their frank answers to questions about Zimbabweans and other refugees were transformed into documentary-style commentary on extraterrestrials unwanted by a fearful local population. (See Alive in Joburg below.)
Everyone harping on about how this is about Apartheid is wrong. It's about modern, everyday xenophobia, alive and kicking in place like South Africa and havens of moral rectitude like the US of fucking A where just as many people hate foreigners because they're, uhm, foreign as people anywhere else do.
But no, it's set in South Africa, so it must be about Aparthied, right? I mean nothing else ever happened there, right?