Why Bleak Sci-Fi Flick District 9 Makes Guys Cry
- Thread starter Firefilm
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It's not the most uncomfortable film I've ever watched but it is so true to life or rather realistic in the observations of human prejudice that it depresses me immensely. It reminds me of the times historically where simply undermining and eventually dehumanising the other side allowed terrible events to transpire. Blomkamp is truly excellent in the film and somehow he leads us from comic acting in a potentially amusing mockumentary to dissolution and isolated. There's some sort of life lesson in there and though it may not make me cry watching it does makes me anxious and a bit sad.Bolo The Great said:
What was depressing about this movie? Yeah, the over the top "Aliens are black people....remember apartheid!" Love Blomkamp, he is a great directer judging by his two movies and shorts. But this movie didnt get to me at all and i am surprised it did to anyone. Its a fun sci fi movie.
I love District 9, but fun? No, I can't say I found it terribly fun. It's brutal and nasty and far, far too close to reality. I wasn't around for apartheid, but I can say that far too much of what is in the film rings true. Even today, Johannesburg has a myriad of problems of the kind shown in the film.SonOfVoorhees said:
Personally, District 9 (as in the place in the movie) was what really got to me. I've seen far too many slums like that. I can so easily see the situation shown in the film playing out in real life. We let this kind of thing happen, even make it happen, to members of our own species. Why would any other be any different?
I find mind blowing anyone would register this guilt fest as plausible. If you knew right now some part of the world people out there are basically causing the apocalypse and you'd still back and just let it happen? Absolutely not. I know I sure as hell wouldn't let a bunch of gangsters and other scum of the earth insure another alien race will blast our racist asses back to the stone age for mishandling their people. It would be madness to think all world's super powers would just sit back and let Armageddon happen. No, the USA and whoever else would roll in and Area 51 this situation. Not remotely plausible for a multitude of reasons. If you can remotely consider this plausible then you lack big picture thinking. (which Neil Bloomkamp obviously does.)Azahul said:
Even if you go humans are evil and blah blah are worst qualities would save the prawns from the fate the movie showed. If we're greedy, fine then we'd corner them off and barter with them in order to understand their tech and keep other humans from randomly getting it for free. If we're cowards then we'd protect the prawns because we don't want them killing us off when they find us again. If they found us once, it would be foolish to assume we'd never encounter them again.
So you can go well Apartheid happened....not remotely the same thing. Last I knew the black people threw in slums weren't part of a powerful race that could punish us for being jerks to them in the future. Even if South Africa was dense enough to dole out said fate to aliens...doesn't mean the rest of the world would just sit back with so much at stake. This a heavy handed metaphor that falls flat.
District 9 fails on the most basic levels. Good Sci fi can have fantastic settings, but the people still have to act like people. No one acts like a normal human being in District 9. Even when Wilkis gets ill and starts coughing up black stuff no one seems to give a damn. He walks into his house looking like a zombie, and everyone just acts like it's no big deal. Wilkis himself has the maturity of a 5 year old, and seems to think murdering people will some how get him his life back. (Which said evil company somehow how forgot standard protocal of changing security codes when they fire someone.) His life was over Prawn or not, because he would still be a wanted man moment he returned to being a human.
I ultimately find District 9 insulting and blows my mind people talk about like it's a good movie. Words like Intelligent or original should never be attached to this film. This review also sums it up nicely... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zynpgAKOgBc .
India and Pakistan are two countries with weapons capable of destroying this planet. They also have people living under conditions just as bad as the aliens in District 9. Do you really think that we wouldn't treat people like dirt if they end up on our world with no marketable skills and without the intelligence to properly function in human society? They're easy to trick, get addicted to quite a few different substances common on Earth, and have no currency. Someone like that ends up on this planet, they're just screwed.lastjustice said:
And let's be clear, the individual aliens don't have the capacity to destroy the world. There's just the possibility that others of their race are out there, somewhere, and that they might come back. When they do, I'm sure the entire world will rally behind South Africa in claiming that, no, really, we've been treating them quite well. Look at those nice tents we gave them to live in. We've even kept them safe from living with us, where some nastier humans might hurt them.
The black people who lived in South Africa's slums didn't have the power to destroy the world, but they certainly had the ability to tear South Africa apart in a bloody civil war. It nearly happened. Apartheid came down only because the country was at the very precipice of utter chaos. Until Christopher Johnson returns with a battle fleet poised and ready to burn Earth clean of life, I'm sure the world would have no problems carrying on treating the Prawns as they have been doing.
But mostly, whatever possessed you to believe that Big Picture Thinking is something the world's leaders have? By governments anywhere? They get by day by day, but look at some of the crap that goes down in the world. The question isn't whether I can see the big picture. Yeah, sure, you can look at the situation in District 9 and say "it only gets that way if someone does something stupid", but world leaders do blitheringly stupid things all the time. District 9 is a metaphor for something stupid humanity already did to itself.
That point about it being a metaphor is important as well. Metaphors only need to be strong enough to make the point.
Personally, I love humanity. I think humans have the potential to do wonderful things to and for one another. There's nothing about the situation in District 9 that strikes me as terribly unrealistic, however. Well, except perhaps the fact that the US has seemingly not yet got around to invading South Africa. But I'm ok with that being left out if it gives me a movie largely devoid of Americans for once.
Despite all the grimness in this movie, there is one part that allways makes me laugh so hard I nearly choke.
So the main guy is in the big-ass prawn mech and pretty much blasting everything to bits.
Everything is mega serious, gun fire and people dieing everywhere ..... and suddenly he uses a HL2 style gravity gun in the robots arm to shoot an alive pig at a guy.
It's awesome.
So the main guy is in the big-ass prawn mech and pretty much blasting everything to bits.
Everything is mega serious, gun fire and people dieing everywhere ..... and suddenly he uses a HL2 style gravity gun in the robots arm to shoot an alive pig at a guy.
It's awesome.
I actually shed a few manly tears at the end of District 9. It's just so perfectly executed at the end. I felt for Wikus and his transformation. Everything he did is basically what I would have done in that situation (including the parts where he injured himself as a potential means of getting rid of the 'infection'). I connected with Wikus.
It is also a kick-ass sci-fi action movie too!
It is also a kick-ass sci-fi action movie too!
Nope, sorry. I don't have the proper amount of disbelief to accept the heavy handed metaphor that absolutely destroys the premise of the movie.
If aliens actually landed on Earth and put up zero resistance to us manhandling them and cutting holes in their ship, we would have dissected the hell out off all of them and cannibalised their ship not stick them in a slum and leave their ship hanging there over a major urban centre.
Then of course once the main character starts turning into a prawn, suddenly the government wants to rip him open. Yup, that makes lots of sense. The government wouldn't chop up a foreign species with zero rights afforded to them but would a human. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I mean, if you can get past that it's a decent film, but that is one hard pill to swallow in my opinion.
Also screw found footage films.
If aliens actually landed on Earth and put up zero resistance to us manhandling them and cutting holes in their ship, we would have dissected the hell out off all of them and cannibalised their ship not stick them in a slum and leave their ship hanging there over a major urban centre.
Then of course once the main character starts turning into a prawn, suddenly the government wants to rip him open. Yup, that makes lots of sense. The government wouldn't chop up a foreign species with zero rights afforded to them but would a human. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I mean, if you can get past that it's a decent film, but that is one hard pill to swallow in my opinion.
Also screw found footage films.
I loved this movie, but it wasn't difficult for me to watch at all....Bolo The Great said:
....but maybe that's because I'm de-sensitized to everything in the real world too. The amount of beheadings, mass rapes, paedophilia, mass executions on the news has rendered me numb
I love this movie, even if it's not perfect - still better then Avatar, at least. As grim as it is, I still enjoy it, even if it doesn't help my faith in humanity any.
Plus, it has guns that make people explode!
Plus, it has guns that make people explode!
Anyone who doesnt believe that things like this would happen has not much awareness of what governments have done and are currently doing. We are locking children in cages and have lost thousands in the USA. We have denied them beds, showers, medications, toothbrushes, soap etc and claim those are not necessary. Governments have purposely infected citizens with a variety of diseases including hep to see what happens between those who get treatment and those who dont. They called sickle cell "bad blood" and allowed it to go untreated just to see what happens. If you dont think that a government, any government would not be capable of atrocities you have never studied history. I am not speaking of conspiracy theories or things that have not been proven even if they were very likely to have happened. I am only referring to things the governments have 100% agreed that they did and apologized for. You are naive if you think that the gov would be above using someone to their own purposes. They do it every day...