Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
I dunno, I've met Saffas who are like that, stiff and Calvinistic - mind you Good Intentions isn't, so maybe the younger generation are getting more liberated.
District 9
- Thread starter Dandred
- Start date
I dunno, I've met Saffas who are like that, stiff and Calvinistic - mind you Good Intentions isn't, so maybe the younger generation are getting more liberated.
D
Well-Known Member
Idris - re your spoiler - yes, I suppose there was...though I don't think I thought of the parallel until just now.
***
Re the documentary/reality TV set-up at the beginning: I thought it was great and totally appropriate for 'the moment'. I wondered the extent to which they were conjuring the American version of The Office. The guy playing Sharlto Copley (the guy playing Wikus) even resembles Steve Carrell.
***
Re the documentary/reality TV set-up at the beginning: I thought it was great and totally appropriate for 'the moment'. I wondered the extent to which they were conjuring the American version of The Office. The guy playing Sharlto Copley (the guy playing Wikus) even resembles Steve Carrell.
DJWrongspeed
radio eros
I'm suprised so many people thought it was amazing. The beginning sequence seems very implausible, (after accepting that aliens might come) the security handling of everything just didn't add up. This is a strange cut'n'paste job from other films, not sure why it needed to be so unoriginal given the initial premise ?
Independence Day, Terminator, Children of Men, Requiem for a Dream, Robocop, The Fly & Tetsuo (obviously) and the whole film through media's eyes has been so done to death.
Is it racist, probably, they didn't need to specify the mafia were Nigerian did they ?
Independence Day, Terminator, Children of Men, Requiem for a Dream, Robocop, The Fly & Tetsuo (obviously) and the whole film through media's eyes has been so done to death.
Is it racist, probably, they didn't need to specify the mafia were Nigerian did they ?
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
Why would the security handling of everything not add up? South Africa is one of the major exporters of mercenaries today, and the merc firms include a shit load of bastards from apartheid regime days. Of course they were going to move into District 9 and 'fuck shit up' to use the pithy American phrase.
One quibble - the individual dwelling units the aliens had wasn't really consistent with the idea of them as an insect-like hive society.
Oh and this thread (which has spoilers) contains this comment:
http://io9.com/5340409/is-district-9-racist
The use of human sacrifice does, however, evoke old racist tropes about Africa, that much is true.
D'wards
IT'S YOUR DECISION DANIEL
Giving that this is the case, i thought it was refreshing that it showed this "how it is" rather than being all PC about it.
This!
Since democracy in SA the Nigerian gangs have gained a foothold in SA and all sorts of misdeeds are attributed to them from petty street level crime to drugs to arms to entire no go areas being run by them and it's not the first movie to portray some local warlord as less than pure. They could have portrayed him coming from some imaginary war torn African country so as not offend those that seek out to be easily offended but ,whether people like it or not, Nigerian gangsters in SA are a reality.
I see they also "borrowed" a famous phrase from the PAC back in the day "one prawn one bullet"
Overall a good movie and I look forward to a ludicrous and ultimately disappointing sequel
bhamgeezer
Dogs bark
This is the best film I seen this year, I already watched it twice
Structaural
in Chatsubo
According to IMDB the guy who played Wikus wasn't an actor, he was some technician on the director's previous production who impressed him somehow. And he ad-libbed all his lines in District 9. Might explain some of the acting 
I enjoyed it, thought the effects were brilliantly done, bit Cloverfield with the camera shake. All the Aliens were CGI too, so I guess the actors had that to content with (the Star Wars effect).
Oh and the guns and shit were based on Halo - the director's other pet project.
I enjoyed it, thought the effects were brilliantly done, bit Cloverfield with the camera shake. All the Aliens were CGI too, so I guess the actors had that to content with (the Star Wars effect).
Oh and the guns and shit were based on Halo - the director's other pet project.
D
Well-Known Member
That's my point precisely. It's interesting to me that in the US, very few people make mention of this element in discussing the films. Nigerian gangs are a reality. There is also a lot of xenophobia, correspondingly, towards Nigerians (and Mozambicans - at least there was when I lived there) in general. I thought the Nigerian specificity was also very much 'of the moment'. None of my South African friends with whom I'm in contact have seen the movie (!) and I'm curious about the conversation about it there and how people are responding to the representation of Nigerians.
D
Well-Known Member
According to IMDB the guy who played Wikus wasn't an actor, he was some technician on the director's previous production who impressed him somehow. And he ad-libbed all his lines in District 9. Might explain some of the acting
I enjoyed it, thought the effects were brilliantly done, bit Cloverfield with the camera shake. All the Aliens were CGI too, so I guess the actors had that to content with (the Star Wars effect).
Oh and the guns and shit were based on Halo - the director's other pet project.
Wikipedia tells a different story. According to that, the guy's a media man - producer, director, actor. Not a 'technician'.
D
Well-Known Member
I guess there's a part of the portrayal of Nigerians that reminds me of some of my experiences in South Africa that were troubling.
When I lived in Jo'burg, I found it hard to listen to people rattle off about Nigerians all the time. And it happened a lot. People I knew who loved to party, took a lot of drugs, etc, and then complained incessantly about Nigerians and organized crime (without whom they wouldn't have been partying in quite the same ways, no doubt).
And some of the Nigerians I met at university there were definitely in for a hard time *because* they were Nigerian. It was, to some people, irrelevant that they were graduate students who might ultimately compensate in part for the SA brain drain and not mafia.
When I lived in Jo'burg, I found it hard to listen to people rattle off about Nigerians all the time. And it happened a lot. People I knew who loved to party, took a lot of drugs, etc, and then complained incessantly about Nigerians and organized crime (without whom they wouldn't have been partying in quite the same ways, no doubt).
And some of the Nigerians I met at university there were definitely in for a hard time *because* they were Nigerian. It was, to some people, irrelevant that they were graduate students who might ultimately compensate in part for the SA brain drain and not mafia.
keybored
Well done. You remember cat good.
Saw it last night, not bad if you don't look too deep and just take it as a comedy scifi. The humour and gore/ew reminded me of Jackson's Bad Taste and Brain Dead (the Wikus/Lionel characters were almost interchangeable). With acting to match.
Structaural
in Chatsubo
mentalchik
"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit."
Just got back from the cinema and have to say i thoroughly enjoyed it !
as for the question of the Nigerian crime gang...........i didn't take from it the message that all Nigerians were criminal, as it was set in SA isn't it more likely the gang element would be african.....it would have been a bit weird if they had been say, Russian...........
think people may be being a tad over sensative !
as for the question of the Nigerian crime gang...........i didn't take from it the message that all Nigerians were criminal, as it was set in SA isn't it more likely the gang element would be african.....it would have been a bit weird if they had been say, Russian...........
think people may be being a tad over sensative !
D
Well-Known Member
I don't think anyone's suggesting that they should be Russian (or non-African, for that matter). If you know anything about the status of and attitude towards Nigerians in South Africa, though, you can imagine how this might be a "hot" issue.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Yeah, there is a big prejudice against Nigerians from all I've seen, not just in SA. People from Joburg have a cheek calling Nigerians gangsters - last I heard, Nigerians were moving back to Lagos from Joburg because it was safer! SA's hardly short of native crooks.
mentalchik
"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit."
revol68
what, fucking what?
Went to see this last night and thought it was actually pretty brilliant, the opening stuff was really good and pretty funny how it showed the cross over between 'liberal' multiculturalism, policing and militarisation. The look of the film was very impressive and I thought the man characters movement from comic manager to victim/avenger was pretty good, tbh I didn't expect to see anything as brutal as the scenes where he is forced to fire the alien technology.
One of the best big production English language movies I've seen in a very, very long time, and sure the end turned a bit generic action sci fi but then how else would it end, I certainly didn't want to not see Christopher (nice nod to slave names ) and his kid get away.
One thing I wondered was how it could have been if they'd used a black south african lead character, there would have been more room for exploring the tensions in attitudes towards the aliens but then I suppose they maybe wanted the character to in no way 'relate' to the otherness of the aliens at the start but to be forced into breaking it down by external pressures.
One of the best big production English language movies I've seen in a very, very long time, and sure the end turned a bit generic action sci fi but then how else would it end, I certainly didn't want to not see Christopher (nice nod to slave names ) and his kid get away.
One thing I wondered was how it could have been if they'd used a black south african lead character, there would have been more room for exploring the tensions in attitudes towards the aliens but then I suppose they maybe wanted the character to in no way 'relate' to the otherness of the aliens at the start but to be forced into breaking it down by external pressures.
D
Well-Known Member
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
The depiction of the aliens highlights a basic problem in sci-fi generally. If we ever do encounter alien life, it will be just that - alien. There's no reason to assume they would have the same sort of motivations we do (i.e. parent/child relationships and the motivations that flow from that) or that we could even in principle communicate with them.
revol68
what, fucking what?
Yeah but it does make a good artistic device for questions of otherness, in many ways it forces you into a position of the racist for whom the other is irrational and unreasonable, after all I did find myself wincing thoroughly at the idea of inter species prostitution.
It also raises issues about assimilation and on whose terms.
erm did everyone miss the point about the nigerians? they offer just another layer of parody re racism/apartheid..... the film is littered with ways that white/authority is racist towards aliens, but also ways that aliens are similar to humans.... the same thing happens with nigerians, who have some aspects of being in authority and racist (over the aliens) and some aspects of being the subject of racism, particularly their behaviours in this context being a direct result of previous marginalisation, just as the aliens become more and more savage as a result of their own marginalisation.
i really really liked the film - i love a bit of scifi and you just dont get that much original stuff. i did think the racism theme was hammered home just a little too blatantly (aliens are just like us cos they love their twee ja ja binks children etc).
i really really liked the film - i love a bit of scifi and you just dont get that much original stuff. i did think the racism theme was hammered home just a little too blatantly (aliens are just like us cos they love their twee ja ja binks children etc).
Have downloaded quite a good quality torrent of this. Not sure whether to watch or wait til the cinema (not going to get to go for a bit)...
revol68
what, fucking what?
It deserves to be seen in a cinema, it looks amazing.
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