f13.net

Peter Jackson is producing this film with a newcomer director.

What is it about?


The website plays it pretty straight: http://www.d-9.com/

Might be good, might suck, is at least an interesting idea.

I also was surfing their site after being linked from i09. I am interested too.

The director, Neill Blomkamp, is the guy who made the short Halo inspired films (Halo: Arms Race) that looked like they were teasers for a feature length movie. Jackson has been a fan of his for a long time and I think he got WETA to do the effects for those films. They're pretty cool even to a non-Halo fanboi like myself.

Link to all 3 parts (which I think were also used as promos for Halo 3) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUcreY0X33k)

As an extra and as a potentially huge spoiler, District 9 is, allegedly, a full length version of Blomkamp's short "Alive in Joburg" which I've linked below.



Edited because I haven't had enough coffee today

I highly recommend checking out the HD trailer (http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/district9/) at Apple Trailiers.

There's a less high quaility trailer doing the rounds with a translation which either adds or detracts from the feel of the trailer depending on how you see it, but I think this is going to be a proper little sleeper hit when more people catch on to it.

So it's Alien Nation only instead of being a stupid buddy cop movie with a pumpkin-head Mandy Potemkin, it's going to look at the much more interesting 'Holy shit, there's aliens here!'  The background looks interesting enough, but it's really going to depend on what kind of movie their making. What the story is and what the conflicts are.  Making it like a documentary is all well and good, but there still needs to be a solid story.  It'll also be nice if it doesn't turn out to be nothing more than a ham-fisted allegory about racial (in)tolerance.

I doubt we'll be getting anything but this. While the concept of highly advanced Aliens living in Shitcity, Africa could be an interesting take on racial intolerance or rising tribal tensions in Africa... blaaa I think I'm boring myself with that concept. I'll go in not expecting much and will hopefully be surprised.

The execellently put together website(s) suggests it might be a little more, or at least that's what I in my aging cynicism am hoping beyond what you've already suggested. That it's cinema verite scifi already pushes it into the realm of the unknown, and the fact that they're really not pushing the movie at all, rather letting the viral and alternate reality game aspects of it sell it makes me think they're already thinking about how people are going to perceive it. This (http://www.mathsfromouterspace.com/) was a fun little find. I got 7/10, bet there's some higher scorers around here.

Look at Blokamp's original proof of concept trailer from '05 or so on Youtube.

It's called "Alive in Joburg" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1hI8c8HzxU

Bleh, missed the spoiler tag.

That said, I saw this back in '05 and loved it and hoped someone would give it a longer treatment. Lucky me.

Friend linked the trailer for this today, very interesting. He said that, had they actually signed a deal for a Halo movie, they had this guy lined up to do it. I think he has a thing for portraying human <-> alien interaction.

His Halo movie teasers are on youtube.

New trailer that gives an entirely different view of the film.

http://movies.yahoo.com/summer-movies/district-9/1809961221/trailers/215

Looks cool, but in a much different way.

That's looking very Hollywood.

It's looking about sixteen kinds of awesome to me.

First guess? Aliens aren't aliens but transformed humans.  Maybe something along the lines of all the ship was empty when it landed and was designed to transform the native species into whatever those are.  Original search parties that went in got hit was that gas stuff and boom, aliens.  Might be contagious, who knows.

Yes, I know. I mean had they signed a deal on the MS script for a real movie.

Looks awesome.

That's exactly what it looks like, and if that's the case, it might be a bit of a letdown, mainly because the trailer will have given away the twist. I'm still looking forward to it.

If that's the case, it reminds me a bit of this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Against_the_Chtorr), which itself would make an interesting background for a movie.  I don't particularly like Gerrold's writing style though, and I don't recall the characters or plot being all that memorable.  But I always thought it was a really interesting idea that a better writer could do a lot with.

No idea how rated/hated AICN is on f13 but I tend to read it occasionally as it's pretty much the most 'unfiltered' movie news on the net. The one regular writer who I've ever regularly agreed with is Massawyrm, who seems to think District 9 is A very good thing indeed (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41892). His review is pretty much spoiler-free, if you've been keeping up to date with the trailers, and he seems to hint that said trailers are actually somewhat deceiving and that there's a whole lot more going on... I'm getting a bit of a Children of Men vibe from it now, which is exciting in and of itself.

I'm really getting giggity about this.  The reviews so far are 100% and quite glowing.

Seeing it tomorrow!

Please report back promptly.  :grin:

Blah, both this and Moon were at the film festival and I missed out. Why! Watched that shithouse Eden Log instead!

Got there early but not early enough, they oversold the the screening.

Guess I'll see it this weekend.

Saw it tonight, fucking awesome.

Seeing it tonight.

I've heard it can give a bit of the hand-heldmotion sickness? Anyone have trouble with that?

I had to walk out of Blair Witch because the movement in that gave me motion sickness, as a point of comparison.

How is the gore level? I've heard conflicting reports.

Going to see it tomorrow. Please make sure to use spoilers until at least next week.

Amazing film. Really great story and whoever the lead is did an amazing job acting.

Its not really gory in the Saw sense.  There is some gross stuff and you do run across a number of camera splash scenes.  On the hand held motion sickness, I generally get that but this was not a problem.  It shifts between hand held documentary and straight camera work often enough that I did not have a problem.

The lead is really good.

Most amazing movie I have seen in some time.  I don't ever recall having had my emotions screwed with so thoroughly by a movie ever.  Given the violence I was trying to avoid caring about any of the characters but I just couldn't make it stick.  Go see it and don't let anyone tell you anything about it in advance.

Totally worth seeing.

I was very impressed.

Fortunately "shaky cam" was kept to a minimum and was largely at the start of the film.

This shows an entirely different side of science fiction as a force for good in the film industry.

I am intrigued by some of the decisions in the film that worked so well.  Ultimately, the Director wanted us to side with the oppressed - which was achieved - but only AFTER the audience eventually got past their revulsion.  If the aliens were to be a surrogate for an oppressed group in our society, one would have thought they might have been depicted as "pretty" aliens here to help win the audience over exactly the opposite was true but with the same outcome.

* Possible SPOILER Below *

When I saw our "hero" threaten to have the child taken away and was annoyed at the child's brief display of violence - I would have been less forgiving as a viewer if the child was "human".  In my ignorance I would have assumed that at some level the child new the act was belligerant.  Depicted as an alien, however, I was divorced from any assumptions that he would understand our cultural norms and was sympathetic.  

The "alien" mechanic, ugly ones at that, worked so well in this film in depicting important social issues it has left a real impact on me.  All teh while when I saw the MNU I kept thinking "UN" and the Balkans.

The film really moved me - excellent on all accounts.

Great movie.

I liked how human were depicted.  The only character with heroic attributes is the green alien.  It was nice to see humans from an other specie's perspective.
I also liked the concept of a dump worker/warrior race needing leadership from a genius and compassionate leader race.  It was refreshing from the usual cruel hive mind with drone.
The Nigerians were hilarious.

Minor gripes :

- MNU was too stupid and incompetent.  The security was a joke.
- The aliens physiology was too cliche and did not seem like a plausible produce of evolution.

1.  In thinking about the (lack) of global response to Rwanda - I found the incompetence alarmingly plausible.
2.  Any true depiction of a biologically different alien will not be viewer friendly - I think viewers lose interest/connection unless the alien is at least "humanoid".  You're right - an alien may not have eyes or two legs/ arms etc. - but I see this as an artistic compromise so the audience can at least relate eventually.  A genuine effort to depict a alien, would give us something so foreign, we would never be able to connect with them in the confines of the time of a film.

1. Yeah, except it's a spacecraft with advanced technology.  There should be a permanent lab inside the ship and a couple of nukes ready if it try to flee or attack.  Maybe you could explain it by saying it's in South Africa and they did not let other countries in.

2.  I know but I still think the chitins abs and the shrimps appendage were overkill. Also, Protoss legs and Cthulhu mouths are overused.

It's a movie for fuck's sake. Focus on the themes, story, and emotions you feel and less on whether the fictional boogeymen would be theoretically possible. Not every world setting needs to be ripped apart for its veracity. I enjoyed the movie for what it showed and not because the alien creatures are believable or some other irrelevant item.

I saw it. Really liked it. I am not a fan of shaky-cam filming style, but luckily its kept to a minimum and actually helps with the "documentary" style at the beginning of the movie.

The one thing that was really hard for me was that the main character looked, sounded, and even acted like "Marry" from Flight of the Concords. I couldnt get it out of my head.

Like I said, they are minor grape.  I liked the movie.  Where's the fun if we can't discuss the details?

Saw it, liked it.  I hadn't seen any trailers or anything else beforehand, so I walked in with no clue what I was seeing.  At first I thought it was going for humor, The Office with aliens.  Then the blood started flowing.

I liked Wilkus, the writing made him a very human character with damn near no redeeming value to anyone until it was pretty much forced on him.  He responded to everything in about the exact way I'd expect a real person to react, rather than in constant Hollywood cliches.

Saw it, it was good. 20 years is a long time, and I can see some of that happening, but I would have figured we'd have cut the mothership up piece by piece to figure out how it worked. I disliked the fact that they were all apparently dumb rubes except for the one smart prawn. Maybe the smart ones are all working (or being dissected) in labs somewhere, but I'm sure many companies would like to get their hands on anyone who can build them a walking mech and would be happy to pay for all the cat food they could eat.

Anyone else catch the half-life homage with the pig? They used the same sound and everything, it was pretty funny.

I kept thinking through the movie, "This guy should direct a Half-Life movie." Getting shot with a pig must suck but it was fucking awesome.

This was the best movie I've seen since Star Trek - best original IP this year. Absolutely fantastic. The action was gorgeous, the CGI was good especially the shots of the mothership against the Johannesburg cityscape. The mech was win.

Correct me if I am wrong but I heard the the lead actor for this - our "hero" had never acted before and this was his first film. 

Wow.

I kind of think the point with the Alien behavior was that it wasn't really all that different from any poor displaced people.  We've all seen similar images of people digging through refuse piles.

Sure, most of them weren't scientists or particularly knowledgeable about anything but then again neither are most humans.  The more I think about it the more I think both races were portrayed in as much of a parallel behavior as they could managed to depict.

Enjoyed it, though I have some complaints.  Solid 89%. 

Because the fluid is a storytelling device and an objective of importance to advance the plot.

Do not question the plot device.  I am sure they could have come up with a good reason, but they were too busy making an awesome movie.  

I like the Children of Man comparison.  Human failings in the face of the Unknown.  Gritty FX.  Exploration of issues, but no morality play.

Even though I am scientist I am willing to cut some films slack on "inexplicable" science if the film looks like it has earned it through efforts in other areas.

I accept the idea fully that there are new physical laws and properties of any system we have described to date well outside our current comprehension.  In short, alien technology, despite the high opinion we carry of our state of knowledge, willl in some cases still appear to be "magic".

Arthur C. Clarke : Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Given the aliens were capable of A: Interstellar Travel, and B: Keeping a spacecraft the size of a couple of city blocks HOVERING over a major city for 20 odd years on autopilot, it think we can assume their technology is sufficiently advanced :P

I have this discussion with guy I work with once a week.  He's in his late 50s and just feels like computers are magic boxes.  He can't figure out how we talk to them, so therefore it's nearly magical.  He even calls them magic boxes, the wacko.

District 9's Director Tells Us All About His Alien Back Story (http://io9.com/5331799/district-9s-director-tells-us-all-about-his-alien-back-story)

This kind of explains some of the questions about the prawns.  The human "authorities" still make no sense though.

Going all dork here, but there's no way without holodeck/food materialization technology of Star Trek that even a couple hundred of the prawns could survive for 'thousands of years' in a ship that size.  It would have had to been attached to a mothership the size of a planet.  Which it may, we dunno.  Just seems unrealistic. 

Excellent movie. That its based in South Africa was a rather poignant reminder of our ability to "dehumanize".  The aliens are portrayed exactly how the blacks were during apartheid. Even the people who aren't actively hateful like the "hero" dont equate them as equals worthy of consideration. So while you are kind of in disbelief that the obviously intelligent aliens are treated like dogs you realize we treat our own species the same way.


Why would you say that? The aliens can eat metal cans and tires they are obviously engineered and hearty creatures.  Even at our level of technology a self sustaining biosphere is not that far beyond the realm of possibility. They have a fuel source so potent that a liter is capable of traveling to other stars so thats not an issue. That ship was the size of a large city.

Read the io9 article linked. They are without the leader caste.  The alien are aimless, without purpose.

Im going to ignore what that guy said, because its fucking stupid.

You are hopeless.

I was referring to the director, just in case you got confused.  Nothing the director said addresses any of the issues I mentioned. It made more sense not knowing what his intentions were.


Movie is pure awesome but those explanations are very unsatisfying.

Quantum mechanics might as well just be magic :awesome_for_real:

Context: semiconductors do what they do because of "quantum tunneling".

Saw this last night. amazing.

Been avoiding this thread for fear of spoilers prior to the UK release but just thought it would be worth popping this link in to another of Blomkamp's short films (which also stars Lynda "I was Wonder Woman dammit!" Carter).

Tempbot (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xwha2_neill-blomkamp-tempbot_shortfilms)

CGI is stunning in this.

I think one of the most amazing things about this movie is that boxofficemojo reports its production cost as $30 million.  It more than made its money back opening weekend, and looks pretty impressive for a movie with a relatively small budget.

Well deserved

True but it's easy to keep the cost down when you a) have no named cast (therefore lower than normal above-the-line costs b) have copious contacts in the sfx industry c) are filming in South Africa d) are filming on digital (albeit a Red One). It would be interesting to see a budget breakdown - but I bet most of the costs where racked up by using WETA and I also bet they didn't include any of the marketing budget in that either (and, let's face it, it's the marketing which really sold this film).  I also bet that Jackson (and perhaps Blomkamp) would not have taken a salary in favour of percentage of profits. That'll also keep the cost down.

Of course its easy to make a cheap movie, the difficulty is making a cheap movie that makes multi-times its cost. Especially with no name actors and less than first rate support. I hate on movies with little provocation, its good shit. And when you think about it the last 30 minutes was the most uninteresting, and that was probably a large chunk of the budget.

Marketing. Studio support.

District 9, like Cloverfield before it, have both been released on over 3000 screens. (Cloverfield had a prod budget of $25 million). Compare Memento which cost $9 million to make but still took in $40million globally ($25million at home) but only got a release on 500 screens. Or Shaun of the Dead which cost ~ $6million to make but took $30 million worldwide ($13 million in the US) and had a limited US release of 600 screens.

I'd rant about this all morning but I have to go to work.

Id like to know this too, is it just creatures and suspense, or is it horror gore splosions? Going to try to talk the girlfriend into seeing it.

Think Saving Private Ryan with energy weapons.

You are horribly broken in some way that I just cannot figure out.

yes I would concur with saving private ryan with energy weapons is a pretty good way to describe the gore. The alien weapons when used do some pretty amusingly brutal things to people

looks like a guys night out then!

I'm a huge horror fan, and i have been with a girl that does not watch them for 5 years now. I guess its the difference that makes the relationship interesting. (Though she loves GWAR too  :heart:)

Thanks for the heads up.

The generic chase and shoot em up sequence was by far the weakest part of the movie. Thats not to say shit being shot and blown up isn't cool. Mrbloodworth its not a horror movie in the least bit.


No arguing that both have huge impact.

I thought it was good and fun, glad its done well for itself.  Wasn't amazing by any stretch but well worth watching once.

I enjoyed it, nothing original as far as sci-fi books go, but this type of sci-fi so rarely makes it to the big screen.   Movie sci-fi is all too often pew pew pew look at the spaceships fly and the mighty warriors fight.   I like to think it is exposing a lot of people to the idea that Star Wars is not the be all end all of what sci-fi is about.

Anyways, chalk me up as another hoping they don't fuck this up by coming out with a sequal.

I finally saw this over the weekend.  Really liked it.  Wouldn't mind having a sequel.

It feels like one of those that are best left wanting a sequel. But not getting one.

Let the guy make Halo instead.

Really liked it, was a good scifi film and I hope they stop with this. Soon as it started in johannesburg started picking up on Tsotsi right away (thomas and zola)  :grin:

Saw this tonight, was very pleased that I did. Highly recommended; the pacing was spot on, the plot was interesting and the setting was interesting. Probably the best film I have seen so far this year.

It felt more like Halflife.

The sequel would be the extinction of the human race from orbit 3 years after the events depicted in the movie.

So Stewie and I argued over this movie on the way in to work this morning, as he saw it last night for the first time. His complaint being that the director made no effort to explain away any of the glaringly stupid seeming plot holes - such as why the aliens mostly acted like idiots, why they didn't use their guns, why they behaved like the did in general.

After some thought, I came to the conclusion that the director elected to explain none of this on purpose. My argument, was that the movie was being told exclusively from the eyes of the humans, and in this director's vision of humanity, the humans didn't give a rat's ass. They didn't care what made the aliens act the way they did, or why they were there. All they cared about was how to make their guns work. So the director intentionally didn't answer any of the glaringly obvious questions, because his characters in the movie didn't ask those questions.

Stewies's view, is that the movie would have been more enjoyable with a little exposition worked in to set the framework. I think the director managed exactly what he wanted by leaving the audience seeking answers to those questions.

Thoughts?

It's been a few months since I saw it but I remember there being some exposition early on to the effect that the reason the ship arrived in the first place was due to a calamity of some sort that wiped out the alien's ruling caste.  The workers that remained generally have no initiative on their own.

The aliens are basically listless and without direction, their leading bodies, or government, or whatever you want to call it, have all but died out. They don't know what to do without being told, and so have been easily subjugated by either the South African beaurocracy or the Nigerian Gangsters, all of whom only seek profit and care little for cooperative social understanding. There's a great deal of subsurface plot basically suggesting that the entire alien workforce is made up from a mixture of original 'prawns' and genetically resequenced sentients of unknown origin - there's the big question as to why the MacGuffin Fluid not only provides power for inter-stellar travel but forcibly changes Wikus.

The hope for the Aliens lies in Christopher, and more importantly, Christopher's son, who is a genius and clearly the first of a new generation of the leader caste.

D9's tale is told. I'd rather he move on to do Halo than go all Highlander on us.

I agree with you. I was left with the impression that there's a reason why things happened the way they did, but we'll never know because of the culture gap, and the fact that the humans didn't care to ask.

When you start asking why shit in movies is the way it is, you get midichlorians.

Actually, if you look back in this thread, the director did explain it in an interview. The Prawns were a worker caste that was connected to a hive mind - when the top level of the hive mind died, they had no real individual initiative on their own, like ants when the queen is killed they go off in all directions.

I'm watching this now. It's fairly terrible.

Finished it, still terrible.

I watched it last night with low expectations.  I enjoyed the social commentary, but felt that the message was clouded by the overuse of pointless gore.  I wouldn't watch it again, but felt that it was a decent value for a rental.  It entertained, but it could be summed up by saying that the person I watched it with fell asleep halfway through.

Saw this two nights ago and it was worth one watch but nothing amazing. While the style of storytelling was interesting and the movie provided a decent commentary on human nature I feel like I would have enjoyed the story about the arrival of the ship and the reaction, exposition, and internment of the aliens more. I feel like there could be a whole movie about ruining the potential for a meaningful cooperation with another species due to greed, power, superiority complex, and the xenophobia of the populace. The cavalier attitude of the people dealing with death and dismemberment was a bit too comical and the "energy source is also a mutagen" concept was too much of a stretch. I did giggle a few times during the last half hour though as the gratuitous violence kicked into gear, though.

I agree with this.

No, because then you could call it art, which it wasn't. It was just a movie, and a mediocre one at that. I thought too much information was given really, I didn't need a couple minutes and like 10 moneyshots of aliens needing cat food to fucking get it. Bleh, did not like.


The Falls (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EQ5TP6?ie=UTF8&tag=f13-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000EQ5TP6) is a better fauxumentary without a hollywood movie tacked on.

Man, you are hard to please. I don't think I've ever run into someone who has as sharp a binary switch around culture: it's either terrible or Robot Jesus most of the time.

I Am Legend :  BE THERE.


 :oh_i_see:

Thank you! I'd been wondering if I was the only one who noticed that!

I think everyone has by now.

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

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

Better or worse than Alien Nation?

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.

I thought it was excellent as well.

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.

Yeah I really liked the TV show.

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.

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

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.

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?

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'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.

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. 

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.

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

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

...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.

And yet it so often does for people.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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