Lets be honest here - trailers are supposed to give you some vague idea of what the movie is about. They're commercials, trying to sell a movie ticket. The whole point of a trailer is to make you want to go watch the movie.
And, after watching that trailer, I'm going to wait for some reviews before I go see the movie.
Initially everyone was talking about how amazing and awe-inspiring this movie was going to be. I was very interested. It sounded like something I wanted to go see.
After watching that trailer I have changed my mind. My first thought, when I saw that trailer, was what are those night elves doing in there?
Sure, it may be a great movie. And I may wind up going to see it. And I may wind up loving it. But, judging from that trailer, I'm going to wait and see what other folks say.
By comparison, the trailer for District 9 was good enough to make me go see it without waiting for reviews.
So now, not only can I not toss the magazine into recycling without a thought, but in many municipalities it will be a crime to even throw it in the regular trash due to the electronics. Thanks Hollywood!
Maybe it'd work as a standalone advertising pamphlet for some expensive toy... But as a magazine insert?
Yeah, I understand that folks will run out and buy this magazine just for the advertisement. Just for the novelty. But... The thing depicted in that video is easily as thick as a magazine.
I didn't, really. It isn't like I was trapped anywhere... Things just weren't what I wanted them to be.
I had to stop hiding my head in the books and actually deal with reality.
I got a new job... But it sucks too. But that wasn't the problem. Other people/places/things can't make you feel anything. It's up to you to do something with what you have.
I decided not to let the 9 hours of crappy work ruin the rest of my day.
I decided to actually make time for my marriage, instead of complaining about not having time.
I decided to make some friends and have some social interaction (interestingly, in the form of a MMOG).
For me, it was very constructive to take charge of my life. No, things aren't perfect... But then again, perfect doesn't happen in the real world. Things are good. I'm much happier. And since I'm actually dealing with reality, instead of hiding, things are only getting better.
I'm not going to try to justify things here... I download copyrighted material. I like to think that I'm not quite so evil because ultimately I do pay for the stuff that I actually like - but it is still piracy.
So, where do I get my torrents now?
The Pirate Bay was pretty much my go-to site to find just about anything. I'm not sure where to look these days.
That's why I've always maintained correct/proper capitalization and grammar and compete sentences, even in IMs and IRC chats. In fact, it actually slows me down when I have to purposely corrupt a text message in order to reduce its size (such as on Twitter or SMS).
I've never been much good at spelling/punctuation/grammar... Which is especially shameful because I really enjoy reading and have an ex-English teacher for a mother...
But I still try to maintain correct capitalization, grammar, spelling, etc. in anything where I've got a chance to actually think about what I'm writing. Forum posts, documentation, email... Anything like that.
IMs and IRC I don't worry so much about.
My handwriting has always been crap. I never really learned cursive, always printed instead. I don't think the quality of my penmanship has diminished any... But I do find myself frustrated at how long it takes to actually produce a written document.
I thought I had seen obsessive escapist book reading before, then my wife got a kindle. Actually, I wonder if these addictions are not worst than many drugs. Afterall, reading is healthy and good, and nobody wants to bother someone reading a book. (nor do they usually want to be bothered)
Been there, done that.
It wasn't a Kindle though, it was a Palm m515 with some kind of ebook software on it.
Previously my book-reading had been somewhat limited simply due to the time/money/effort required to acquire new books. But with the Palm, I was able to download absolute craptons of free ebooks.
Life, at the time, wasn't what I wanted it to be. I had a crappy job, no friends, little social interaction, unhappy home... I'd get home from work and just bury my nose in a book for the rest of the night.
It's escapism, same as anything else. Some folks just read for fun...others read to escape their problems - just as some folks escape with alcohol, or TV, or gambling, or drugs, or whatever else.
Still it's a little tough to believe that the average age is 35 unless there were few members of the study outside their 30s, or their definition of "gamer" is quite loose. They may consider going to Atlantic City and playing video poker a "gamer", but just because someone Skis once a year or so, are they a Skier?
Try to look at it in the context of other activities...
Some folks have never picked up a novel and read for entertainment. The find the idea of doing such a thing completely alien. They can't imagine actually sitting down and reading a book for entertainment. These folks would not call themselves readers.
Now, I don't read a whole lot these days. I don't have much time for it. But I've got some favorite books that I've read throughout the years, and I've got some more books that I'd like to read some day. I'd probably consider myself an irregular reader... But I'd certainly identify myself as a reader anyway.
The same is true of games. There are some people who simply cannot understand the appeal. They don't play games and they don't want to. Other folks do play and enjoy games - maybe not terribly frequently, but they do it.
In order to self-identify as a gamer, you've got to have a certain mindset to begin with. "I play video games, and that's the most important thing in my life".
Negative.
I self-identify as a gamer, but not because playing video games is the most important think in my life. In fact, video games are a fairly small portion of the gaming I do. I also play plenty of pen & paper RPGs, tabletop games, CCGs...
I also self-identify as a reader - because I like reading, not because it is the most important thing in my life.
I also self-identify as a computer geek or computer nerd - again, because that is a part of my life, not the most important thing.
I could keep going, but there isn't much point. If I were to self-identify as only the thing that I feel is most important in my life, I would only self-identify as a husband. But that doesn't really tell you a whole heck of a lot about me, does it?
When you're a teenager that's fine, since most teens don't exactly have the resources to go out and have a real life
I have to disagree again here. Since when do resources dictate what's the most important thing in your life? Maybe your most common diversion... Most readily available entertainment... But most important thing?
I'd suggest that many (most?) teenagers find their friendships more important than their video games. Or maybe they're preoccupied with learning to drive and getting a car. Or maybe they're looking for their first job. Maybe they just want to pass a class.
Sure, lots of teens play lots of games. But I doubt if many of them would identify that as the most important thing in their lives.
but when you're 35, you should be at the point where your other dreams are coming true.
Maybe. Depending on what those dreams are. Depending on what life throws at you.
I play video games, a lot. I've spent hundreds of dollars on them this year and spent hundreds of hours in them. However, I don't self-identify as a gamer as such, because it's not the central tenet of my lifestyle, nor a major frame of reference for my personality.
No?
Do you know who Gordon Freeman is? Is the cake a lie? Would you chuckle at a shirt that read "iddqd"? Do you know who Shodan is? Or Cortana? Do you recognize the Mario theme music? Or the Zelda got-a-cool-item sound?
These are all references that non-gamers don't understand, and gamers do. They do influence your personality whether you like it or not.
I don't understand these studies about addictive gamers who are depressed, lonely, blah blah blah. Gaming, like watching tv dramas or sports or news, or listening to the radio or ipod, is simply a way to pass the time. Why gaming would make someone depressed makes zero sense to me.
I think these studies are kind of missing the point.
In the US at least, things are changing. A lot of people are relatively isolated in their personal lives. We're expected to work longer and longer hours, for worse and worse pay. We get less time off. There's less time for socialization. There's less access to healthy food. Lifestyles are increasingly sedentary.
Folks get home from a long day at a job they don't like, cram some unhealthy food down their throats, and then disconnect from the world - they play video games, or surf the web, or watch tv, or get drunk, or whatever.
It doesn't surprise me that folks are, in general, overweight and tending towards depression.
It basically means that variable types are rigidly enforced and conversions are explicit.
It's annoying, but also eliminates some possible mistakes.
For example, say you've got a float variable: FloatNum1 And a couple integer variables: IntNum1, IntNum2
Some languages don't care much about variable types and do conversions on the fly. So you could write code to do IntNum2 = (FloatNum1 + IntNum1) and nobody would complain. No errors. Nothing. It would compile and run just fine. At least, assuming you didn't lose something important in a rounding error somewhere.
A strongly typed language will not allow that. It will kick out errors, refuse to compile, and generally pitch a fit. You are not allowed to add a float to an integer, and you certainly aren't allowed to assign it to another integer variable. Instead, you do something like this: IntNum2 = (Float_to_Int(FloatNum1) + IntNum1)
Roughly $27.5 million over five-ish years is $5.5 million a year. Consider they're paying for servers, electricity, bandwidth, data processing, updates... That doesn't seem like a huge amount to me.
Is that $27M total, or $18M total of which $9M is this year?
Assuming the lower amount, that comes to, what, maybe 15-25 people full-time plus $4M of initial expenses (hardware and executive/sales bonuses, I guess)?
My understanding is that it was $18 million in addition to the original $9 million... But I could be mistaken.
No company in their right mind would pay 18 million for a website. There are many many websites that get more page views are were made for much less. To consider that website a success is a joke.
But it isn't like they paid 18 million for a single, static page. From the original link:
The contract calls for spending $9.5 million through January, and as much as $18 million through 2014, according to the GSA press release.
Roughly $27.5 million over five-ish years is $5.5 million a year. Consider they're paying for servers, electricity, bandwidth, data processing, updates... That doesn't seem like a huge amount to me.
It's a lot of money, sure. But it isn't like someone went out and spent $18 million to shine up their Facebook page, which is what some people would lead you to believe.
Take a look at human history. Plenty of occasions where one group ran into another group that was at least as advanced, if not more advanced than itself... And dismissed them as inhuman or savage just because they looked a little different.
Recently?
I don't know.
I'm not sure how many groups/cultures/societies are running into each-other for the first time these days. We've more-or-less known who's out there for a good couple hundred years. It isn't like there's some undiscovered continent for us to stumble across.
We've still got plenty of racists who think they're somehow superior to someone else just because of the color of their skin or the shape of their eyes. That seems to be in decline... But it certainly isn't gone.
We've got people who are willing to kill you simply because you like someone of the wrong gender, or go to the wrong church, or live in the wrong country.
Just imagine if those folks had to deal with someone who was genuinely of a different species.
Hard scifi, you say? 'Hard scifi' has a definition: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction), it is a particular genre of fiction, and District 9 is definitely not hard-scifi. Hard scifi is "characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both."
Yes, I discovered that definition. I've apologized for my mis-use of the term repeatedly in this thread.
But the biggest plot hole in the movie is the fuel causing genetic mutation. That's just ridiculous.
Actually, I don't find this nearly as ridiculous as everyone else seems to. Maybe it's just the use of the word fuel? What if we called it a "catalyst" instead? Their technology is somehow tied to their genetics... Humans can't use it. And this liquid is apparently present, at least in minute quantities, in all their technology. Perhaps this fluid is more like a virus or bacteria that converts organic matter into something their gadgets can use.
District 9 sounds like it's an incredibly stupid movie. Aliens land on Earth and everyone just goes "hurrr space niggers" and dump them into a ghetto? Yeah, it's not like contact with an alien civilization is a big deal or anything. And obviously a species capable of interstellar travel must be really unintelligent too. And no worries if Earth gets into a war with said species, I guess we'll just send Jack Bauer to deal with them!
Take a look at human history. Plenty of occasions where one group ran into another group that was at least as advanced, if not more advanced than itself... And dismissed them as inhuman or savage just because they looked a little different.
The "message" of the movie is also banal and very, very redundant.
Pick up a newspaper sometime, or watch your evening news, or fire up a reputable web page. The "message" of the movie is obviously one that a large portion of this planet's population hasn't gotten yet.
Are we talking about Science Fiction movies? Or Science Fantasy?
The distinction is dubious. You can find inaccuracies in pretty much every science fiction movie. The difference is to the degree of which the science is inaccurate. It's a gradient and not two separate genres as you are posing it. Besides the accuracy of the known science in the film, most science fiction doesn't only play with known science, but creates future science which could be classified as nothing other than fantasy, despite many of these types of stories being called "hard" sci-fi. For instance, many would consider 2001 to be hard sci-fi. But there's the sentient computer and aliens that live in some sort of ether beyond our material dimension. Sounds like fantasy to me.
LS
Hmmm... Maybe I'm using the wrong words.
I've always taken Science Fiction to mean not necessarily accurate or believable science, but using some premise as a lens to get a better look at ourselves.
2001, to me, is less about the science and machinery than it is about our reaction to irrefutable evidence of a higher power. It's about how we break down under the pressure of that realization.
I've never thought 2001 was good or interesting just because it had believable space travel.
Granted, there were guns and explosions. And the notion that a few ounces of fuel was all it took to fly the giant mothership back to wherever it came from was a bit hard to swallow... But if that's all you got out of District 9 then you weren't paying attention.
Try substituting the mothership full of Prawns for a boatload of Africans/Irish/Chinese and see if it makes any more sense.
The aliens are given a derogatory name... They're assumed to be lazy, unmotivated, unintelligent... They're crammed into slums... They're the target of much fear, prejudice, violence, and hatred... They're exploited in every way possible... They're treated as nothing more than livestock or animals... Any of this sounding familiar?
The dude isn't turned into a mix of alien & human, he eventually turns completely into an alien. At the end there is no way to differentiate him from any other Prawn. It's a very obvious and heavy-handed way to point out that the Prawns are no different than humans and in no way deserve their mistreatment.
Then you've got all the ugly bits of humanity that don't look quite as ugly in the context of Humans vs. Aliens - but look far more ugly when you start thinking of them as funny-looking humans.
The MNU Soldiers marching around in their white outfits... Killing Prawns just because it's fun to watch them die...
Wikus willing to sacrifice hundreds (thousands?) of Prawns just so he doesn't have to look like one of them...
MNU conducting all sorts of medical experiments on the Prawns...
Seriously. If all you noticed was some explosions and robots, you missed out on a fantastic movie.
If we're talking about good old-fashioned hard sci-fi, I might suggest that it's the only sci-fi movie of 2009.
No, Moon is the only sci-fi movie of 2009. District 9 was really good, but it still features far too much head-popping action to qualify as pure sci-fi.
I'm going to have to check out Moon. I hadn't heard about it at all until today.
Out of curiosity though... Just because heads pop it cannot be "pure sci-fi"?
While I will readily admit that most "sci-fi" these days is simply another name for explosions and action, does that mean that you cannot have a meaningful story if you do happen to have an explosion or some action?
The Hollywood studios have hijacked the term and many people are sheepishly obliging with gusto.
You're not the first to suggest Moon. Unfortunately, it looks like that got very limited release... I hadn't even heard of it until today. I'll try to locate it somewhere, but I may wind up having to wait for DVD.
Slashdot Mirror
Lets be honest here - trailers are supposed to give you some vague idea of what the movie is about. They're commercials, trying to sell a movie ticket. The whole point of a trailer is to make you want to go watch the movie.
And, after watching that trailer, I'm going to wait for some reviews before I go see the movie.
Initially everyone was talking about how amazing and awe-inspiring this movie was going to be. I was very interested. It sounded like something I wanted to go see.
After watching that trailer I have changed my mind. My first thought, when I saw that trailer, was what are those night elves doing in there?
Sure, it may be a great movie. And I may wind up going to see it. And I may wind up loving it. But, judging from that trailer, I'm going to wait and see what other folks say.
By comparison, the trailer for District 9 was good enough to make me go see it without waiting for reviews.
So now, not only can I not toss the magazine into recycling without a thought, but in many municipalities it will be a crime to even throw it in the regular trash due to the electronics. Thanks Hollywood!
But it's ROHS compliant!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7GErbdNRrE
That looks awfully bulky for a magazine insert...
Maybe it'd work as a standalone advertising pamphlet for some expensive toy... But as a magazine insert?
Yeah, I understand that folks will run out and buy this magazine just for the advertisement. Just for the novelty. But... The thing depicted in that video is easily as thick as a magazine.
My question is: how did you get out?
I didn't, really. It isn't like I was trapped anywhere... Things just weren't what I wanted them to be.
I had to stop hiding my head in the books and actually deal with reality.
I got a new job... But it sucks too. But that wasn't the problem. Other people/places/things can't make you feel anything. It's up to you to do something with what you have.
I decided not to let the 9 hours of crappy work ruin the rest of my day.
I decided to actually make time for my marriage, instead of complaining about not having time.
I decided to make some friends and have some social interaction (interestingly, in the form of a MMOG).
For me, it was very constructive to take charge of my life. No, things aren't perfect... But then again, perfect doesn't happen in the real world. Things are good. I'm much happier. And since I'm actually dealing with reality, instead of hiding, things are only getting better.
I'm not going to try to justify things here... I download copyrighted material. I like to think that I'm not quite so evil because ultimately I do pay for the stuff that I actually like - but it is still piracy.
So, where do I get my torrents now?
The Pirate Bay was pretty much my go-to site to find just about anything. I'm not sure where to look these days.
Any suggestions?
That's why I've always maintained correct/proper capitalization and grammar and compete sentences, even in IMs and IRC chats. In fact, it actually slows me down when I have to purposely corrupt a text message in order to reduce its size (such as on Twitter or SMS).
I've never been much good at spelling/punctuation/grammar... Which is especially shameful because I really enjoy reading and have an ex-English teacher for a mother...
But I still try to maintain correct capitalization, grammar, spelling, etc. in anything where I've got a chance to actually think about what I'm writing. Forum posts, documentation, email... Anything like that.
IMs and IRC I don't worry so much about.
My handwriting has always been crap. I never really learned cursive, always printed instead. I don't think the quality of my penmanship has diminished any... But I do find myself frustrated at how long it takes to actually produce a written document.
I thought I had seen obsessive escapist book reading before, then my wife got a kindle. Actually, I wonder if these addictions are not worst than many drugs. Afterall, reading is healthy and good, and nobody wants to bother someone reading a book. (nor do they usually want to be bothered)
Been there, done that.
It wasn't a Kindle though, it was a Palm m515 with some kind of ebook software on it.
Previously my book-reading had been somewhat limited simply due to the time/money/effort required to acquire new books. But with the Palm, I was able to download absolute craptons of free ebooks.
Life, at the time, wasn't what I wanted it to be. I had a crappy job, no friends, little social interaction, unhappy home... I'd get home from work and just bury my nose in a book for the rest of the night.
It's escapism, same as anything else. Some folks just read for fun...others read to escape their problems - just as some folks escape with alcohol, or TV, or gambling, or drugs, or whatever else.
Still it's a little tough to believe that the average age is 35 unless there were few members of the study outside their 30s, or their definition of "gamer" is quite loose. They may consider going to Atlantic City and playing video poker a "gamer", but just because someone Skis once a year or so, are they a Skier?
Try to look at it in the context of other activities...
Some folks have never picked up a novel and read for entertainment. The find the idea of doing such a thing completely alien. They can't imagine actually sitting down and reading a book for entertainment. These folks would not call themselves readers.
Now, I don't read a whole lot these days. I don't have much time for it. But I've got some favorite books that I've read throughout the years, and I've got some more books that I'd like to read some day. I'd probably consider myself an irregular reader... But I'd certainly identify myself as a reader anyway.
The same is true of games. There are some people who simply cannot understand the appeal. They don't play games and they don't want to. Other folks do play and enjoy games - maybe not terribly frequently, but they do it.
In order to self-identify as a gamer, you've got to have a certain mindset to begin with. "I play video games, and that's the most important thing in my life".
Negative.
I self-identify as a gamer, but not because playing video games is the most important think in my life. In fact, video games are a fairly small portion of the gaming I do. I also play plenty of pen & paper RPGs, tabletop games, CCGs...
I also self-identify as a reader - because I like reading, not because it is the most important thing in my life.
I also self-identify as a computer geek or computer nerd - again, because that is a part of my life, not the most important thing.
I could keep going, but there isn't much point. If I were to self-identify as only the thing that I feel is most important in my life, I would only self-identify as a husband. But that doesn't really tell you a whole heck of a lot about me, does it?
When you're a teenager that's fine, since most teens don't exactly have the resources to go out and have a real life
I have to disagree again here. Since when do resources dictate what's the most important thing in your life? Maybe your most common diversion... Most readily available entertainment... But most important thing?
I'd suggest that many (most?) teenagers find their friendships more important than their video games. Or maybe they're preoccupied with learning to drive and getting a car. Or maybe they're looking for their first job. Maybe they just want to pass a class.
Sure, lots of teens play lots of games. But I doubt if many of them would identify that as the most important thing in their lives.
but when you're 35, you should be at the point where your other dreams are coming true.
Maybe. Depending on what those dreams are. Depending on what life throws at you.
I play video games, a lot. I've spent hundreds of dollars on them this year and spent hundreds of hours in them. However, I don't self-identify as a gamer as such, because it's not the central tenet of my lifestyle, nor a major frame of reference for my personality.
No?
Do you know who Gordon Freeman is? Is the cake a lie? Would you chuckle at a shirt that read "iddqd"? Do you know who Shodan is? Or Cortana? Do you recognize the Mario theme music? Or the Zelda got-a-cool-item sound?
These are all references that non-gamers don't understand, and gamers do. They do influence your personality whether you like it or not.
I don't understand these studies about addictive gamers who are depressed, lonely, blah blah blah. Gaming, like watching tv dramas or sports or news, or listening to the radio or ipod, is simply a way to pass the time. Why gaming would make someone depressed makes zero sense to me.
I think these studies are kind of missing the point.
In the US at least, things are changing. A lot of people are relatively isolated in their personal lives. We're expected to work longer and longer hours, for worse and worse pay. We get less time off. There's less time for socialization. There's less access to healthy food. Lifestyles are increasingly sedentary.
Folks get home from a long day at a job they don't like, cram some unhealthy food down their throats, and then disconnect from the world - they play video games, or surf the web, or watch tv, or get drunk, or whatever.
It doesn't surprise me that folks are, in general, overweight and tending towards depression.
Definitely check out Moon while it might still be in theaters.
It isn't in theaters around here...
I live in the ass-end of nowhere. We generally only get big-budget, universally-appealing Hollywood blockbusters here.
What does that even mean?
It basically means that variable types are rigidly enforced and conversions are explicit.
It's annoying, but also eliminates some possible mistakes.
For example, say you've got a float variable: FloatNum1
And a couple integer variables: IntNum1, IntNum2
Some languages don't care much about variable types and do conversions on the fly. So you could write code to do
IntNum2 = (FloatNum1 + IntNum1)
and nobody would complain. No errors. Nothing. It would compile and run just fine. At least, assuming you didn't lose something important in a rounding error somewhere.
A strongly typed language will not allow that. It will kick out errors, refuse to compile, and generally pitch a fit. You are not allowed to add a float to an integer, and you certainly aren't allowed to assign it to another integer variable. Instead, you do something like this:
IntNum2 = (Float_to_Int(FloatNum1) + IntNum1)
Roughly $27.5 million over five-ish years is $5.5 million a year. Consider they're paying for servers, electricity, bandwidth, data processing, updates... That doesn't seem like a huge amount to me.
Is that $27M total, or $18M total of which $9M is this year?
Assuming the lower amount, that comes to, what, maybe 15-25 people full-time plus $4M of initial expenses (hardware and executive/sales bonuses, I guess)?
My understanding is that it was $18 million in addition to the original $9 million... But I could be mistaken.
No company in their right mind would pay 18 million for a website. There are many many websites that get more page views are were made for much less. To consider that website a success is a joke.
This was discussed to death the first time this information was posted on Slashdot...
But it isn't like they paid 18 million for a single, static page. From the original link:
The contract calls for spending $9.5 million through January, and as much as $18 million through 2014, according to the GSA press release.
Roughly $27.5 million over five-ish years is $5.5 million a year. Consider they're paying for servers, electricity, bandwidth, data processing, updates... That doesn't seem like a huge amount to me.
It's a lot of money, sure. But it isn't like someone went out and spent $18 million to shine up their Facebook page, which is what some people would lead you to believe.
Take a look at human history. Plenty of occasions where one group ran into another group that was at least as advanced, if not more advanced than itself... And dismissed them as inhuman or savage just because they looked a little different.
Recently?
I don't know.
I'm not sure how many groups/cultures/societies are running into each-other for the first time these days. We've more-or-less known who's out there for a good couple hundred years. It isn't like there's some undiscovered continent for us to stumble across.
We've still got plenty of racists who think they're somehow superior to someone else just because of the color of their skin or the shape of their eyes. That seems to be in decline... But it certainly isn't gone.
We've got people who are willing to kill you simply because you like someone of the wrong gender, or go to the wrong church, or live in the wrong country.
Just imagine if those folks had to deal with someone who was genuinely of a different species.
Hard scifi, you say? 'Hard scifi' has a definition: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction), it is a particular genre of fiction, and District 9 is definitely not hard-scifi. Hard scifi is "characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both."
Yes, I discovered that definition. I've apologized for my mis-use of the term repeatedly in this thread.
But the biggest plot hole in the movie is the fuel causing genetic mutation. That's just ridiculous.
Actually, I don't find this nearly as ridiculous as everyone else seems to. Maybe it's just the use of the word fuel? What if we called it a "catalyst" instead? Their technology is somehow tied to their genetics... Humans can't use it. And this liquid is apparently present, at least in minute quantities, in all their technology. Perhaps this fluid is more like a virus or bacteria that converts organic matter into something their gadgets can use.
District 9 sounds like it's an incredibly stupid movie. Aliens land on Earth and everyone just goes "hurrr space niggers" and dump them into a ghetto? Yeah, it's not like contact with an alien civilization is a big deal or anything. And obviously a species capable of interstellar travel must be really unintelligent too. And no worries if Earth gets into a war with said species, I guess we'll just send Jack Bauer to deal with them!
Take a look at human history. Plenty of occasions where one group ran into another group that was at least as advanced, if not more advanced than itself... And dismissed them as inhuman or savage just because they looked a little different.
The "message" of the movie is also banal and very, very redundant.
Pick up a newspaper sometime, or watch your evening news, or fire up a reputable web page. The "message" of the movie is obviously one that a large portion of this planet's population hasn't gotten yet.
You've not seen Moon, then.
No, I have not.
Something that I will correct as soon as possible.
I said I loved the movie because it treated the subject matter seriously.
My post was complaining about calling it hard sci-fi - that's all.
In short, I agree with you on all counts. You just weren't responding to my actual post :-)
I've been corrected on this elsewhere in the thread - I believe I'm using the wrong words.
I'm using "hard" to differentiate sci-fi with substance from fluffy sci-fi.
That is apparently an incorrect usage of the word "hard" - which is supposed to refer to more-or-less realistic/believable science.
I would say Children of Men was the last one I saw that meet your conditions.
This is great! I'm getting a whole list of good sci-fi movies to watch!
Are we talking about Science Fiction movies? Or Science Fantasy?
The distinction is dubious. You can find inaccuracies in pretty much every science fiction movie. The difference is to the degree of which the science is inaccurate. It's a gradient and not two separate genres as you are posing it. Besides the accuracy of the known science in the film, most science fiction doesn't only play with known science, but creates future science which could be classified as nothing other than fantasy, despite many of these types of stories being called "hard" sci-fi. For instance, many would consider 2001 to be hard sci-fi. But there's the sentient computer and aliens that live in some sort of ether beyond our material dimension. Sounds like fantasy to me.
LS
Hmmm... Maybe I'm using the wrong words.
I've always taken Science Fiction to mean not necessarily accurate or believable science, but using some premise as a lens to get a better look at ourselves.
2001, to me, is less about the science and machinery than it is about our reaction to irrefutable evidence of a higher power. It's about how we break down under the pressure of that realization.
I've never thought 2001 was good or interesting just because it had believable space travel.
Have you watched Primer? Its not a 2009 movie - its 5 years old, but for me its a very good modern sci-fi film.
Yes, I have watched it. Yes it is good.
One of the few movies that deal at all realistically with time travel.
Granted, there were guns and explosions. And the notion that a few ounces of fuel was all it took to fly the giant mothership back to wherever it came from was a bit hard to swallow... But if that's all you got out of District 9 then you weren't paying attention.
Try substituting the mothership full of Prawns for a boatload of Africans/Irish/Chinese and see if it makes any more sense.
The aliens are given a derogatory name... They're assumed to be lazy, unmotivated, unintelligent... They're crammed into slums... They're the target of much fear, prejudice, violence, and hatred... They're exploited in every way possible... They're treated as nothing more than livestock or animals... Any of this sounding familiar?
The dude isn't turned into a mix of alien & human, he eventually turns completely into an alien. At the end there is no way to differentiate him from any other Prawn. It's a very obvious and heavy-handed way to point out that the Prawns are no different than humans and in no way deserve their mistreatment.
Then you've got all the ugly bits of humanity that don't look quite as ugly in the context of Humans vs. Aliens - but look far more ugly when you start thinking of them as funny-looking humans.
The MNU Soldiers marching around in their white outfits... Killing Prawns just because it's fun to watch them die...
Wikus willing to sacrifice hundreds (thousands?) of Prawns just so he doesn't have to look like one of them...
MNU conducting all sorts of medical experiments on the Prawns...
Seriously. If all you noticed was some explosions and robots, you missed out on a fantastic movie.
If we're talking about good old-fashioned hard sci-fi, I might suggest that it's the only sci-fi movie of 2009.
No, Moon is the only sci-fi movie of 2009. District 9 was really good, but it still features far too much head-popping action to qualify as pure sci-fi.
I'm going to have to check out Moon. I hadn't heard about it at all until today.
Out of curiosity though... Just because heads pop it cannot be "pure sci-fi"?
While I will readily admit that most "sci-fi" these days is simply another name for explosions and action, does that mean that you cannot have a meaningful story if you do happen to have an explosion or some action?
Moon is real SciFi.
The Hollywood studios have hijacked the term and many people are sheepishly obliging with gusto.
You're not the first to suggest Moon. Unfortunately, it looks like that got very limited release... I hadn't even heard of it until today. I'll try to locate it somewhere, but I may wind up having to wait for DVD.