District 9

DISTRICT 9 IMDB 

Based on the movie short Alive in Joburg; see it in Youtube .

OPENING SCENE:

1. Very intense to watch - just keeps moving from one scene to another
2. Not for children - the f-bomb almost over used - creepy effects - very very graphic - some genius dads brought their 10 to 12 year old kids!
3. Based on Neil Blokhamp's Alive in Joburg - also filmed in Johannesburg, Africa
   1. music, great special effects, story line very similar, same location, even had Sharlto Copley - he was a producer -
   2. Peter Jackson seemed to gather the folks who made this film and just enabled them to continue their genius. That is amazing!
4. Surprised that they didn't get some big name actor to play the parts, maybe that was part of the deal with Neil Blokhamp
5. They did a great job feeding you a lot of information in a short span of time through the documentary
6. Great job on balancing the documentary and the movie - i didn't feel stuck in either format

GOOD STUFF

1. The relationship of the prawn (Christopher Johnson) and his boy
   1. The boy turned the movie from being just creepy and uncomfortable to desirable
   2. He was the glue that held the story together to convince me that Wikus would decide to help them in the end. Wikus kept on telling the prawn to 'remember his son'
   3. There was no mom for the boy - did they need mothers to procreate? Maybe they will bring in the mom later? Another open plot point to use.
2. The effects were amazing!!
   1. The guns, the robot, the explosion on the building, the fights, the ship, everything
3. Music seemed to fit quite well - matched the mocumentary it was based on
4. The scene where they are testing the guns - amazing acting and portrayal of someone in that insane position - made it very believable

FUNNY

1. Hilarious that they politically demonized him by having sexual intercourse with the prawns - even had a picture of him in a magazine
2. Catfood
   1. hilarious to pick it - if any other reason than to see Wikus try to eat it later and make everyone disgusted
   2. The only place where you could get a super sweet robot suit for 100 cans of catfood

CHARACTERS:

• The Nigerians - interesting dynamic with their ties to witch craft.
  • funny scene - the head guy spoke to one guy, that guy spoke to another guy who spoke to the third guy who translated in english to the prawn
  • Their leader was steeped in witchcraft - interesting link with some weird possibilities - eat them and become them in order to use their weapons and be a kind of super human
• The prawns
  • gullible, dumb, and carnal?
  • I wish they helped us understand why the two were smart and the others were dumb
  • I don't like that they were just stupid - "Dumb aliens land on earth?" This just seems a little strange to me - maybe there was a strange method to separate the dumb ones and the smart ones we'll discover later?
  • The way they copulate
    • an upside down cow carcass - large creatures on their planet or just the method of choice with what they have?
  • Burn the children to be born? Sounds like a reversal of the sacrifices of children to the god of Molech in the Old Testament - very strange stuff
    • Sounds like popcorn?
  • Their technology
    • robot suit was awesome!!! -
    • Plot trick - we think that the military is going to save him, but it turns out to be the robot suit (great switch - tricked us to think one way)
    • The bullet magnet!!! It used their bullets against them by some crazy gravity ray...loved that!!
    • I would have just kept the thing on autopilot and ran around while it protected me - he was running away at first so it didn't matter
    • It did eventually run out of bullets
    • It was spraying him with water? - maybe because it had holes in it, or maybe the prawns get hot?
    • Their guns - so cool, kudos to the guys who came up with the Halo esk guns - I think they hired someone from Bungie to do this for them
      • I am thinking WAY more Half-Life 2 on this one...but more in my section...
    • How did they get their guns and giant robot suit down there?
      • They built them, with our "trash"
    • did we bus them down with their guns and giant robot suit on our helicopters?
      • I assume it was out helos, if we knew how to use their ships, they would no longer be hovering over South Africa...
    • Hope we don't copy Science fiction with the electric goo gun
    • The little ship looked Waaay too much like Serenity...
      • One little missile blew the engine off?
      • No flare system? The robot just got my hopes up like crazy when I saw what it did - still amazing!!
      • I didn't catch when the little ship left the big ship and then disappeared. It seemed shortly after they were already in their camps
    • The big ship
      • They did everything right with it - the sounds, the way it moved, the effects on the building losing their windows, everything

Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley)

• had the courage to get in front of the prawns even though they ripped a friend of his arm off
• Great actor! he has almost nothing on imdb - he didn't even want to act, but stumbled his way onto the short film and landed on the major movie, what a turn of events
• looked like Steve Carell at first - I wasn't too disturbed by this was an initial reaction
• How they demonized Wikus after he escaped - having sex with the prawns, which was illegal

QUESTIONS:

1. WHY did Wikus decide he would drive the ship? Three years was too long to wait for something that would be otherwise impossible? This was a stretch for me to believe that he would freak out and hit the prawn (NAME) and then try to fly the ship
2. Why Johannesburg, Africa?
   1. birthplace of human race? Accident?
   2. will the second movie reveal why?
   3. you do not see Johanesburg in movies
   4. It was filmed in Johansburg and in New Zealand
   5. Just because that was where Joburg was filmed there most likely.
   6. Interesting location
3. Why were they malnourished on the ship? I didn't catch the reason why or if we ever found out
4. Stuck on the ship - They didn't come out of the ship, but waited for us to cut our way in? The robot's superior technology throws everything off for me here. They could have had a few of the robots to just jack up everything and anything that came on the ship. It looks like they might have been slaves from another planet or something because they were not going to protect them? Maybe that is why there are a bunch of dumb ones and the few smart (informed) ones? If this is the case then they may return to enslave all of us too. I think he will fulfill his word and return in three years only to enslave the human race.
5. GOOF - When they tracked down his phone call they merely said he was in 'District 9'. Isn't that a pretty big place with about 2 million prawns living there? They didn't seem to narrow down their search location that much.
6. What was the little 'fighter' creature doing to the guy in the end of the movie?
7. The government gives charge of the prawns to a company that specializes in weapons?

CONTROVERSIAL

• agitprop - If we were prawns from another planet sure, but I didn't see it

THE MACGUFFIN

• The fuel source for the aliens ship

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Chuck MacGuffin Rating 4.5
Mike MacGuffin Rating 4.5

1. Felt like a sympathetic version of Predator
2. I can't wait to see number 2 - District 10 - they are almost going to beat the Halloween series on their second movie
3. they left many doors open to the next movie, but closed enough that you are satisfied
   1. Doors Closed
      1. His wife seems to appear to be single still, waiting for her husband, at least greiving
      2. The bad guy lost his head - killed - they did a great job of demonizing his character (but he is a stock Merc baddie, they can get anyone to replace him...)
      3. The ship left with the Christopher and his boy
      4. They moved the prawns to District 10 - name of next movie I'm sure, they can avoid the '2' title on their movie
      5. They showed Wikus as a prawn
   2. Doors Opened
      1. Will they come back?
      2. What happens while they are gone (3 years)
      3. Why 3 years?
      4. They still have the super prawn technology so why don't the aliens form under Wikus and take over. We couldn't stop them.