Taffer36 on 16/8/2009 at 05:14
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
Slightly more so than Children of Men, but the entire running time of the movie up to that point is about moving the pieces into place that make the final sequence inevitable. The movie wouldn't work without it.
Well, I felt like Children of Men didn't verge on action flick AT ALL. It pretty much echoes what you've stated, but every bit of action in that movie was NECESSARY. It all had a secondary purpose, involving the actual characters and the furthering of the plot. None of it dragged on, and none of it seemed redundant.
Again, I feel like it was absolutely essential for the pacing and it was all in good fun, but the ending of District 9, contrarily, purposefully adds in "fluff".
The final robot scene went on for ages without the plot itself moving forward, although I suppose you could argue that it was necessary to add to how dire the situation was. The film's intention to simply deliver good times action at the end is most evidenced by the several redundant cuts to bad guys getting murdered. Did we really need to see that lightning bolt explode dudes as many times as we did? No, but I sure enjoyed it.ZymeAddict on 17/8/2009 at 04:35
Fucking. Awesome. Movie.
Seriously, I just saw this and this is by far my favorite film so far this year.
Yeah, some parts drag a bit, and the action gets a tad redundant, but the whole experience is just so kick-ass I can forgive those little flaws.
Go see this film.
oudeis on 19/8/2009 at 08:34
God DAMN did I love this movie. After watching the brainless, feckless, weightless, gutless, pro-forma, by the numbers, don't-color-outside-the-lines fucking bullshit that Hollywood vomits up on our theater screens and has the gall to call... well, anything, District 9 was an honest-to-God revelation. This is why we like movies. This is why we keep going to see them, despite having our hopes disappointed and our optimism crushed time and again. We keep going because there is a chance we will see movies like this.
There are so many things I could rave about. The character arc of Wikus. The teeth-grindingly hateful villains who never descended to caricature. The terrible pity of the Prawns plight, especially the scenes in the weapons lab. The way the cinema verite made the aliens and the alien weapons more real, not less. The dramatic whiplashes of the last act.
It wasn't perfect by any means. There were several moments where the logical failings of the story made it hard to suspend disbelief, and switching from a third-person subjective view to an omniscient cinematic view made the documentary scenes seem more like a conceit than a legitimate perspective. Any criticism I could make, however, is outweighed by the fact that I got so worked up during the last 20-30 minutes that at times I was practically shouting at the screen. I mean that I was actually vocalizing my turmoil, loudly, and in a couple spots I damned near did shout. When Wikus ran away in the mech, leaving Christopher Johnson to die I couldn't stop myself from snarling 'You FAGGOT!' loud enough for half the theater to hear, and when he turned around and uncorked the barrel of whip-ass on the mercenary motherfuckers I barely managed to stop myself from a full-throated bellow of 'GET SOME!!!'. I haven't gotten this involved in a movie since I saw Serenity.
I'm going to see it in the theater again, and I honestly can't remember the last time I said that.
BRING ON DISTRICT 10!
Sgt_BFG on 19/8/2009 at 15:38
So yeah this movie is awesome, but holy fuck there is a shitload of exploding dudes.
Shayde on 19/8/2009 at 17:31
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
The title is definitely referencing District 6 though the film probably has nothing to do with District 6 plot-wise. I was just wondering if anyone else though "District 9? Set in SA? About 'aliens'? Ahhh, referencing District 6 then" is all. Like I said; mention it to a South African (there are some on this board) and see what they say.
The District 6 reference is obvious to me, we are after all taught SA history at school. And the link to the content of the movie is pretty clear.
I haven't been able to see this yet, but the hype over here is huge. Of course when you're a podunk country, any international attention makes you feel like the ugly girl that got asked to Prom by the Rugby Captain.
Ko0K on 20/8/2009 at 08:46
Quote Posted by Sgt_BFG
So yeah this movie is awesome, but holy fuck there is a shitload of exploding dudes.
It can be a rather enjoyable movie, but that, among a few other things, bugged me.
The bad guys are overly vilified, and... Well, I guess I can just sum it up as being predictable.
I did appreciate the fact that special effects doesn't distract the viewers from the story, even if the story itself is cheese balls.
Adam Nuhfer on 20/8/2009 at 13:46
I went to see it yesterday. While it was different from the normal fare of human vs aliens encounters type fodder, I wasn't that impressed.
Great special effects trying to make up for so many porous holes in the story line.
Box office re$ult$ along with various reviews prove their model correct and my mindset outdated and wrong. :p
Not to worry, three years from now they'll be back. If only the old guy form Kung Fu the TV series were there to great them.
"Ah, Grasshopper, it is good that you have come. Grand master Kurrent Cee awaits"
SubJeff on 20/8/2009 at 15:17
Yeah so this film is just out so how about some spoilers like everyone else?
gunsmoke on 20/8/2009 at 17:05
Saw it yesterday. Finally. The sci-fi movie of the last couple years. Period. I love it. I have a few qualms with the relatively minor plot holes, but all-in-all, it excels at what a movie should strive to do:entertain while telling an interesting, fresh, relevant story without overly intrusive FX running it over like a Mack truck. I give it 4 1/2 smoking barrels out of 5.
Fafhrd on 21/8/2009 at 01:44
Quote Posted by Adam Nuhfer
A bunch of stuff he didn't put in spoilers because he's an idiot. (as evidenced by everything else in the post)
Were you even
watching the movie, or did you get distracted by something shiny in the theatre and just let the images wash over you without paying attention to the words coming out of peoples' mouths?
A.
A 2 meter hull breach in a ship roughly the size of a city doesn't represent enough of a structural weakness to make any difference. The command module's life support systems are independent of the mothership's, and it's not like the ship was just a giant metal balloon in the first place. There are these things called bulkhead doors, you know.B.
It wasn't a dropship disconnecting to land, it was the command module breaking off and plummeting to the earth below. It took twenty years to find it, make the necessary repairs to it, and gather enough fuel to power it back up again. See also point C.C.
The prawns are all the worker caste in (for lack of a better term) a hive based society, and they've lost their leadership caste. They don't have a lot of motivation beyond basic survival, and will pretty much blindly follow the orders of a perceived authority figure. And, much like in apartheid South Africa and slave era America, you can keep a militarily superior population under control by keeping them in shitty living conditions and keeping them constantly intimidated.
Christopher Johnson, his son, and the chemist guy are exceptional because (per Blomkamp in an Onion AV Club interview) after a long enough period of time without the leadership caste, the leadership traits (i.e. intelligence and self motivation) will assert themselves in random members of the remaining group, a la gender switching tropical frogs.
Cat food is also like a highly addictive drug, and getting 100 cans of cat food RIGHT NOW is more valuable than the combat walker.D.
The funny thing about ghettoes and slums is that it's hard to both control who gets in and out, and track people once they're in. Once the extremely dangerous and heavily armed Nigerian warlord got in to District 9 and set himself up, getting him back out would've required a sizeable military action that wouldn't be worth the cost, both monetarily and PR wise.