District 9

[Cowutopia]

Some of the wider shots bugged me. I'm sure a lot of scenes were shot with reference actors at least.

[Gohron]

I very much enjoyed this film.

Its amazing it was a $30 mil project.

Only sort of. The marketing was done tastefully but not crazy, there probably wasn't any high paid actors on the staff and a lot of the special effects were CGI. Hollywood producers just don't know how to cut costs and get the same product.

[Dolemite]

D9 is a perfect example of a movie where the CG serves the story as opposed to just being there for the sake of eye candy (ex: the shitty Star Wars prequels).

[Mr-K]

I've never seen so many Zoidbergs. There was a similar main character theme to Evil Dead.

I didn't think about this, but you're right. Ash is a coward at the beginning of the first Evil Dead, and if you didn't know any better you'd probably think that Scotty was going to be the main character... before HE does the cowardly things and tries to bail on everyone.

I liked this movie quite a bit. It was nice having a morally ambiguous character in the movie, because at the beginning, eah, it's obviously that this guy was a rather reprehensible chode, indifferent to the shitty situation of the aliens. Him aborting the eggs and seemingly enjoying it and the shitty move of threatening to take Christopher's kid made him a real cocksucker. I liked his evolution as the movie went on.

Still, when I think about an ethical way to handle the situation the world is in for this movie it becomes pretty tough. We naturally would want to treat the aliens well as long as they weren't a threat, but because they were such mindless, difficult assholes there's no way they could integrate ala Alien Nation. One of the problems I had with the movie was just how Evilcorp LLC the bad guys were. But I guess that would be sort of a realistic possibility considering we don't even treat eachother well.

I was glad I avoided reviews and such for this movie, the action at the end was great, and I sort of would have liked it to have been a bit more heady, but yeah, it would have been dull. It was handled with a pretty solid balance, the headyish stuff is all there, it's just accompanied by a fucking sweet mech and a splatter gun.

[Drewbacca]

This movie was what everyone was hoping AVATAR would be: relevant, refreshing, unique, interesting, great action (at the end), creative industrial design of the alien hardware, creative aliens, etc. Very interesting movie. I'd watch a District 10, but I don't think the movie needs it. It's kind of self contained. I don't know if I want Wickus being a big alien/human hero of a trilogy or something like that. If District 10 moves on do something unique. A new protagonist, story, etc.

Plus I like the idea of Neil Blomkamp keeping his work fresh and original. Because this movie had heaps of that.

[Mzo]

I liked how the robot had metallic zoidberg face tentacles.

[Mr-K]

I noticed that too, it was a neat touch

[sleeve]

This movie was what everyone was hoping AVATAR would be: relevant, refreshing, unique, interesting....

Dude.

Avatar hasn't even come out yet. WTF are you talking about?

I really don't get the backlash this movie is getting. The trailer looked cool. Besides, Titanic got a ton of backlash when the trailer came out and looked what happened there.

Back to D9. One thing I really liked about it was the absence of any clear heroes, or even a real redemption arc. Wikas is a coward until the end of the film, and even then he only redeems himself because he's sitting behind 5 tons of human-gibbing alien hardware. And his redemption is more of a juvenile act motivated by bleak desperation, sort of a "waaah, I'll never be human again so I'm taking you mean bastards with me!"

And Christopher? Dude just takes off with his son, leaving millions of his compatriots behind. It's clear that he wasn't in it to protect his species, just himself and his own. In the end, everybody protects their own self-interests, from MNU on down. Just like real life.

[Mr-K]

Christopher seemed to be heading off to get the cavalry, he promised, after all to return in three years. After all, how was he supposed to liberate 1 million aliens?

MNU wouldn't want to let them go so they could continue to harvest them for profit. Sticky situation.

[Cheebs]

I liked how the robot had metallic zoidberg face tentacles.

That was a robut, son.