"District 9" Speculative Discussion Thread

I thought it was an awesome movie! Sorry if you haven't seen it (but then again this is a discussion on the sequel) but the mech warrior suit was just wicked. Too bad the driver was a little puss.....

I don't know about anyone else, but as I was watching I kept waiting and hoping saying "come on now, buck up prawns, get mad, beat the **** out of them for what they are doing!"

I mean, it really had a good audience connection, and made me side with the aliens, wanting them to stand up for themselves.

I hope too see a full fleet in return, offering peace and relations in exchange for release of the 'slaves.' An offering of a new, intergalactic market exchange of ideas and products. But perhaps the human race needs a good butt whoopin' in order to conquer an ego of superiority over all things sentient.

Just my thoughts, I wanna see the one that got away return, some new weapons, a new "enemy", some awesome fights with upgraded mech-suits, and a good, happy ending. This is hollywood.....

(edit to add: the movie was a little lacking of action, so if you wanna go big, go bang....)

By the way, Awesome halo looking sniper rifle and sniper trail! PLEASE NIELL, HALO MOVIE NOW!!! You already have the mechanisms in place, just need a hardcore actor for master chief, and a smoking hot cyber-Cortana!

[edit on 18-12-2009 by Karrotz]

reply to post by Karrotz


I don't think that guy was a "little puss" as you put it.

It took an extreme situation for him to find out who he really is and not what he is.

What he was, was a puppet to the system. He became himself. He became the passion, desire, hope, dreams and courage that we all feel and think of whenever we imagine ourselves in such a situation where we overcome overwhelming odds...

Or how we feel when we look back at a fault of ours and wonder how good it would have been if we had done something just a bit differently.

It's the feeling of being bullied as a kid in school and then realising several years later that all you had to do was stand up for yourself and punch back.. it's realising how good we would have felt if we had done something...

The guy in this film did something.. first for himself, and then through the combined struggle he found a kinship which drove him on to greater things that too khim above and beyond the calls of his normal duties.

He woke, up...he became who we all can be.

District 9: Capitalism

The alien is about to return home after making it aboard his ship. As the huge ship slowly ascends District 9's aliens look on in awe. The ship is fired on to no avail by the military and MNU. We see discussions about using a small nuke. That idea is dismissed. Higher and higher it goes until its out of sight of those in the district. Next we see it in space with the Earth in the background. We learn through the magic of subtitles as the alien talks to himself that he is about to enter hyperdrive. We hear music playing everytime the movie cuts to the inside of the ship now. As we see engines fire up we see them instantly sputter and go offline. The alien is cursing to himself. The hyperdrive has been disabled. But how? The ship also appears to be turning around and heading back to district 9. The alien cant figure out. He is baffled and using curse words no Earthling has ever heard before.

We follow his eyes to a small slit in the control panel. suddenly he realizes it all at once and begins to cry and dump CD's out of his bag. He ejects the Sony CD from the slit in the control panel with a wave of his hand but its too late. Now on the screen are the words that solve why we dont know. When the CD is ejected music continues to play. WTF??!?! We ask ourselves. But the problem is solved for us when we see the aliens words yet again "DAMN YOU SONY! DAMN YOU AND YOUR ROOTKITS!!"

As we fade in from black and start to see the fuzzy image of the ship reappear on our screen we are told that its been 6 months. We also now see what appears to be the largest circular television ever made. Its 100 ft tall and goes around the whole circumference of the ship. We see a rotating ring of advertisements for Sony.

But now the camera tilts down and we see the ship has been moved. To NYC. Later we will learn that it visits all the worlds largest cities on a rotating schedule.

But the story is really about the MNU alien who now is not accepted by either race. He teams with the scientist alien who builds him a weapon that not only cant be used by humans, but it cant be used by aliens either because of his special DNA we are told.

We are only given small glimpses of that weapon and the MNU aliens plan as the plot progresses until at the climax its all finally revealed...

And there MNU alien stands...in front of his first victim the father of his wife. He is holding some kind of alien looking pistol and he fires. Father screams in pain and collapses. We watch as he is transformed in front of eyes into an alien also. MNU alien only sticks around to make sure it finishes and that father lives. Its ok. We learn that now he is off to find his wife and turn her also.

He finds her and transforms her also. She forgives him as she has loved him the whole time. Even after he tells her he changed her father too then stomped him out of existence like an intestellar cockroach.

They make hot insect love.

Again we fade to black and as the screen starts to come back to life we are told itsbeen two years. The black fades but not much. We hear MNU alien and his wife talking again, we see their words. She says its almost time. He agrees. Mow we see why its so dark. They are living in a tunnel below denver and what we see next makes us gasp. In those two years they have had 3 million children and we see the catacombs of tunnels with billions of more incubating.

As rumors persist on the surface of a planned alien takeover the alien ship starts to include messages from Sony to not worry. Its just a conspiracy. We are shown one theorist visiting this site and gathering evidence that he is right. Springer bans him for getting too close to the truth of his sponsors. The aliens are not allowed any type of freedom. District 9 is totally enclosed. The masses believe there is no threat.

As we are led to believe it just might all end happily we see. all over the world tunnels are opening as the children of MNU alien and his wife exit...all bearing the same type of weapon he used a few years earlier. OMG their plan is to make everyone alien.

And so it happens. All people are made alien. Even the sony execs and employees. We see them all punished by the alien scientist for the rootkit. Its not pleasant and most dont survive.

The ship sheds its humongous sony circular TV and it comes crashing to the ground over
Dubai. American aliens grin for a second. Then the ship rises and alien scientist once again heads for home.

The ship takes off into hyperdrive.

reply to post by Springer


In answer to your question I feel that the internet will be just one of the many methods of communication that we will need to help the visitors.

But we are all aware just how the internet can be controlled and is being controlled (the recent filtering starting to happen in Australia for example). We may find that we will need to use older methods, like radio.

One thing came to my mind the other week which now could be a future possiblity for the use of any resistance... The UK has just switched over to digital TV transmissions. Old terrestrial channels have now gone.. yet there is a multitude of equipment out there that is now available to be used in whatever we can make of it. With the intelligence and abilities of the visitors then things like this will be a by-pass around the normal 'controlled' systems.

We may be able to have Human agents who have the visitors DNA combined in some manner so that TV and/or internet based equipment can only be used by these Human agents in their 'war' for the greater good. Just as the visitors weapons can only be used by them.

Those who choose to assist the helpless or who are forced to help themselves in times of great need or distress have always shown the ability to adapt and overcome.

WW2 prisoners found many ways to fool the guards and to get things done or messages sent etc. Some of those methods are still top secret.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

What I liked about this move is showing our true color as humanity stands today! "Alien" or being "brown, black, terrorist, fat, skinny, etc..." is how we still judge each other!

I was reading the beginning of this thread a couple nights ago, and I haven't read the last few pages, but from what I understand, they want to do a pre-quel? That sounds awesome. A battle on another Alien planet that sends the ship to Earth, would be awesome. All in subtitles, very abstract, I like it.

There is NO doubt in my mind that we acted as we always act - scared of the unknown. This is a major part of humanity and built in to protect ourselves. TBH, I'm still not sure if this is something that we have built in at birth or something that is taught to us through experience and example.

All I know is that if ANYthing can get to our planet in one piece then we can expect to get left again pretty quickly or wiped out once they see how we react. When/if they land here you can almost guarantee the first thing they would be greeted with is our military force telling them what they can and can't do!

My son who is 12 did have a really good point - "what if they came to find more food?" I explained to him that if aliens were able to get here the chances of them coming to eat us were slim (I hope but don't want him to be having nightmares) and his reply to that was "then lets hope that they don't need new workers then!" I smiled but realised how sad it was that he was already programmed to be scared and worried about any new species arriving at our planet.

My guess on D9 is that they had a few hick-ups on the way to make contact. Ran low on food, some got sick and they are far more intelligent than we think (a look at their tech should be a clue). Once here their intelligence told them that they should just sit tight - we break in and haul them out. Once again they use intellect and become submissive - a survival tactic until they can find the necessary tools to get back up and running.

Just my take on a brilliantly well done film.

I'll just have to say it is one of the best movies ever. Not only were the specials FX the best I've seen so far but the way the movie was done (Documentary like) was simply perfect.
The concept of the movie is brilliant and innovative. The scenario is a breath of fresh air. The main character was also refreshing and new. Glad to see a normal everyday guy caught in that whole crazy scenario instead of the usual hero type guy.
The story was great, many twists and turns when least expected.

The only bad parts for me is when it went totally Hollywood. Like that gun fight in the laboratory...I mean the alien was just sitting there while bullets were flying everywhere not hitting anyone (too much like every other action movie). The final part was also real bad. The hero catching a rocket in mid air with his hands and later the aliens attacking the bad guy right when he was about to kill the hero. (blehhh) I mean, the aliens didn't hunt humans the entire movie and then all of a sudden they gang up on the bad guy when he wasn't even attacking them? real bad.

I hope the sequel will maintain the same concept and originality but remove those unrealistic parts. Make a villain take a dump during some fight when no one is expecting it. Have the bad guy be killed by friendly fire in some real stupid accident at the middle of the movie. Have some random alien throw a rock and hit the head of someone during a gun fight between humans because he is sicking tired of the all the noise...
District 9 had these little details but needs more. An example of another good movie with these little details is "Saving Private Ryan". It is such a great movie because they payed attention to the details that made the movie look so real. Quentin Tarantino movies are also great in the small details and conversations. Pulp fiction is a prime example of an extraordinary good movie because of the details and twists in the story. Complement a brilliant story with Special FX and action and not the other way around. I mean, just do the opposite of brainless movies like "G.I Joe" and "2012".

Waiting anxiously for the sequel and hopping it will be the movie everyone will talk about for years to come.

reply to post by Extralien


Sure, I agree. Gotta remember, we've all been trained by Hollywood to expect the spectacular from our heroes, I guess this was a more realistic approach, as such was more fitting for a movie of this nature.

I said puss because I felt let down when he turned and ran at the end instead of saying enough is enough, even though he came back. I mean taking that much bullying, and then coming across that amount of fire power to fight back, I really would have said enough is enough and immediately go full on offense, instead of running like he did.

But then again it wasn't me in the movie, and that's always been my problem with movies, I tend to put myself into the character.

I loved the documentary style of the movie and the creative rendition of the creature. I left wanting to see more.
Why do we always fall for the baby? Must be a part of our mammalian programming (We don't eat the baby or leave the baby-most of us) Others might be programmed differently- but for me he was the cutest thing.

reply to post by Dargar


You didn't study history very much did you? Anything or anyone that is different we treat like ****, name me one time in human history that we haven't discriminated against anyone species, race, religion ect.

Also it being set in South Africa, home of the duel level humanity thought process, was very indicitive of how we would treat another species.

A man/woman can be an incredable force of good, preserving life and protecting nature. Living equaly with his surroundings. Humanity is the most disgusting vile creation of this planet, in our knowledge. No force in recorded, or speculative history has been anywhere near as destructive as us.

Think about the Crocodile..survived exstinction far better then any other species in history. Out lived the Dinosaurs for shear versatility and simplicity. We nearly brought the creatures to exstiction. Not a hitch through hundreds of millions of years... the in 6000 or so years...how great are we!! Yay us, note the sarcasm.

A monumental film.

Watching it disturbed me because our human nature was, for the most part, accurately portrayed. We strike out against anything or anyone we don't understand or are different.

We discriminate against each other based on skin color, religion, nationality and looks. I won't even get into how we treat any number of the other species that call Earth home because we think of ourselves arrogantly as the "most intellegent species here".

We are still killing each other over the many names of "god", oil, technology and turn our backs in apathy on the 23,000 fellow human souls that starve to death each and every day. wiki.answers.com...

We have shown through our history to be a violent and (for the most part) a self serving species.

Most people like to think they are empathetic, but until you have walked a mile (really 100 miles) in someone else's shoes - you never know what another has been through.

It's a powerful movie both visually and emotionally.

The actors were way more believable than say Tom Cruise. They came off as real people.

The movie being shot in South Africa, had the majority of people not Caucasian. Usually with American movies we have Barb and Ken Pod people. I watch a lot of foreign films because for the most part American films are so "sanitized" so superficial. These charactors were deeper, more complicated.

The musical score was beautiful. Very Earthy almost middle eastern.

The special effects were absolutely spell binding.

The aliens in the movie acted more human than the humans.

It's nice when a film comes out that is exciting, complicated and interesting.











[edit on 19-12-2009 by ofhumandescent]

[edit on 19-12-2009 by ofhumandescent]

reply to post by Springer


Ok, i just saw the Film and i gotta say that after a dodgy start with the Docu style commentary it did get a lot better.... when the Officer from MN saw that his hand was transforming (reminded me of the fly ) and thats when the film took off... those prawns must have felt that us humans are inhuman.... the conditions they were made to stay in wasn't some place i'd like to stay if i was taken to another world by Aliens... i'd like to think i'd be treated better than that.... indeed when the Officer started helping the Prawns i felt some Empathy and i wasn't surprised to hear the words 'i want to go home... our planet is much bigger than this one'

How will the sequel begin? Will the Prawns come back to wage war? I can't se them simply forgetting the matter.... maybe Independence day style!!! If you were being experimented on and killed would you forget that, fly off and just say 'o well... my friends are dead or dying but i'm going to leave them to die.... i don't care.....' no, i don't think you would... you would xome back with your badass buddies and kick some butt!!

Originally posted by Dargar
The one thing bothered me about that movie is the amount of blind hate and discrimination towards the 'visitors' I don't think it would happen in real life. One could argue this happened due to the ship was just hovering over Johannesburg, South Africa. We treat them like complete **** for no apparent reason, even if they don't have a sense of ownership of things that are not theirs. Wouldn't other nations get involved with the overall scenario and make sure the creatures are treated fairly? Those civil right people didn't do anything.

We are meant to speculate that these are the slaves and/or workers of the species and have no sense of direction or leadership. So maybe that's why we treat them the way we do because they are are already used to it.

But good topic. The movie leaves a lot of "What ifs?" flying around because we really know nothing about the aliens. We don't know where they're from or even their real names.

[edit on 17-12-2009 by Dargar]

[edit on 17-12-2009 by Dargar]

The movie is partly allegory about apartheid in SA. And that is the big part of it actually.
But because that is a still fresh wound, it is much easier to make a statement about SA race relations using completely weird looking aliens so that nobody feels bad about the reality that was apartheid and how the country is in dire straits now socially.

It's take on Nigerians has gotten the movie banned outright in Nigeria. having the Nigerian gangs in the movie was one further step to cloak the statement about apartheid that was going on.

Other than that, in and of itself, the flick was great fun, set itself up for a sequel and I fully expect one!

I give the director an A+ for the concept, but for me it fell into the same "High Concept" Hollywood trap. All visual and not much REALISTIC story sense. This seems to win younger movie goers who don't understand a great movie is it's... STORY-STORY-STORY!

1. The main character was unrealistic... his wardenish attitude was way over the top. The fact he was in such close quarters with these prawns and oblivious to what microb's they may be carrying, only telegraghed him getting infected.
2. No human would trust or walk into a camp of creatures that looked like that in real life... and then 20 men strip searched 1000 of them for weapons and rotten meat. lol: Those Prawns were built like tanks, why would they just sit back and take this abuse?
3. This movie in some strange way diffuses the overall seriousness of real aliens. Close Encounter did a better job at this and that was made 30 years ago.
4. There are only so many "heart strings" you can put in a movie before one says... wait a minute!
5. I tried to understand the politcal overtones, but I did not like the South African setting... again too predictable.
6. There were aliens all over the place... but yet this was not a Alien movie. It's tone was more like a video game brought to life. In otherwords after watching this film It would not make a grown man get up in the middle of the night and check the house -- It missed it mark with the parnormal side.

It seems Hollywood is still scared to deliver real deal alien stories to educate the masses. And I understand, it's a "what did we make opening week" world. But if you want to make a mark... Hire Stanton or Greer as ghost writers to put some realness on the screen to blow folks minds.


[edit on 19-12-2009 by Level X]

reply to post by Level X


concidering that it was either HALO or this i think they did a fine job with the budget they got.

I'll participate I s'pose, since I liked the movie a lot.

1) You're going to have a hard time explaining why the Prawns didn't just go bezerk on the humans. Um, did you see the weapons you gave them?? They're capable of vaporizing anything that moves, but are perfectly okay with being forced to live in a concentration camp? They've got a super-robot machine (the one the main character uses towards the end) that's capable of catching and throwing missiles like toys, but they don't use it?

If the Prawns didn't want to hurt us for whatever reason, they surely would have been compelled to after the humans came in and shot their own.

I couldn't help but ask that question the entire time I was watching the movie.. why aren't they doing anything? It seems so very unlikely that humans could pull off treating a race of aliens that way, especially when they're armed to the teeth. So please... explain this.

2) The way the government and humans in general acted towards them was spot on for what I would imagine. We hate each other as a race, so why would we accept a race of aliens?? I did, however, think that a human compassion element should have been represented... although I said in general that's how we would act, that's not how EVERYONE would act. There would be people who were curious, intrigued, compassionate, etc and would have wanted to learn from the Prawns by other means than killing them and performing an autopsy. But for the most part, human attitude was spot on. .... which begs the question again, why the bloody hell didn't the Prawns start the body count?!

3) The Prawn that did escape... saw what the humans were doing in the lab, saw the humans kill their "people," lost his loved one... no way in hell is he going to go back with a "good" message. If they didn't want to kill us before, when the leader Prawns back home find out what the humans did to the Prawns on Earth... they're DEFINITELY going to want to kill us.

I guess the more I think about it... I can summarize it up this way:

I could understand that maybe the Prawns were just peaceful creatures and they didn't want to cause trouble... but once we showed that WE are not kind and we are a vicious people (IE. killing them)... then they would HAVE TO retaliate.

No creature, human, fictitious Prawn, whatever... is going to sit back and just let their species get killed.

The second District 9 better be some Prawns coming back to kick some human booty, that's all I got to say. Anything else takes it more into the realm of unbelievable if you ask me.

And I guess this is similar to my actual feelings about "what if Aliens show up." In a way I hope and dream that they would and they would see the good that exists in humanity and assist that GOOD in humanity by terminating the rulers of this world that have turned it into the breeding ground of hate we live in. I can make arguments to trace every social problem back to poor governance, and would even go as far to say the "poor" governance wasn't an accident.

OOOOOH..... it just hit me!! A war of the worlds of types... but there are actually humans who take the side of the aliens and help kill humans. That would make for an interesting movie indeed.

Okay I'm done rambling.

Originally posted by zerbot565
reply to post by Level X

 

concidering that it was either HALO or this i think they did a fine job with the budget they got.

Yes, the guy did a good job on money management... I respect him on that. I liked the grit and it was a innovative film.

The main theme many asked was why the Prawns didn't fight back, with the way they were shabbily treated, and thus deemed the show unrealistic?

Dont forget, those Prawns are in the MINORITY. They may had built capabable weapons secretly, but dare they challenge the might of the world, whom owned aircrafts and nukes? Those Prawns aren't as stupid as some would like to believe them to be, nor are they robots incapable of feelings that they dont love their young and want them dead.

Imagine our colonists disembarking from the Mayflower. The red indians could have easily overwhelmed the arriving strangers in strange crafts with bows and arrows, but our ancestors were smart. They offered gifts and even traded with the red indians.

A hesitant start, but both sides saw the mutual benefits the visitation brought and thus a kind of truce was established, till more white men arrived with weapons and all hell broke lose. History, sadly repeated itself with each new island or continent found after Columbus.

So too will history repeat itself when aliens arrive. This is a realistic fact when dealing with mankind. We are doomed to repeat mistakes.
This movie was realistic in its portrayal of species interaction. The Prawns had nothing to offer, and were thus relegated to the gettos.

What will happen in Part 2? - Look no further than history. Species interaction would ALWAYS be the same, and a good educative reminder if more movies portray more of such realism in different settings which the common masses can relate to. Part 1 was such and indeed a great reminder and movie.

(PS: Just a thought. Was the movie a preparation for 'Disclosure' - to educate the masses in realistic portrayals of upcomming happenings by using related events as a reminder?
And Part 2, yet to be scripted - a feedback session of responses from concerned masses on their hopes and fears, of something 'soon to come true'- Disclosure and reasons why aliens are comming?
Low budget films are often off the radars and are unsuspected of govt supported actions..... hmmmmm........


[edit on 19-12-2009 by SeekerofTruth101]