District 9...Good God!

[rabid1st]

I am going to take this under a cut, just in case someone out there hasn't seen this movie, yet.

I suppose I should have been warned off by the comparision made between Torchwood: CoE and District 9...but no, I didn't wise up one iota. Instead, I bought into the hype, which was carried along to a pitched frenzy by the critics. One and all they lined up to give District 9 an A+ and rave about it's refreshing realism. I've heard critics call this film "brave"...really? BRAVE? There are brave things about Torchwood CoE...but not about this film. I suppose the distributor could be considered brave though...for letting this one out in the summer. But maybe not...because what this film does have going for it is contrast...it isn't a polished, committee-written vehicle from some twenty-year old starlet. It also isn't even remotely good.

Again, I must ask what hole the people who found this film "original" have been living in for the last decade. Docudrama is as old as the X-Cops episode of the X-files. Every television show has done one of these...House had the elephant boy episode, Supernatural had Ghostfacers...even Doctor Who had Love & Monsters. So, the idea of recording some lame jerk going about in clueless fashion is nothing new. Helping the alien escape is as old as E.T. at least...hello, The Day the Earth Stood Still, too. And, well, yes, people are dicks...especially in groups of ten or more.

So...it's not that new...or different. But that's not what is making me say, "Good God!" here. No, what is making me say that...is that it is just a really bad movie. We have the Robocop bit with a guy who doesn't in any way qualify as a protagonist. Yeah, I get that he sort of changes from a bigoted buffoon to a body-armored buffoon...but still...it's all magic, isn't it? His change, which is hardly logical, is based on him stumbling across something that a couple aliens are doing...that somehow dovetails neatly into a grand human conspiracy, but which has no real explanation. And he ends up running from people. He doesn't really seem to feel anything for anyone else or have any true moment of revelation. He's just reacting to being clueless and terrified.

And so, this is basically Jack deciding that the noise that killed Clem will kill the 456...because it is a different noise. Just because something different happens...that doesn't make whatever happened an answer to all of your plot holes. Oh, look, he got sprayed with something...and now he's going to change...because...alien fuel is biological...remember the weapons? Yes, I do...but that still doesn't explain anything. Yes, I feel sorry for the doe-eyed aliens, confused by humans and held back by living conditions that make very little sense...given the massive ship that should be salvaged by someone. That humans would just sort of give up on real communication with the aliens...and that we apparently didn't have metal detectors...both seem rather like GAPPING HOLES in this plot.

I am genuinely worried about the viewing audience at this point...because the fervor over this movie makes no sense at all. I am thinking the critics and others just can't see that there are no logical connections at work in these stories. It is almost as if vast numbers of people are no longer capable of using higher thought to reach conclusions. They seem to think that any conclusion is valid if someone in authority tells them it is. I mean, we have that with Fox News...don't think about what they say...don't try to follow it with logic...just repeat the mantra until you believe you understand things, then head out to a townhall meeting and disrupt the process. Maybe I'm just getting too old for this crap...but, honestly, the level of thought going into these "original epics" is miniscule.

District 9 wasn't even DARK...it was just dim.

Comments

[adriana-is.livejournal.com]

god, what a waste of time and money. The character was dim from start to finish, and it was one long, jumbled, annoying mess.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Yes...thank you! Sanity reigns here, at least. It was robbery to charge me 8 bucks for that film. And yes...dim...very dim characters.

Rae

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

Hm, thanks for posting this. I was planning to go see a movie in the theater. Now it won't be this one. ::sigh::

[athenesolon.livejournal.com]

I agree with your assessment and said as much when I linked my journal post to yours here>>>http://athenesolon.livejournal.com/1069.html . As I said there I suspect it was supposed to show us humanity at its worst (much like Torchwood in that instance) but it didn't do a good job of looking back at itself. History often looks back in horror at some of the darker moments of history (the Inquisition is one example, Aushewitz (sp) for another and the Native American reservations for a third) and we constantly use them to better ourselves and our future. What I wanted from this show was a HINT of what we would do to better ourselves because of the events portrayed.

[erateini.livejournal.com]

At least with Torchwood you know what to expect!

[maniacalshen.livejournal.com]

I half-agree. There were giant, gaping holes in the plot that my friends and I were arguing over five seconds out of the theater. So perhaps that's why it fits into the summer flick old - plot holes and explosions and a robot. Why the bejesus did the aliens sell that kickass robot in the first place? I have no idea.

But I did like parts of it. There wasn't much clear good or bad; it painted a very muddy situation. The main character was an arrogant ass and a bigot - but he drew the line at murderer. The aliens were treated badly, but it was uncertain as to how much stealing or hurting people happened when in that process. The South African government was horribly evil, but its people still had "human" rights protesters. I guess the point of the film was the negative effects of ignorance, willful and not, and how the shades of gray can lie. Not a totally original idea, but hey.

I still don't get why only a few of the prawns, like, had a clue though. Maybe Christopher and his friend were part of a command class, and most of the rest were workers?

[saku-teiki.livejournal.com]

I actually really enjoyed the movie (although I saw it at midnight and the lateness may have skewed my perception, but I WAS very awake) and the plot holes gave me something to think about. My friends and I were arguing and coming up with ideas and explanations and it was really fun. I really enjoyed coming out of a movie and actually having some "why did this happen? why did that work? what did that mean?" questions other than the normal questions I have of "why did that idiot do THAT? what did this one sentence mean? did you see the costume error in this scene?"

Maybe. I dunno. I liked it a heck of a lot more than Inglourious Basterds and Up AND Public Enemies.