District 9

[Dan2nd]

Yestaday I was bored so decided to watch a film I hadn't seen before and came accross District 9. Originally I thought it was going to be a crappy Alien Invasion film and most of the story would involve the White House being blow up and New York getting attacked.

Well the first good thing I found with this film wasn't set in the U.S. Secondly it was actually an Alien film not to do with an invasion infact it showed the human race being extreamly cruel towards the Aliens rather than the other way round. The story basically was about a race of about two million aliens being stuck on Earth for 20 years and being treated like refugees. The film is set in present day so I'm guessing the aliens would have turned up in the eighties.

The film deals with subjects such as racisim (speciesim) by the humans constantly referring to the aliens as 'prawns' (I guess this is referring to racial slurs such as the 'N' Word) and constantly threatening to shoot them and their children if they do not follow their orders. The cities you do get to see in the film have massive posters stuck up saying 'no Non-Humans allowed'.

I thought it was a lot better than I was expecting and actually think the film has a really good moral story behind it.

I was wondering if anyone else has seen it and what you thought?

[LoveToStack]

Yeah I saw it in the cinema back in the summer and really enjoyed it. As you say it was refreshing to have an alien encounter that wasn't humans being dominated by evil man-eating aliens.
I thought Wikus was an excellent character and because the actor was basically an unknown, it was easy to get sucked into the story. You could really feel his pain when they made him kill that prawn and then when they had him strapped down on the table later on.
My only criticism was that towards the end it seemed to be swallowed up by the large shootout scene in District 9, I would have prefered if they just carried on with the story rather than just crowbarring in an action sequence (although I suppose they had to since the film was based on that 10 minute short film which was basically an action sequence in itself). I really hope they make a sequel and I think it says on wiki that the director would love to make one so fingers crossed. :)

[Black_Apalachi]

I think you both hit the nail on the head. I've noticed it's usually the people who actually understand the themes and messages behind the film that say they liked it. Everyone else just moans about the style of it and the accents and insists it's a crap film. Personally, I rate it in the top three best films of 2009.

A sequel is almost inevitable, with the alien coming back with the technology to fix the man (I've forgotten names of characters). Although if he's become one of them and a lot of time has passed, I think it might end up like Avatar, where he stays with their species. Either way, definitely looking forward to it :).

[Misawa]

It made a lot of money, so the studio execs will green light a sequel for definite.

I understood the film and I liked it, just didn't love it. It didn't make my top 5 of 2009 list.

[Black_Apalachi]

Yeah you're an exception! :P Nah, of course there will be people who just didn't think it was that good.