District 9

[sigil]

I think everyone has by now.

[schild]

I'm incredibly easy to please. I just despise hamfisted bullshit.

I prefer brainless action to "overly preachy, thinks its art" crap.

[Margalis]

Better or worse than Alien Nation?

[Ironwood]

Saw this tonight.

Not only excellent, I don't see how some of you could have come away with the questions that you did.

Did I get a 'new' understandable version or something ?


It's really good to see a good Sci-Fi doing what it should be doing and exploring the human condition.

[Teleku]

I thought it was excellent as well.

[angry.bob]

Better or worse than Alien Nation?

Eh, both about the same, though D9 obviously has better visuals. Similar ideas, but totally different execution. Like SotD and Zombieland. Also, the Alien Nation tv show is still one of the better shows to ever be aired.

[Ratman_tf]

Eh, both about the same, though D9 obviously has better visuals. Similar ideas, but totally different execution. Like SotD and Zombieland. Also, the Alien Nation tv show is still one of the better shows to ever be aired.

The only thing I remember about the TV series is that the chick aliens got the dude aliens pregnant. Like Orkians from Mork and Mindy.

[Margalis]

Yeah I really liked the TV show.

[Khaldun]

I remember wondering how on earth Mindy managed to impregnate Mork. Only one of them had alien biology, after all. I dunno, maybe his schlong went and hoovered up an egg from her ovaries.

[Slayerik]

I thought it was a pretty good flick. Worth the rental fee.

[angry.bob]

I remember wondering how on earth Mindy managed to impregnate Mork. Only one of them had alien biology, after all. I dunno, maybe his schlong went and hoovered up an egg from her ovaries.

Easily answered. Robin Williams was, is, and always will be a talentless c\/nt. C\/nt being the relevant part. Robin Williams was horrible enough the first time around when he was Jonathan Winters, we didn't need an even less funny, less talented version just as Winters was running out of work.

[Signe]

We just watched this and even I would recommend it.  It was very good.  I think I must also have got the easy to understand version.  I usually don't enjoy too much gore but this was a good film in spite of that.  I thought the Cape Town look and Bantu type clicking were rather clever touches.  It was a fair commentary on apartheid, too.  The ending was somewhat of a dangly bit, though, wasn't it?

[Cyrrex]

Saw it last week...was both quite a bit different as well as quite a bit better than what I thought it would be. 

And clearly, they will make a District 10.  Maybe.

[Sir T]

I've just watched the first 30 minutes of this (I've started watching movies on the bus on the way to work) and I don't know what people are talking about. They say quite clearly that the leaders of the aliens had died in mysterious circumstances and thats why the Aliens were all chaotic and listless. They could not be clearer about it. I'm not sure how people missed it.

Excellent flick so far. Really good science fiction.

[KallDrexx]

Saw it last week...was both quite a bit different as well as quite a bit better than what I thought it would be. 

And clearly, they will make a District 10.  Maybe.

I thought the movie was excellent but I hope they don't make a sequel.  There is no way to make a sequel and have it be in the same style (I guess that's the right word), and the style and the way it was told is really what made this movie good. 

[01101010]

This movie frustrated me in the beginning then bored me. Having your main actor as a bumbling idiot in Dumb & Dumber works... not so much in this flick. Overall it was an ok movie.

[HaemishM]

I didn't think Wickers was a bumbling idiot so much as an unsympathetic bureaucrat.

[Sir T]

If anything Wickers was shown as the knowledgeable guy who knew how to handle the Prawns, though someone that really could not care less about them

[01101010]

...who uses his cell phone to call his wife who is the daughter of his employer - after he has been shown to be able to operate alien weaponry. I understand the the compassionate, isolated human part of it, but this was too over-the-top for me - desperation should not drop his common sense to 0. The people hunting for you have a ton of tech in play to find your ass, why the hell are you using your own cell to call the bee's nest to reason with your wife? Granted they set up the character in the first 5 minutes of the movie to be this awkward nerdy office drone, but even they should possess a hint of intelligence to think that maybe the cell phone signal could possibly be a big shiny beacon to where the hell you are calling from.

[HaemishM]

desperation should not drop his common sense to 0

And yet it so often does for people.

[KallDrexx]

...who uses his cell phone to call his wife who is the daughter of his employer - after he has been shown to be able to operate alien weaponry. I understand the the compassionate, isolated human part of it, but this was too over-the-top for me - desperation should not drop his common sense to 0. The people hunting for you have a ton of tech in play to find your ass, why the hell are you using your own cell to call the bee's nest to reason with your wife? Granted they set up the character in the first 5 minutes of the movie to be this awkward nerdy office drone, but even they should possess a hint of intelligence to think that maybe the cell phone signal could possibly be a big shiny beacon to where the hell you are calling from.

Wait what? 

First of all he didn't use his own cell phone, he used the phone he stole off the guy on the street while escaping.  Second of all, while it's nice to think that everyone will can keep their cool and react smart when under extreme pressure, only very few people actually are able to accomplish this.  It has nothing to do with intelligence.

[Cyrrex]

...who uses his cell phone to call his wife who is the daughter of his employer - after he has been shown to be able to operate alien weaponry. I understand the the compassionate, isolated human part of it, but this was too over-the-top for me - desperation should not drop his common sense to 0. The people hunting for you have a ton of tech in play to find your ass, why the hell are you using your own cell to call the bee's nest to reason with your wife? Granted they set up the character in the first 5 minutes of the movie to be this awkward nerdy office drone, but even they should possess a hint of intelligence to think that maybe the cell phone signal could possibly be a big shiny beacon to where the hell you are calling from.

Wait what? 

First of all he didn't use his own cell phone, he used the phone he stole off the guy on the street while escaping.  Second of all, while it's nice to think that everyone will can keep their cool and react smart when under extreme pressure, only very few people actually are able to accomplish this.  It has nothing to do with intelligence.

I was thinking that it wasn't his own cell phone, but I couldn't remember for sure.  Good catch.

[01101010]

Wait what? 

First of all he didn't use his own cell phone, he used the phone he stole off the guy on the street while escaping.  Second of all, while it's nice to think that everyone will can keep their cool and react smart when under extreme pressure, only very few people actually are able to accomplish this.  It has nothing to do with intelligence.

Sorry, A cell phone to which the signal could be traced regardless of whose it was. It seems I am in a minority here, and thus I will refrain from shitting up the thread.

[pxib]

Meh, I gotta side with the "Why would he think that through while under stress?" camp. The guy was a few eggs short of a dozen -- his last name is the code word for The Idiot in South African jokes -- and for all folks yell at the screen during cop shows "PUT SOME GLOVES ON!", real people leave fingerprints over everything and get their DNA everywhere and generally make their presence known and the only thing that saves a few of them is that local law enforcement is almost as prone to screwup. The guy wasn't thinking "I am a fugitive, hunted for my DNA", he was thinking he had been abandoned by his country and his workplace, was all alone among man sized flesh-eating bugs, and the only caring person he could think of was his wife.

So he called her.

That said, I agree that this usually doesn't happen in movies for exactly the reasons it's pissing you off: We expect more of characters than we expect of humans. Since this movie was trying to make a lot of wry commentary on humans, I believe it purposely risked making folks like you upset in order to further separate Wikus from any lingering hero status we might want to spread his way.

[Cyrrex]

Meanwhile, we've spelled the main protagonist's name about fifty different ways in this thread.  Wickers.  Wickas.  Wickus.  Vickers.  Vickas.  Vickus.  His name was probably Jimmy, or something.

[HaemishM]

According to IMDB, it was Wikus Van De Merwe and I spelled it wrong.

[Furiously]

Just rented on Netflix. I'm  with Ironwood on this one. Excellent use of sci-fi.

[JWIV]

Finally got around to seeing this.  I definitely enjoyed the film and the lead was absolutely fantastic.   Maybe not the best SF I've seen recently (Moon still tops that list), but a damn fine intelligent movie.

[Azazel]

I enjoyed it. It was clearly a film with a message, but it didn't let the message dictate the film or story.