I'm going to see this tonight, quite excited.

Just got back. This is an awesome, awesome movie. Well worth the price of admission, and MovieBob has the Hawk endorsement that he was not lying:

http://moviebob.blogspot.com/2009/08/escape-to-movies-district-9.html

(Sorry for the link, asshat tag for some reason won't embed properly.)

I'll do my best to address some of these as best I can:

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

Did it bother you that the aliens and humans were able to understand each other completely, with no explaination given? There were 1.6 aliens on Earth for 20 years, sure, but there's a billion Chinese who have been here millenia and yet most Americans couldn't carry on a conversation with them (And they at least speak a discernible language, not a series of clicks!)?

No, because all the humans who understood the aliens were people who, it seemed, had been working closely with them for most of those twenty years. I assumed it was both part of their job description and inevitable that they would learn to understand (if not replicate) the alien speech. After all, if you worked with the Chinese for twenty years, I bet you'd pick up quite a bit of the language too--and in a lot less time than that. Its not like they had huge discussions about particle physics or something. The level of communication was basic, but served the story. It might be a BIT implausible that BOTH groups understood each other SO well, with nary an instance of miscommunication, but it makes enough sense on a surface level, and the story was so good and fast paced, that I was willing to forgive them that.

I'll also note that plenty of non-natives have learned how to understand (and eve speak) the various Khoisan family of languages (that is, real-life clicking languages, many of which are spoken in South Africa) on which the aliens language is based.

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

If these aliens were all so stupid, except apparently for one, how were they able to build a giant fucking rocketship and pilot it trillions of miles?

Not quite sure what you mean by this. The aliens weren't presented as stupid...if you mean why didn't any other aliens make an escape attempt like Christopher Johnson (our hero alien) did, I assume its for the same reason that most people didn't and don't attempt to escape from ghettos and camps anywhere else in the world. Day to day living is such a struggle that thoughts of escape don't really concern them. Admittedly that's assigning very human emotion and thought process to aliens, but since the aliens do act very, very human so that the story and the metaphor can be told, it didn't bother me. Maybe its not realistic, but fuck: what kind of a story would this be if they were unable to communicate, and we couldn't understand them at all? It would be a reverse Independence Day, which could be cool, but a) is not the story that's trying to be told here and b) be far inferior and less moving than the one that WAS told.

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

How was a ship that needed 1.6 million aliens (Admittedly probably not all crew) able to be piloted away by just 2 aliens?

Well, even on most huge sea ships today, most of the crew is there for maintenance and in case of emergency. Even the captain doesn't actually steer anymore--he programs, and the computer steers for him. So its not outside the realm of possibility.

Also, I kind of assumed that the ship was a colonizing ship, and that most of the aliens were 'civilian' as it were, trying to find somewhere else to live. Don't know if that really addresses your question, but *shrug*.

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

Why didn't the smart alien have to work in secret instead of saying "Look, the ship will take like 20 minutes to fix (Which, it is my understanding is not an exaggeration) so let me fix it and we'll leave your planet"?

Ah, this one I will give you. Its the one issue that pulled me out of the movie until I really, really thought about it afterwards. after thinking about it, though, this is what I came up with:

Remember WHO it is that wants the aliens to leave: its the civilian population. But remember who is in CHARGE of the aliens: governments, and the MNU corporation. And what do THEY want from the aliens? Technology. As long as the aliens are stuck on Earth, they have access to their technology, and a chance to figure out how to use it. That's why Wiccus is so valuable; he represents the human-alien bridge.

That's the major reason. The other reason I thought of is, what is Christopher going to do, as he leaves? He's going to get help. Which means in three years, we're going to have several motherships full of technologically advanced and VERY pissed off alien liberation parties showing up to kick humanoty's ass. I'm sure the governments realize that we sealed our fate with the beginning of oppressing the aliens--once we took that step, we couldn't ever let them leave to get help or bring reinforcements.

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

Why the fuck would the ship's fuel turn a human into an alien? That's like me spraying you with gasoline and you turning into a lobster.

Well, remember how alien technology works: DNA. Now, I'm not saying it makes a whole lot of sense that being sprayed with alien DNA results in the gradual replacement of human DNA with alien, but who knows what else is in there or how it works. Maybe to humans, the mix that powers their ships acts like a virus that slowly rewrites human DNA, or something. Goofy? Sure. Immersion breaking, not at all. And given the whole DNA thing, I think they did do their best to at least provide a small outlet of explanation. I mean, he has to get turned into an alien SOMEHOW, and the fuel has to fall into the hands of the MNU, and that was quite a clever way to do it, imho.

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

From everything I've heard about the movie, including the positive reviews, it sounds terrible. It seems to be getting fantastic reviews for the most part, b ut I get the feeling that's because, like Michael Bay, the majority of Americans can no longer distinguish between plot and special effects. Mel Gibson may be a fucking lunatic, but damnit, the man understands story structure!

I'll just leave that part alone, since its not a specific question.

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

Also, blatant allegory doesn't get to be called original.

It wasn't original with Orwell either, and yet he wrote two of the most brilliant pieces of allegory ever put on paper. Just because someone didn't invent the idea doesn't mean they can't do great things with it. And while we're at it, Animal Farm's allegory was about as heavy handed and blatant as it gets--and yet it still works, and is still a work of genius. Don't get me wrong, this movie isn't Orwell, but its certainly a new take on an old problem by a brilliant new director from another culture. That alone makes it worth the price of admission, even if you find the story itself "stupid" (which most people I know who've seen it haven't.)

I for one did not find it stupid at all, in case that isn't blatantly obvious already. In fact, I wasn't going to admit this because it sounds retarded, but under the circumstances I will let it be known that I actually did shed a tear or two at the end of the movie. Not because I'm some easily manipulated, spoon-fed moviegoer, but because, by the end, the movie had genuinely made me care about Chris and Wiccus, and I really, REALLY cared about what happened to them. Granted that's just me, but...*shrug* It worked on at least one person.

^



At this point, Jeeb, you're so dead-set against liking it, and have made such an enormous point of saying so here, that even if God himself came down into the theatre and let everyone know that this movie was, divine revelation, it would still get a "meh" from you.