I liked Waterworld and Ghosts of Mars when they came out. I've had Battlefield Earth for about a year(the rifftrax of it) and still haven't gotten the urge to watch it.
Forgive me for resurrecting this thread, but I just saw District 9 for the first time today and I really liked it for a number of reasons. And I saw some of the negative replies in here about it so I wanted to discuss my thoughts on the film.
One was because of the main protagonist. Wikus could not have been anymore of an average guy. Perhaps he was too perfectly average, but I'm not even sure I know what that means. But it's not hard to come across seemingly average people every day. But during extreme situations, average people can do all sorts of incredible things. For him, he was a total coward, but he was desperate and stupid so he was willing to take a chance to go back into that building for the cylinder. I bet a lot of people hated him cause of his loud South African accent and mustache. Can't explain away the mustache but I was glad they even decided to make him have a mustache cause that risks making him a bit more hateable. The sound of everyone's voices and the prawns' language is really awful on the ears, but it just makes everything feel not so cozy and it's supposed to be an intense film anyway.
Another thing I liked was the documentary style of the film. But let me also say that I'm getting sick of so many shows and movies using this style of cinematography. It's overused now and for many seems like an excuse to be cheap and lazy. Despite my feelings on it though, I was okay with this film's approach to using that style. It could be just cause I love documentaries so much though so when they cut away to interviews followed by footage and stills, the visual style of it just appeals to me. Because it was so successful though people will continue for a time to film this way and that's unfortunate. For District 9 though, I thought it was perfectly good way to tell the story. But after awhile, later into the film it does tend to do it less and less.
That's what brings me to my next point though which is about the action. Unfortunately, like most movies, there always has to be a big finale with lots of action. This is where the movie falls into the predictable and cliche. Like, even with alien Christopher telling Wikus that no, he'll not leave him behind. What is it about action scenes that must always include someone falling behind and then insisting to the other to go on without them? Where invariably the other is like, "No! I won't leave you behind!" And why would Christopher not leave Wikus behind. He just was in a sick laboratory where he saw other prawns being experimented on, vivisected, harvested, etc. And what finally got him to snap out of his daze while he was being shot at was Wikus reminding him that he had a son. "Oh, yeah, I do don't I?," replied Christopher. To some extent, we can maybe wonder why the prawns act the way they do and what motivates them. Despite the aliens just being a blatant metaphor for illegal aliens and refugees in today's society, they are still technically aliens in the movie. But I'm not so sure their mannerisms were really thought out that much. They still pretty much acted like humans in most situations except for when they behaved totally animal like, such as when they ripped that guy apart at the end. I'm just saying here that despite how alien the prawns are supposed to be, they are also too much like humans for me to get into the movie from a science fiction standpoint. The symbolism of racism and xenophobia was hardly subtle but they could have compensated that if they put a bit more thought into showing you this alien race with its different mannerisms, customs and culture. And they could have done this in all sorts of ways. Like when they had interviews, there could have been some people discussing what they did know about the prawns. And I still think for having aliens around for so long, they were still kind of underwhelmed by the discovery.
If we discovered aliens today, and they came down in a huge fuck off ship hovering over South Africa, I'm pretty sure things would have been shaken up a lot more than they were in that movie. More governments would've been involved. More people would've wanted access to the prawns to speak to them about the mysteries of the universe, to talk to them about where they come from, how they managed interstellar space travel, and what horrible plight forced them to make an emergency pit stop to Earth. Could this have been a limitation of the documentary style of the film? I don't think so. I think they could've easily explained more of these things through dialogue between characters, and more of the interviews. They should've had a few more experts they were interviewing for the film that would talk about the prawns on the side. Even cutting down on about 10 minutes of the action and replacing it with more dialogue would've helped clarify a lot of things.
I understand we are still supposed to be guessing on a lot of the circumstances of the film. But the one that got me the most was how these aliens were confined to just South Africa. How difficult would escape have been out of District 9? Refugees flee areas all the time to try and find better living conditions. Why didn't more governments try to intervene. They had plenty of reasons to. Countries get involved with others for issues far less than aliens that's for sure. And the argument would be made all over that this was a huge global concern. Many would have been obsessed too of the impression humans were making on the prawns by sticking them inside a compound. And for 20 or so years? Come on! If maybe the film took place on several months after they were put in the compound then that would explain the pending action of external forces around the world as by that far things were still being discussed. But I have to believe that 20 years into their confinement that a lot more would have happened by then than just the daily management of a slum.
And one other thing that really bothered me was why were they extracting that liquid to fuel that little ship for so long? If you're scrounging around the ground forever for things to extract the liquid from that was their own technology, why weren't they frantically doing this all over their own ship while there were inside starving? Even if there were just little bits here and there throughout the ship, at least you'd only have to search the ship and not garbage piles all over the slums.
Besides some of these plot holes, however, I still found the film rather enjoyable. The film's themes might have been beaten over our heads, and Wikus' transformation as a character may have been too literal (if he's part human how come he totally just looks like a prawn now?), but it was entertaining, interesting food for thought, and was overall well paced. It is always interesting when aliens are portrayed as not these supreme beings from the sky bringing wonderful gifts of technology and wisdom, but just as refugees trying to survive. Granted, they did the exact same story in Alien Nation, but District 9 was a more fun way to tell the story.
As a South African, I have to say, his accent was WAY too South African... it could of been worse though, they could of used a Cape Coloured...
Honestly I haven't watched many movies in my short life, but I have to say that Blair Witch and Twilight are the worst ones... at least Eragon had an epic looking "Shadow Dragon" or whatever that idiot sorcerer that could only shoot fireballs was riding on, despite the fact of how quickly it was "killed".
Don't plan on watching the sequels to these movies, but I can bet they are so much worse.
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It's all been said. The pun, the not so funny joke, the phrase, something about oneself, the not so random picture.
I thought ghost ship was prerty cool to be honest lol
I guess for D9 I might have to watch the whole thing. I left the theatre near the beggining (Mostly because the person I was with really wanted to go) I would give it a second chance if I had it though perhaps my opinion may differ.
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www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
What I don't get is how you people get trapped into seeing these movies. I think just about every terrible movie mentioned, I foresaw as terrible and did not see it. Except for battlefield earth..god it was bad lol.
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Because people recommend the movies to us. They tell us about how amazing it is and how we should watch it. Or we simply watched it out of curiosity(Such as Twilight, I wanted to know wtf all the fuss was about and wanted to slit my wrists afterwards).
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It's all been said. The pun, the not so funny joke, the phrase, something about oneself, the not so random picture.
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
add me if you want to^^
Europe non ladder and ladder player
I'm gonna put my highrune in your socket
flyarion, flyarion_third, flyarion_fourth, flyarion_fifth
I honestly even enjoyed Postman more and that was a pretty shitty movie
Signature and avatar courtesy of Indestructible.
One was because of the main protagonist. Wikus could not have been anymore of an average guy. Perhaps he was too perfectly average, but I'm not even sure I know what that means. But it's not hard to come across seemingly average people every day. But during extreme situations, average people can do all sorts of incredible things. For him, he was a total coward, but he was desperate and stupid so he was willing to take a chance to go back into that building for the cylinder. I bet a lot of people hated him cause of his loud South African accent and mustache. Can't explain away the mustache but I was glad they even decided to make him have a mustache cause that risks making him a bit more hateable. The sound of everyone's voices and the prawns' language is really awful on the ears, but it just makes everything feel not so cozy and it's supposed to be an intense film anyway.
Another thing I liked was the documentary style of the film. But let me also say that I'm getting sick of so many shows and movies using this style of cinematography. It's overused now and for many seems like an excuse to be cheap and lazy. Despite my feelings on it though, I was okay with this film's approach to using that style. It could be just cause I love documentaries so much though so when they cut away to interviews followed by footage and stills, the visual style of it just appeals to me. Because it was so successful though people will continue for a time to film this way and that's unfortunate. For District 9 though, I thought it was perfectly good way to tell the story. But after awhile, later into the film it does tend to do it less and less.
That's what brings me to my next point though which is about the action. Unfortunately, like most movies, there always has to be a big finale with lots of action. This is where the movie falls into the predictable and cliche. Like, even with alien Christopher telling Wikus that no, he'll not leave him behind. What is it about action scenes that must always include someone falling behind and then insisting to the other to go on without them? Where invariably the other is like, "No! I won't leave you behind!" And why would Christopher not leave Wikus behind. He just was in a sick laboratory where he saw other prawns being experimented on, vivisected, harvested, etc. And what finally got him to snap out of his daze while he was being shot at was Wikus reminding him that he had a son. "Oh, yeah, I do don't I?," replied Christopher. To some extent, we can maybe wonder why the prawns act the way they do and what motivates them. Despite the aliens just being a blatant metaphor for illegal aliens and refugees in today's society, they are still technically aliens in the movie. But I'm not so sure their mannerisms were really thought out that much. They still pretty much acted like humans in most situations except for when they behaved totally animal like, such as when they ripped that guy apart at the end. I'm just saying here that despite how alien the prawns are supposed to be, they are also too much like humans for me to get into the movie from a science fiction standpoint. The symbolism of racism and xenophobia was hardly subtle but they could have compensated that if they put a bit more thought into showing you this alien race with its different mannerisms, customs and culture. And they could have done this in all sorts of ways. Like when they had interviews, there could have been some people discussing what they did know about the prawns. And I still think for having aliens around for so long, they were still kind of underwhelmed by the discovery.
If we discovered aliens today, and they came down in a huge fuck off ship hovering over South Africa, I'm pretty sure things would have been shaken up a lot more than they were in that movie. More governments would've been involved. More people would've wanted access to the prawns to speak to them about the mysteries of the universe, to talk to them about where they come from, how they managed interstellar space travel, and what horrible plight forced them to make an emergency pit stop to Earth. Could this have been a limitation of the documentary style of the film? I don't think so. I think they could've easily explained more of these things through dialogue between characters, and more of the interviews. They should've had a few more experts they were interviewing for the film that would talk about the prawns on the side. Even cutting down on about 10 minutes of the action and replacing it with more dialogue would've helped clarify a lot of things.
I understand we are still supposed to be guessing on a lot of the circumstances of the film. But the one that got me the most was how these aliens were confined to just South Africa. How difficult would escape have been out of District 9? Refugees flee areas all the time to try and find better living conditions. Why didn't more governments try to intervene. They had plenty of reasons to. Countries get involved with others for issues far less than aliens that's for sure. And the argument would be made all over that this was a huge global concern. Many would have been obsessed too of the impression humans were making on the prawns by sticking them inside a compound. And for 20 or so years? Come on! If maybe the film took place on several months after they were put in the compound then that would explain the pending action of external forces around the world as by that far things were still being discussed. But I have to believe that 20 years into their confinement that a lot more would have happened by then than just the daily management of a slum.
And one other thing that really bothered me was why were they extracting that liquid to fuel that little ship for so long? If you're scrounging around the ground forever for things to extract the liquid from that was their own technology, why weren't they frantically doing this all over their own ship while there were inside starving? Even if there were just little bits here and there throughout the ship, at least you'd only have to search the ship and not garbage piles all over the slums.
Besides some of these plot holes, however, I still found the film rather enjoyable. The film's themes might have been beaten over our heads, and Wikus' transformation as a character may have been too literal (if he's part human how come he totally just looks like a prawn now?), but it was entertaining, interesting food for thought, and was overall well paced. It is always interesting when aliens are portrayed as not these supreme beings from the sky bringing wonderful gifts of technology and wisdom, but just as refugees trying to survive. Granted, they did the exact same story in Alien Nation, but District 9 was a more fun way to tell the story.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
i like D9 too, and its unfortunate that the actor playing wikus didnt even get a nod at an award because i thought he did a great job.
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
Honestly I haven't watched many movies in my short life, but I have to say that Blair Witch and Twilight are the worst ones... at least Eragon had an epic looking "Shadow Dragon" or whatever that idiot sorcerer that could only shoot fireballs was riding on, despite the fact of how quickly it was "killed".
Don't plan on watching the sequels to these movies, but I can bet they are so much worse.
I want my time back.
I'll add Salt to my list.
Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions
I thought ghost ship was prerty cool to be honest lol
I guess for D9 I might have to watch the whole thing. I left the theatre near the beggining (Mostly because the person I was with really wanted to go) I would give it a second chance if I had it though perhaps my opinion may differ.
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
"I LOVE YOU"
"I thought tho "
...
Fucking hilarious
add me if you want to^^
Europe non ladder and ladder player
I'm gonna put my highrune in your socket
flyarion, flyarion_third, flyarion_fourth, flyarion_fifth
As for all the hate on blair witch project, I thought it was awesome.