District 9

[mattx]

Loved it - saw it this evening.

 

Peter jackson never seems to miss.

[OllieC]

Awesome film, saw it the other week and loved it... do rather think he sounds a bit scouse when he swears though.

[webman]

I saw it a couple of weeks ago, and while I did enjoy it, to be honest I thought it was 'just OK'.

[Haptic]

yeah those Prawns have some character dont they,

 

http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/district_9_prawn_commander.jpg

[lew_bob]

I honestly believe that less intelligent people dont get this film and thats why its slated so much. IMO its a brilliant film, and damn damn damn brave to be tackling the social commentary of what it covers. The characters and actual storyline are almost second place to the bigger picture of what the film is poytraying and questioning.

 

The setting of the film is genius on the film makers part.

 

Truly ground breaking

[neilmc]

Saw it last week and same as you guys loved it, do you recon that there will be a second? maybe District 10?

[Hightower]

I saw it last Thursday, and same as all of you, I loved it. The wife thought it was just 'OK' but I thought it was fantastic.

 

The only thing that let it down for me was the South-African accent seemed to turn more and more into a Scouse accent, especially when he was shouting.

[mac_shinobi]

nothing quite like a prawn curry !!!

[dalsoth]

Some of the graphics were ok but much of the story was naff. They had been here so many years and yet in some scenes we were still disecting them on the table like it was something new? Still had no idea how any of their tech worked? Come on!

 

Sending army guys to reason door to door with aliens that kick your arms off and behave like rabid dogs? nah! How come they came here but none of em knew how to work their ship for 20 years? How come they were all so damned stupid eating from trash like feral dogs? Building bunkers under their shacks? Liek the FBI would not have had every building bugged and CCTV'd 24/7.

 

Could do better!

[Hightower]

Some of the graphics were ok but much of the story was naff. They had been here so many years and yet in some scenes we were still disecting them on the table like it was something new? Still had no idea how any of their tech worked? Come on!

 

Sending army guys to reason door to door with aliens that kick your arms off and behave like rabid dogs? nah! How come they came here but none of em knew how to work their ship for 20 years? How come they were all so damned stupid eating from trash like feral dogs? Building bunkers under their shacks? Liek the FBI would not have had every building bugged and CCTV'd 24/7.

 

Could do better!

 

The aliens were 'workers' all dumb and only took orders from higher up. Guess you must have been picking your nose or something when it explained (and it does explain it) that!

[lew_bob]

Yep expalined pretty much all you said,....

 

 

ps, the social commentary of the film is tht there are TODAY places like tht in South Africa, FBI doesnt have them bugged and yes normal chaps with basic pistols are expected to go serve eviction orders etc.

[Fatmas]

One of the few films that exceeds the hype it was given.

 

I really enjoyed it

[titch]

I honestly believe that less intelligent people dont get this film and thats why its slated so much. IMO its a brilliant film, and damn damn damn brave to be tackling the social commentary of what it covers. The characters and actual storyline are almost second place to the bigger picture of what the film is poytraying and questioning.

 

The setting of the film is genius on the film makers part.

 

Truly ground breaking

 

 

Good film but nothing to wet your pants about. I think if you didnt get the metaphor of aliens being second class, especially when based in post apartied africa then you dont deserve to even be in a "less intelligient" category. My problem was actually with the fact they had done something slightly clever but glitzed over it with a bit to much action to get the crowds in.

 

The other bit that annoyed was the fact that the main chap was almost made out to be a martyr by helping the main alien, when infact if he hadnt faffed about near the end and *spoiler* and nocked him out when he was going under his hut *spoiler over* then everything would have been rosie in the first place and would wouldnt have been put through the robocop scene.

 

Think definatly a sequal is on the way......

 

Good but could do better.... a 7.2 from me

[dalsoth]

Probably did not help much that when i watched it a few weeks ago round a friends it was on a dodgy copy with some rather dodgy subtitles. Still thought it was a bit naff and even with the subtitles a bit dodgy did it explain where the smart aliens were? Why had only the workers survived?

 

They had this space ship in the sky and all the worlds governments had not ripped it into a million pieces to get its tech? Yeh i know it had to have DNA and stuff but it looked abandoned in the sky for years.

 

Surely all of these things were not explained in the subtitles??

[cookie_monster]

I honestly believe that less intelligent people dont get this film and thats why its slated so much.

 

Exactly what I thought when I heard some people slating it. Allot of people will go thinking ‘Independence Day’ and be very disappointed at having to think about the film. Personally I thought it was great and a refreshing change of style.

 

 

They had this space ship in the sky and all the worlds governments had not ripped it into a million pieces to get its tech? Yeh i know it had to have DNA and stuff but it looked abandoned in the sky for years.

 

Surely all of these things were not explained in the subtitles??

 

The story is supposed to parody the Apartheid era so the story is focused on the character interaction and the 'human' situation thus the alien ship and technology aspect are secondary to the plot. This is why they don’t obsess about explaining that part of the story.

Edited September 23, 2009 by cookie_monster

[Hightower]

Probably did not help much that when i watched it a few weeks ago round a friends it was on a dodgy copy with some rather dodgy subtitles. Still thought it was a bit naff and even with the subtitles a bit dodgy did it explain where the smart aliens were? Why had only the workers survived?

 

They had this space ship in the sky and all the worlds governments had not ripped it into a million pieces to get its tech? Yeh i know it had to have DNA and stuff but it looked abandoned in the sky for years.

 

Surely all of these things were not explained in the subtitles??

 

How many films end abruptly, letting you decide for yourself the ending? Suppose it's the same as that. I got the story they wanted to portray, now it's just for me to fill in the gaps myself

[mattx]

Some of the graphics were ok but much of the story was naff. They had been here so many years and yet in some scenes we were still disecting them on the table like it was something new? Still had no idea how any of their tech worked? Come on!

 

Sending army guys to reason door to door with aliens that kick your arms off and behave like rabid dogs? nah! How come they came here but none of em knew how to work their ship for 20 years? How come they were all so damned stupid eating from trash like feral dogs? Building bunkers under their shacks? Liek the FBI would not have had every building bugged and CCTV'd 24/7.

 

Could do better!

 

Errrrrr, it's a film. You are one of these people who watches Star Trek and says - 'it's not realistic' aren't you ?

I watch films to be entertained.

[dalsoth]

It has to have some believability or why not just make the Mr Men come running out to defeat everyone half way through. Or perhaps the aliens should have just called the transformers to help them out of the sticky situation... oh yeah that would be crap because its not believable....

 

I don't really care for a south africa apartheid analogy if that is what the film was about.

 

It was pretty disgusting actually too with the blood and gore and bits growing out of people. Shame about the rubbish south africa setting. The graphics of the space ship hovering there were good though.

 

Preferred Cloverfield to this.

 

Also for a Sci Fi space ish type film which this was and wasnt, Sunshine was much better.

[webman]

Preferred Cloverfield to this.

 

AKA Blair Witch: Sci-Fi Edition

[somabc]

Sending army guys to reason door to door with aliens that kick your arms off and behave like rabid dogs? nah!

 

Could do better!

 

I think you missed some of the themes of the movie. Perhaps no one has told you of District 6?

 

The area was named in 1867 as the Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town. By the turn of the century it was already a lively community made up of former slaves, artisans, merchants and other immigrants, as well as many Malay people brought to South Africa by the Dutch East India Company during its administration of the Cape Colony. It was home to almost a tenth of the city of Cape Town's population.

 

After World War II, during the earlier part of the apartheid era, District Six was relatively cosmopolitan. Situated within sight of the docks, it was largely made up of coloured residents which included a substantial number of coloured Muslims, called Cape Malays. There were also smaller numbers of Africans, whites, and Indians.

 

Government officials gave four primary reasons for the removals. In accordance with apartheid philosophy, it stated that interracial interaction bred conflict, necessitating the separation of the races. They deemed District Six a slum, fit only for clearance, not rehabilitation. They also portrayed the area as crime-ridden and dangerous; they claimed that the district was a vice den, full of immoral activities like gambling, drinking, and prostitution. Though these were the official reasons, most residents believed that the government sought the land because of its proximity to the city center, Table Mountain, and the harbor.

 

On 11 February 1966, the government declared District Six a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act, with removals starting in 1968. By 1982, more than 60,000 people had been relocated to the sandy, bleak Cape Flats township complex some 25 kilometers away. The old houses were bulldozed. The only buildings left standing were places of worship. International and local pressure made redevelopment difficult for the government, however. The Cape Technikon (now Cape Peninsula University of Technology) was built on a portion of District Six which the government renamed Zonnebloem. Apart from this and some police housing units, the area was left undeveloped.

 

District Six, Cape Town - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[CHR1S]

 

Preferred Cloverfield to this.

 

 

You did???

 

It had a different way of filming etc but it was still crap!

[RabbieBurns]

saw this the other month when i first got to sydney, had no idea what it was about, never heard of it etc, it was just the only thing that was starting when i got to the cinema... turned out it was great!

[t_h]

I thought it was good, but it didn't live up to my expectations. I'm nitpicking a bit but the "documentary" style camerawork didn't do it for me. It was fine in the beginning when he was speaking to the camera and the crew were obviously following him around, but as the film progressed the style continued where it was obviously no longer in that context.

 

Also the aliens were far, far too "human" for my liking - using human gestures and responding to body language that has taken us many years to evolve. Obviously these are continuity decisions and issues important to creating good characters that we can relate to, but it didn't feel quite right to me. The social commentary too was a nice theme but nothing groundbreaking or anything to rave about. It was fairly pedestrian as far as social insight goes.

 

All in all it was worth seeing, perhaps worth seeing again but if you miss it at the cinema I'd say rent rather than buy the DVD. It certainly entertained me but didn't blow me away. 7/10

[WStore_Dan]

Watched this on Friday with the girlfriend - top film! Looking forward to the sequel

[timzim]

Picky, picky, picky. I thought it was excellent. BTW it was an allegory, not a parody, and not just of apartheid but of plenty of other occasions where it's been politically expedient to de-humanise a section of society in order to control them, e.g. 1930s Germany, 1970s Cambodia, 1990s Croatia, etc, etc. I thought the telling moment was when the alien discovered the charred & tortured remains of some of his people in the weapons lab - you suddenly saw how you'd been lulled into believing, just like Wikus, that the aliens were non-satient 'prawns' when in fact they were actually little different from us.

 

Sure there were a few gaps in the tech but please, it's a story, not a documentary.

 

And those of you who thought the accents were Scouse should go spend a weekend in Bloemfontein.

Edited October 27, 2009 by witch
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