I'm sure everyone has seen previews for this by now, but some actually info is leaking from people who got a chance to screen it at Comic-con and it sounds pretty good.

Howard Stern was talking about this on Wednesday's show. He saw a screening of it and was raving about how great it was. Looking forward to this one. The director supposedly did a great job. The executive producer was Peter Jackson, which couldn't hurt.

I read they shot it on a 30 million dollar budget, but that the effects are fantastic.

When the initial, and more vague, ads for this first started airing I really thought it was a video game. Then the ads got a little longer, a little more reavealing and I became increasingly intrigued. But, I had concerns. It definitely seemed like there was some social commentary going on here and if it is done too heavy handed or cliched, it could really turn me off. I was also concerned that there wouldn't be much development of the aliens as living, breathing, and more importantly, thinking creatures. From the impressions offered there it has definitely become a must see for me.

I have yet to see a decent preview of this movie. I went to the movies last week and began to watch what I thought would be a preview of District 9. All I saw were very quick shots of the city, the aliens, and I think I may have heard a total of 20 words. I have no clue what the movie is about based on the preview and all the posters I've seen so far...

It's getting spectacular reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

No worries.

Definitely worth the money.

I've seen The Hurt Locker, Terminator Salvation and District 9 this summer. D-9 hands down the best of the 3.

Just got back from seeing this. I knew absolutely nothing about it. I went in under the impression that it was some sort of drama about apartheid set in joburg. I was a little surprised when the aliens showed up.

Great movie though.

Just saw it. Thought it was really well done.

My one minor complaint is that they never explained how humans came to understand the alien language.

the same way anyone learns a language i assume. they had 20 years and it was a live language right in front of them...

that sounds pretty far-fetched. the aliens probably had universal translators embedded in their lapel pins & shared the technology with the humans.

Went to see this and the fire alarm went off 20-30 minutes in. I loved the buildup too. Was not willing to wait outside for 45 minutes while they figured out that punk teenagers were to blame. Damn it.

feral cow translator?

Just got back from a midnight showing.

Definitely the best movie I've seen this year.

I don't know, pretty sure I could live with someone who talked in clicks and ticks for 20 years and not have a clue what they are saying. Just seemed with the level of detail other parts went into it would have been discussed.

Saw it this weekend, and really, really liked it.

It's smart and suspenseful. Hurt Locker and Up are still my movies of the year, but wow, this movie did everything right.

Little too nitpicky for me but what about this...If they hate the Prawns so much and the Prawns were creating ways to leave the planet, why not just let them go instead of trying to stop them? They served no purpose to the humans from what I could see.

I believe the private company MNU that was hired to deal with the aliens had ulterior motives that involved gaining as much knowledge about alien weapon technology so they themselves could profit.

what's going to happen when Christopher Johnson comes back? that's a pretty good reason to not let them leave.

Stealing tech. What I don't get is why these "government agencies" let the Nigerian gangs move in and start amassing arsenals. Not that they could use them, but it doesn't make sense they let them just wonder in.

yeah just talking to my wife about it and she brought up what MNU was and what their intentions were which I think they could have done a better job of explaining. But I do stand corrected as it now makes more sense.



Why? Do you think he would come back to rip shit up? I would figurethat he would come back to get the rest of the prawns and keep his promise to Wikus. But hopefully he has a garmin since they moved them all!


I suspect because they have no control like they do in real life.

All due respect and all but that seems naive. There's bound to be some pissed off prawns who are going to want revenge.

Yep. Especially considering how technologically superior the Aliens appeared to be.

Saw this today.

Enjoyed how quickly I stopped looking at the prawns as CGI and just enjoyed the movie.

The main character was a bit over the top...I hope...South African's aren't like this are they?

His wife was hot...probably the single most unbelievable thing in the movie was him getting such a hot wife who loved him etc.

They torched the egg shacks..but seeing a body being disected really bothered Christopher?

I was expecting the way the main guy gave himself for Christopher would have resulted in Christopher coming back and not wipeing the entire planet out. Kind of a Christ figure with the world hunting him, eventually killing him, all while his actions saved the world. Instead they went with the "Let's keep our options open for a sequal" ending.


Funny how the rest of the world was mostly ignoring the prawns, no other countries offered to house some of them etc. A weak plot line.

Think the movie was overhyped as the sci-fi movie of the decade etc...more like a movie that will make money, and become forgotten in 3 years.

Well niave seems to be my new middle name these days so no problem there.

But they have access to weapons now don't they, they just keep selling it for cat food. I thought that was one of the scenes anyway, so either way, they have had a chance to kick some south african ass but never really did. Well now thinking back I guess they had fought back a bit and that got them put into D9. Yeah, I guess you are right, plus it will make an obviously more entertaining sequel. Ok, I agree with you then, carry on.

I liked it a lot. The horror level was high enough that I didn't sense that any of the characters had "script immunity" and it kept me on the edge of my seat.

The premise that the fuel source also changes people into aliens is completely stupid. I tried not to think about that.

Not really. Considering the alien weaponry is DNA based it's not that far fetched to assume that their fuel would be similar in some way.

weapons for cat food program: the vast majority of the prawns were the "worker class." Without their leadership they aren't all the capable of organized effort toward a common objective. One could arrive at the conclusion that there may be a prawn class we haven't seen yet. A "warrior" class that probably won't have much trouble extracting the refuge prawns and most likely exploding large numbers of humans in the process.

SPLAT!

The DNA feature of the weapons is presumably intentional. Do you think that they intentionally engineered their fuel so that it could attack the DNA of humans or that this effect is accidental? It seems like a very specific and difficult effect.

Or perhaps it works on anything alive? Say a fruit fly or a whale or a tree?

Just assuming that the DNA may not just be for security. That's the way it's presented in the movie because we are given the human POV, but that tech might be the reason they are a space traveling species assuming it can be applied to more than just weapons.

toward the beginning of the movie they said that prawn tech is biologically based.

Found this interesting, 5 little tidbits about District 9

http://io9.com/5341120/5-things-you-didnt-...bout-district-9

I love aliens and science fiction, but this movie was just plain silly. Like it was written by an 8th-grader.

The social message about discrimination and apartheid was so painfully direct it was annoying. Setting it in South Africa? C'mon.

Why didn't the aliens with their head-ripping skills and brutal weaponry just go ape-shit on the humans? Why did they let themselves get stuffed into a ghetto?

The aliens understanding English was just dumb.

And the Nigerian gang choosing to live amongst them? Huh?

Just stupid.

An unexpected yet welcome post.

1) That's not the point, the point is that good movies have more subtlety to their messages. This one was just so boringly obvious about it.

2) So they could organize themselves to fly to Earth in their spaceship but couldn't manage to fight back against an enemy? And there's a major difference between the groups you mention and the aliens: they didn't have the ability to rip people's heads off and blast them to nothing with an array of signficantly more advanced weaponry!

3) To the point at which they would be able to understand the concept of putting their signature on an eviction notice? And they weren't exactly immersed in the language. They were stuffed in a ghetto and segregated from the English world. And if they have the cognitive abilities to learn to speak fluent English under those conditions, they could sure as hell figure out how to get home and/or how to kick the crap out of the humans.

Umm, they actually lived within the human society for sometime. Maybe you missed parts of the movie because you were out yelling at the popcorn guy for giving you too much/too little butter?

I hate that..I mean too much butter should be grounds for firinging..

It's not even butter anyway, it's like butter flavoured oil or something.

I used to get no butter on my popcorn, but my wife corrupted me and now I have to have butter. When I order it I watch the person to see if they layer the butter or just pump 40 strokes along the sides of the bag after they fill it to the top. Whenever I see them layer it I want to tip them. But I don't because you don't tip butter people do you?

One theatre that is really close, has great seats, and is never really full has terrible popcorn and they let you put on your own butter, but you CAN'T LAYER it if they give you a full bag. I refuse to go back to that theatre and drive a mile farther away just because of their popcorn policy. AND I don't tell them because I don't want them to change their butter policy and think they can court me back. I am a fickle man and when crossed, I rebel!



Yea, and Christopher was kind of a scientist who could fly the ship and brew a complex oil based fuel that took him 20 years to make using primitive methods found in scrap heaps...but reading english????? DO THEY THINK WE ARE IDIOTS?

Yeah, I forgot. Some of the aliens must have enrolled in human school, or perhaps took some ESL classes. And Christopher obviously took some night classes at law school so he could understand his legal rights as a tennant. Not to mention learning how to use human computers to brew his special fuel. You're right, it's not nearly as silly as I thought.

[x] Hovering alien ship for 20 years
[x] Aliens allowing themselves to be concentration camp style living conditions
[x] DNA based weapons
[ ] Aliens can read or understand basic legal matters


Sorry, I got worked up over that popcorn thing

Because you're soooo good at subtlety.

The leadership caste (which Christopher was the last [or second to last, his buddy that got killed early on may have been one too] of on the ship) would be the organizing force behind the rest of the prawns. For all we know it takes more than one to make any kind of functioning leadership structure, but that really doesn't matter. Maybe it would help to think of the vast majority of Earth bound prawns as adolescents. They're not disciplined, nor none to savvy in the ways of deception, violence, or teamwork. In short, they're not your typically hollywood aliens.

"To the point at which they would be able to understand the concept of putting their signature on an eviction notice?" THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT!!!eleventy!!1 They didn't understand it, the corporate goons knew they wouldn't understand it and didn't care, the technicalities standing in the way of their objective were obeyed. Perhaps that was too subtle for ya.

lol

I may have forgotten but I don't remember Christopher discussing his legal rights, only stating that he was not going to leave.

But you are right, nowhere in the history of time have two people with different languages ever spent time together and learned to communicate and understand each other. Never. Ever. Much less in a movie about aliens.

You don't think you can give someone who never used a computer a computer and in 20 years can't figure things out? Especially when they used to live on a BIG SPACE SHIP??????haha

You seem more worried about language barriers and landlord-tenant statutes then realizing your freaking out over a movie about aliens from another world.

I have no issue with you disliking the movie, I, after taking time to let it all sink in, have decided that I was glad to have seen it but won't be rushing out to see it again or get it on DVD. I commend the creators for making an original movie in a time where everything is a sequel, a remake, or an feature length film based on a old sitcom.

I saw a completely different film then you and at times I think I paid better attention to what was on the screen. I just think your reasoning is a little off the track but I will agree to disagree.

this is far too level headed. perhaps some chips would help?

I DON"T WANT THE FUCKING CHIPS!!!

LOL, you got me! I never said I was good at it, and I don't get paid zillions of dollars to make movies. I expect people who do get paid zillions of dollars to be much better at it.

Perhaps aliens could have learned all those things in 20 years, but that's a very simplistic way of avoiding having to put any real thought into making an intelligent movie. Rather than putting any effort into developing the backstory we'll just make 20 years pass and then people who love the movie will be able to explain all the far-fetched crap we've fed them by pointing to the fact that 20 years passed. Oh, and to satisfy the people who want some sort of explanation let's start the movie by summarizing the backstory in 5 minutes. Then we can get right into the cool special effects and stuff.

Well, I think this pretty much sums it up:


But, I'm curious, what are some flicks with aliens that you love? I'm trying to get a sense of scale here.

Someone seems to be unclear what science fiction means.

Also, I am glad they took 10 minutes to do backstory which to most people was clear and concise or else jb's movie would have been 14 hours long.

I am curious how he reacted to MIB and Independence Day.

Again, this could really be solved by learning the definition of science fiction, or fiction in general.

And my last point that I keep forgetting to mention, crazy how a South African makes a movie that takes place in South Africa.

I rarely agree with Steve Briand over there, but I'm curious as to what your ideal movie would that would fit into a ~2 hour movie scheme? Not every movie gets to have a full explanation of what's going on, while also accomplishing everything that the director is looking to do. A couple reviews I read of this thought they didn't delve into the apartheid scenario enough, since that probably should have been the main purpose o the film.

You don't just get to make a whole movie about aliens that attempts to explain how much/how awful apartheid was. I really don't know shit about the whole subject, but I do want to learn more after watching this and knowing its basis was on something that affected an area for multiple decades, and how awful it was.

You either get to watch a movie blindly and enjoy it for what it is, or you're going to go into it fully versed on the previous historical concepts that its based off of and try to figure out what the director was trying to say as a bigger message. Why play the middle role, where you don't like what the movies about, plus are disgusted with how it was executed? This was a relatively low budget film that, in some ways, attempted to give a different perspective on one of the bigger human tragedies of the last 30 years. You either have to narrow or broaden your perspective on this, and not just pick some middle of the road aspect that doesn't really accomplish much aside from bitching about what is, in most opinions, a very well thought-out and executed movie.

I'm not saying its an amazing film that can never be equaled, but I enjoyed it immensely on a bunch of different levels, and look forward to rewatching it and learning more about what actually happened in the weeks to come. What's to hate?

Kinda entertaining movie, but with more holes than swiss cheese.

My favorite holes are, why would a hovering spacecraft be left untouched for twenty years. If nothing else the humans woulda gutted it for technological reasons,and would the rest of the world really just sit around and allow outer s[pace visitors be mistreated by some 2nd rate nation?