District 9

[Berserker]

O_O

http://d-9.com/

Ok so the trailer looked cool, but after messing around on the website, I can tell that the whole movie is clearly some kind of really heavy-handed metaphor for race relations.

[Aki]

Yeah, I noticed the metaphor, but I really don;t care. It looks really awesome regardless. I mean, how often do you come across the idea of the aliens being the ones screwed over in Sci-Fi? It's kinda funny.

[Berserker]

The new trailer paints an entirely different picture of this film. I am about 10x more excited to see it now.

[PariahPoet]

I'm rather curious about this one.

[Silverclaw]

I'm so pumped to see this movie already! It looks like something I'd love (I hope I do). Its refreshing to see a new take of aliens and humans interacting.

[Terastas]

The highest rating Spill.com will give is "Better Than Sex." This rating is so rare, The Dark Knight only got one BTS rating from the four people who saw it.

They gave District 9 three ratings of "Better Than Sex."

There was no fourth rating, because only three of them went to see it.

Oh yeah, and they had a budget of thirty million, and it looks just as good if not better than anything Michael Bay's ever crapped out.

I am sooooooooooooo going to see this now.

[PariahPoet]

I watched it this evening. Spent half the movie with my eyes closed and head down. The shaky camera effect is a huge turn-off of this thing for me. I get motion sick very easily, so I spent most of this movie sick as a dog. -_-

The story wasn't bad. Visuals were great. I thought the plot device with the main character was pretty ridiculous and contrived. Was super gory.

The "evil hyoomans" theme was a bit much even for me...

Honestly I still don't know how I feel about this one. Hated the camera work, liked the visual effects; agree that humans suck, but not quite that much; liked the premise as a whole, but hated the unrealistic plot device.

So right, still undecided. It's tough to give a real review without spoilers.

[vrikasatma]

[alphanubilus]

Actually the plot of evil humans hurting aliens isn't really new. I'm sure most of you have seen E.T. There was another film that tried to recreated that E.T. feeling called "Max and Me".

While we like the idea that our race would be receptive of another "alien" race, if we can't be receptive within our own kind, what should we expect?

[PariahPoet]

Honestly I think the only character that was fully rounded out was Christopher. All of the human characters seemed like cardboard cutouts for what depth they had. I didn't see much of any character development in them at all. (Although I did love the very last scene. I thought that image was really beautiful.)

I do like some of the subtleties of the movie though. I thought that red blood for the prawns was a nice touch. And the children also helped make them more sympathetic. You never see alien children, they always go from face-hugger slimy larval stage to full adults.

[Berserker]

I thought it was fantastic. Some of the antagonists were a little cliche (like the main mercenary guy,) but I thought the portrayal of MNU was fairly realistic. There are corporations like that in real life, who have their own private militaries (Halliburton, De Beers) and who often operate in legal gray areas. They are known for treating entire populations of people like non-human trash, so throw 1.5 million real non-humans into the mix, and that's what we would get.

I appreciated the fact that portions of the movie remained morally realistic. The prawns are disgusting, dangerous, and their behavior is almost the opposite of what we would expect from galaxy-traveling extraterrestrials. If the filmmakers had really wanted to hammer home a boring "evil hyoomans" theme, they would have made the aliens seem like sweet puppy dogs.

[Terastas]

Something worth taking into account is that the aliens had been in Jo-Berg for thirty years up until that point. Korey from Spill described the humans as being sympathetic at first because the aliens were starving and malnourished when they arrived and expressed no desire other than to repair their ship and go back home. . . But thirty years later, they aren't really convinced that's ever going to happen anymore.

Something else Spill mentioned was that, even though the aliens were not hostile, they did bring weapons that wound up making their way into the hands of a criminal syndicate and various street gangs, and that's only when they weren't just lying around waiting for little kids to come along and play with them.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I get the impression that it starts off with that humans start off being sympathetic and diplomatic, but gradually degenerates into the apartheid theme the greater the affect of the prawns' arrival is understood to be. It's basically asking the audience how much they would be willing to put up with for the sake of good diplomacy.

[Defensorem Lupus]

[Shadow Wulf]

Oh yes I watched this movie a while back. I absolutely loved it and I want to buy a copy of it real soon too. Peter Jackson did a great job at making the aliens feel very believable and you truly care for them like a fellow human.

[Berserker]

you truly care for them like a fellow human.

Really? Christopher and son, maybe, but the rest of the prawns pretty much seemed like dangerous, almost monstrous pests.

[Aki]

you truly care for them like a fellow human.

Really? Christopher and son, maybe, but the rest of the prawns pretty much seemed like dangerous, almost monstrous pests.

That's because they're all in the background and not actual characters like Chris and Son.

The Prawns are just "people" in a bad situation. Conditions in refugee camps tend to be pretty terrible without adding the whole extraterrestrial species factor into it.