Escape to the Movies: District 9

[linkmaxwell]

District 9 looks like a good film and worth my $8 for sure. Can't wait to see it.

(A little thought exercise: There are many people here who would not like to see a Halo movie [myself only included if it was a shameless cash-in like so many other videogame movies]. Would there be any other FPS games that would make a better movie? Why?)

Personally, I think that Goldeneye for the N64 would make a great movie.

 

[Eric the Orange]

snip

Anyone else find it funny that people always sign up to post disagreeing opinions and never agreeing ones. Oh, well human nature I guess.

 

[Mr. Doe]

well I wanted to post something diametrically opposed to moviebob because Ive agreed with all his reveiws up until now but apparently he saw something in it that I didnt but hey maybe thats because I think about everything when it isnt advertised as a mind vacation presented to me by the man who brought the lord of the rings to life.

Edit and what makes it less of a post because I just made my profile I regular this site and just because I didnt have a profile Im not good enough to have an opinion?

 

[daedrick]

Going to see it now, at 9:40 tonight, east time. Cant wait.

I went to see it at 7:30 instead. And I have to say that Im decieved. It was an OK movie, but it really didnt hook me up.

 

[BlackIronGuardian]

Agred. Et wahs a brrilliant felm.

Boot Ai dunt knoe whai dere's oall dis haete forr ai Halo muvey. Oi men, evenn de Godfaatha book was bad, right? Boot de felm es considered won of de behst ehver maid.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone with that.

 

[PirateKing]

I'm a little more excited now. It's 6:43 as I write this and some friends and I are gonna go see it at 7:25.

 

[BlackIronGuardian]

Agred. Et wahs a brrilliant felm.

Boot Ai dunt knoe whai dere's oall dis haete forr ai Halo muvey. Oi men, evenn de Godfaatha book was bad, right? Boot de felm es considered won of de behst ehver maid.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone with that.

for the love of god, what the HELL HAPPENED TO YOUR KEYBOARD????

It went bad South African. Ask your doctor about it.

 

[happysock]

The hell Halo Is a great storyline I'm sorry if you can think for more then the 3 hours of a movie to enjoy something thats complexity driven, last stand action, and has more undertones then teenage angst.

How about steven Spielberg LOVING the halo movie idea you think that guy doesn't know a good movie when he sees one?

Edit: other then that though good review totally agree with you on that sci fi argument. its targeted twords dushbages what can we expect if idiots love something? I saw it last night and it really was as good as this guy says.

Thank god someone else thought the halo movie was a good idea i would have loved to have seen that movie, the game is rich with a massive backstory that has had years spent making it good, it needs a movie because bungie are poor at telling a story especially through video games. This film does look awesome and i saw all of blomkamp early work and was incredably impressed. Can't wait till it comes out over here

 

[DreamingMerc]

First off...King Kong blows beyond any measurable method of suck.

Yes I know I'm rambling on but for one reason or another when a film maker, Jackson in particular does this quite often, have military personal on film they're often laughable and amateur at best. Obviously meant to be unlikeable cannon fodder for the protagonist to waste willy nilly without the audience feeling appalled at the visual obliteration, but broken down its just a petty story telling trick. I must say I do feel cheapened when such a trick is pulled. The argument I guess being that, well these are not national military they're evil bad mercenaries who kill for pleasure and money and "plot to take over zee world!". Again a story telling shortcut and a bland one at that. At this point your better off as a story teller with your antagonist as cardboard cut outs with "bad guy" written across them.

For me if your going to show military personnel you better do it right. Let me set this strait this does NOT mean a heroic image as this is another bitter bite in story telling; but actual competent complex human beings. Anger, humor, sadness, excileration etc, things that give a character actual depth. Even given that the men portrayed are in the private sector. If you take the time and actually look into the real world of private military contracting, you will find most of the guys in the business are not evil. No doubt their are bad seeds as you find in any organization right down to bloody Green Peace. Most of the guys are simply ex-military or ex-law enforcement trying to make an actual living with the skill trade they have. Most have a very professional attitude and make an effort to complete their contracts with efficiency. Yes PMC's profit from war and destruction as does any other organization in conflict zones.

So what have we learned, first off as far as this film's story telling methods are concerned they choose some cheap and petty methods, private military is not this great evil plague and if you are such a contractor on a contract to patrol an urban center with a large alien presence bring a lot of capable friends with big guns, armor and proper air support.

 

[Vimbert]

I'm intrigued. This movie looked good-ish to me for quite some time, but now I think I'll go see it. I do agree that it's a good thing that the Halo movie got canned. Mostly because there hasn't been a good video game movie made yet. Even for the video games with good stories, what is often 30+ hours of storytelling cannot and should not be distilled into what is, at most, a three-hour experience.

 

[Vimbert]

Personally, I think that Goldeneye for the N64 would make a great movie.

Okay, I do apologize if this winds up being a double post, but the record must be set straight. Sorry if you were joking, but were you unaware that Goldeneye was based on a James Bond movie? The game took a few liberties (to its benefit), but it's still a licensed game.

 

[philosophicalbastard]

I dont think so Moviebob I saw the movie at an advanced screening last night and I felt it was horrible. The main character was a huge Douchebag and completly unlikable and you CAN get away with that if hes well characterized and his motivations are understandable, BUT they didnt have any Characters besides Christopher, and the Villains were all stupidly evil for no apparent reason WHY did they set up a small slum for them in an african hellhole and not in some place reasonable I get that its social commentary but seriously an explenation for that is needed what we didnt have enough trucks to move them somwhere not in a state of dissaray? WHY were they all horribly rascist? WHY for the love of god did they not clear out the horrible gangs in the area? HOW did they set up district nine with all the horrible things going on there? WHY did the aliens have on again off again superstrength? and the final reason WHY THE FUCK ARE THE ALIENS EVEN HERE? that never got explained in the movie and also what the fuck kind of name is WIKAS?

First off welcome to the escapist. Secondly I can easily explain everything you seemed to miss. The reason the aliens are there is because they crash landed while on the way to places unknown, they live in district 9 because noone was expecting over a million refugees to come out of the ship so it was thrown together without much care.

And the gangs were firmly routed around that place before the aliens came, besides they were fully armed and good enough to fight agaist trained mercenaries. To answer about a quarter of your questions people are bigots, and there was a giant corporation running the place that deals with weapon manufacturing. Also the main villain was a mercenary so he was insane, and the main character was selfish and would do anything to reverse his mutation.

Hopefully this answers your questions.

 

[Mr. Doe]

A well thought out post about PMCs and other military figures in movies

Thank you for making a wall of text I wanted to read but I liked King Kong

 

[Mostly Harmless]

*&@#, I want to see this movie so badly but I'm still a couple month bellow 17 so I can't.

 

[Mr. Doe]

My post

First off welcome to the escapist. Secondly I can easily explain everything you seemed to miss. The reason the aliens are there is because they crash landed while on the way to places unknown, they live in district 9 because noone was expecting over a million refugees to come out of the ship so it was thrown together without much care.

And the gangs were firmly routed around that place before the aliens came, besides they were fully armed and good enough to fight agaist trained mercenaries. To answer about a quarter of your questions people are bigots, and there was a giant corporation running the place that deals with weapon manufacturing. Also the main villain was a mercenary so he was insane, and the main character was selfish and would do anything to reverse his mutation.

Hopefully this answers your questions.

well that would be all well and good if they didnt you know have twenty years in the time frame between the initial building and populating and that you know they were damn aliens. and in the movie Them PMCs and Wikas managed to kill them all in like five effin minutes(granted he had the alien weapons but still twenty years and dealing with such a profound event as the FIRST CONTACT WITH ALIENS and they couldnt do anything about a cripple and fifteen africans with weapons they bought after the fall of russia) also I dont think just because a company makes weapons theyre instantly gonna be Dick Dastardly level evil and "the main villain was a mercenary so he was insane" is possibly the strangest steryotype ever. I also doubt that all the world would just say "Oh Alien beings from an entirly different planet lets throw them into refugee camps/Perform horrible experiments on them/leave them all with some random gang members, because we cant figure out how to fire their guns."

 

[Zhalath]

Having actually seen this movie, I can back up this review's statement. It is beyond excellent.

 

[philosophicalbastard]

My post

well that would be all well and good if they didnt you know have twenty years in the time frame between the initial building and populating and that you know they were damn aliens. and in the movie Them PMCs and Wikas managed to kill them all in like five effin minutes(granted he had the alien weapons but still twenty years and dealing with such a profound event as the FIRST CONTACT WITH ALIENS and they couldnt do anything about a cripple and fifteen africans with weapons they bought after the fall of russia) also I dont think just because a company makes weapons theyre instantly gonna be Dick Dastardly level evil and "the main villain was a mercenary so he was insane" is possibly the strangest steryotype ever. I also doubt that all the world would just say "Oh Alien beings from an entirly different planet lets throw them into refugee camps/Perform horrible experiments on them/leave them all with some random gang members, because we cant figure out how to fire their guns."

Well I don't think the gangs interferred with what the company was doing so I don't think they cared. The main villain also said he enjoyed killing the aliens which I should've pointed out in the original post, and I do not believe the public was made aware of what was happening in the lab and district 9 was not reported on in full detail. Oh one more thing they really didn't have enough room for the aliens, most likely because of uncooprative locals.