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*** Official DISTRICT 9 Discussion Thread - Page 2

post #31 of 39
8/26/09 at 3:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonasF62p View Post

District 9 was a good movie; very entertaining.  However, it is neither original nor "new".  Let's see, alien race comes to earth and lives among us to one extent or another: Alien Nation" 1988, Human begans to transform: arm first, then he pulls out teeth, then things start growing out of his back: "The Fly", 1958, 1986 & 1989.  Hman comes to understand the plight of the alien and is determined to save the alien's son: "Enemy Mine", 1985.

Sorry guys, the story is just a patchwork of previous movie ideas....nothing original.  Somewhat good but copy and paste a la Hollywood.
 


That's exactly what makes it "new": this novel recombination of existing movie DNA. It's Die Hard, The Fly, and Blair Witch Project smashed together in an interesting and surprising way. Moreover, what story is truly new? Alien Nation is tribal conflict set with aliens. Enemy is colonists learning empathy for natives. Etc. It's all about the rearranging, the twists on ancient story formulae, details, modern relevances.

[Moved from Official Review thread - Mod.]
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post #32 of 39
9/7/09 at 10:19am
just got back from seeing D9 in an Odeon theatre here in London, and absolutely loved it :)

easily the best film I have seen in the theatre so far this year (Star Trek and Taratino's I.B's were also very good), and unless Avatar is really as special as its claimed to be, perhaps D9 will be "film of the year" for me?

D9 was really special for a director's mainstream debut, it felt like watching "The Terminator" all over again...
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post #33 of 39
9/9/09 at 9:13am
I loved the film!
 
 
I really hope they leave the end alone and there is no sequel. I think the ending is much more powerful left to our imaginations as to what happens next.
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post #34 of 39
9/10/09 at 7:26pm
JonasF62p

"Human begans to transform: arm first, then he pulls out teeth, then things start growing out of his back: "The Fly", 1958, 1986 & 1989."

Post Count - 1

Giving away a plot element on the first try - Priceless
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post #35 of 39
9/10/09 at 8:36pm

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Low View Post

JonasF62p

"Human begans to transform: arm first, then he pulls out teeth, then things start growing out of his back: "The Fly", 1958, 1986 & 1989."

Post Count - 1

Giving away a plot element on the first try - Priceless
 

Even better: Poster fails to read standard instructions for official review thread specifying that anything other than a review will be deleted without warning, gets post moved to official discussion thread because moderator is feeling generous.
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post #36 of 39
1/16/10 at 12:12pm
I actually saw this the weekend it opened, but as we are approaching awards season friends have been asking me what I thought of it.

I think the biggest problem I have with it is explained by the review below. I'm a little surprised others haven't made more of an issue of it, but then we all have different things we'll tolerate.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/14/movie-review-district-9/
Quote:

This faux-documentary stylistic choice has its advantages - it lends "District 9" a sense of immediacy and helps paper over some of the more glaring plot holes. It also has its limits, one of which is a fixed point of view: We see only what the documentarian sees. The omniscient viewpoint typical of a narrative feature would have permitted Mr. Blomkamp to fully examine the motives of the prawn and MNU when they are outside of Wikus' view.
 

In order to work around that problem, the convention is simply dropped: About midway through, "District 9" cheats, jumping between a fake documentary and a purely narrative affair in order to fill the gaps in the audience's knowledge.
 

By sometimes dropping the documentary style, "District 9" avoids the problem of "Cloverfield," "Diary of the Dead" and "The Blair Witch Project," films in which a character has to repeatedly explain why he's still filming something instead of running for his life. But at the same time, Mr. Blomkamp introduces a new problem: He reminds the audience that they are, in fact, watching a fictional narrative and not a documentary.


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post #37 of 39
1/16/10 at 12:20pm
As blown away as I was by the CGI of the Prawns (for me, an accomplishment almost on the same level as the Na'vi), District 9 sagged at the end, offering multiple endings with repetitive action scenes.  But my other issue was with the black goop:

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
If it was a fuel source, then why would contact with it turn Copley into a Prawn?  Why is their spaceship fuel a mutagenic?  Furthermore, we see the careful extraction process that results in mere drops of black goop.  They are almost near the volume needed to make the trip home but require a bit more.  Yet, after Copley gets sprayed with it, there's somehow still enough fuel left to get back to the Prawn planet.  Huh?

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post #38 of 39
7/1/10 at 10:11am

To me, this was a great film with layers of metaphor and allegory that clearly allude to socio-political issues in the world, and the issue of ‘humanity.’

I also read into the plot that the aliens were once human as well (the fact that a transformation occurs from exposure to a substance serves as literal and metaphorical. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a sequel where it would be revealed that the prawns were once human, and through repeated exposure over time have become prawn…this would also be a great sub-textual metaphor...

Chris Johnson returning as a human with a force that is human (pre-exposure) would be immensely ironic!

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post #39 of 39
7/2/10 at 12:10pm

I noticed the issues that Hanson brought up, but the film was so well-paced and thrilling that I was able to let 'em go.  Easily my favorite film of 2009.

 

It's like that old George Carlin routine about dentists:  "With the gas, you still feel the pain; you just don't give a sh*t."  :)

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