board77

Why cat food?

Well, to give a serious answer , I think it was probably to highlight the inhumanity (if you'll allow me to make an ironic word choice) with which the aliens were treated. Wikus, before he got sprayed with the mutating black goo, seemed to think it was cute that the aliens loved cat food. The Nigerians used it as a sort of reward to induce the aliens to sell their weapons. And, when Wikus grew his alien arm and escaped from the hospital, him eating cat food was a symbol that he was completely cut off from human society.

Anyways. Sorry to be all analysis-y.

Agree with Ang. Awesome movie. Needs to be seen.

elfshadow wrote:

Well, to give a serious answer , I think it was probably to highlight the inhumanity (if you'll allow me to make an ironic word choice) with which the aliens were treated. Wikus, before he got sprayed with the mutating black goo, seemed to think it was cute that the aliens loved cat food. The Nigerians used it as a sort of reward to induce the aliens to sell their weapons. And, when Wikus grew his alien arm and escaped from the hospital, him eating cat food was a symbol that he was completely cut off from human society.

Anyways. Sorry to be all analysis-y.

Yeah I got all of that, but why cat food?

Because it's cheap, easy to eat, and comes in small cans?

I was thinking more of a reference to the Jummy Carter days and cat food eating by the elderly.

In any case I liked the movie, but wasn't disturbed or moved by it. I didn't hear any messages. It was typical plot wise. It was fine. Ish.

I predict a sequel..........











in 3 years.

I actually hope we don't get a sequel.
This one stands quite well by itself.

Know I'm late to the party, but I saw District 9 the other day, and I thought it was very good. Like a few people here I did think that the apartheid point was hammered home a bit, but I guess I only really felt that because of the setting.

I was very offended by the casting decisions (all 'good' or at least morally grey characters were white, and all of the muti gang were black - maybe this latter part was realistic, but I wouldn't know) as well as the stylistic decision to subtitle everything the muti gang leader said. I tried staring at the top of the screen while he spoke, and it was perfectly clear. My girlfriend suggested that it was done because that kind of documentary always does sub heavy accents, but for me that doesn't wash, because in the 'live action' segments he was still subbed. I was kind of shocked that a film trying to make that kind of point could still screw up so badly when it came to human characters.

For those reasons, and also because of the slightly cheesy 'action' sequence towards the end (very good, but dragged on and was a little OTT) I'd say it was good, but not amazing. It's always thrilling to see something original though, and this certainly was.

With the cat food point, I couldn't help wondering if there was some substance in there that they weren't getting from all the meat they were being sold. We don't really know much about their world, but it wouldn't seem too far-fetched to suggest that the 'prawns' were healthier when they ate fish.

As far as their seeming inertia goes, the documentary section near the start did make the point that all the senior command seemed to have been killed by disease, and that the refugees were the hardier 'drone' types. Christopher never seemed like one of these (otherwise how would he have had the missing 'part'?) but it was never really explained how many of the refugees were 'thinkers' and whether the human assessment of them was accurate. I would assume it was supposed to be, since it was an anthropologist who made the statement, and also since although he was callous, Wikas, and others around him, knew enough about 'prawns' to understand their language nearly fluently.

Did anybody else wonder whether the corpse Christopher found was of his friend? It was burnt badly, so we couldn't see if it was unusually coloured like he was, but he did seem to single out the corpse, and to take it very personally. Obviously it all was a bit personal, but any of the things in that room could have been offensive to him.

Wish they'd told us 'Christopher's' real name. I know humans wouldn't have been able to pronounce it, but even Splash managed it.

*~Pips~*

Finally got to see it.

Rare that I give a movie 11/10.

I loved it.

I thought there were quite a few white characters who were portrayed as bad or evil.

Spoilers wrote:

All the corporate guys, for one. I also thought that the character of Fundiswa Mhlanga was portrayed as a good guy - the one who was on trial for exposing the illegal genetic testing that MNU was doing.

This whole comparison to apartheid makes the movie less than it is though. No matter where in the world the movie was places, it could've been compared to human on human atrocities there, whether it be in the U.S. with Native Americans, Europe with Jews or Gypsies, the Middle East, etc etc. Heck, even if this had taken place in some future world on the moon, we would've made the connections. The thing is, we wouldn't have made the connections because the movie was necessarily trying to make a point about human history.

It was moreso making the point about human nature.

That was the hardest part of the movie for me. I like to believe the best of people. I tell myself that people are inherently good. Watching this film though, I had to be honest with myself and say, "yes, that is how humans would react in this sort of situation." It's a very scary thing to watch this film and realize that you're not looking through a window into another world, but rather, you're looking in a mirror that's reflecting the worst and most basic of human nature. Fear of the unknown and fear of change are two things that make us behave in a way that we want to call animal and savage. Unfortunately, we need to change one of those two words. Be honest and call it behaving savage and very very human.

kinda spoilers wrote:

What most impressed me was that the aliens were made to look completely alien, to the point where normally it would be difficult to empathize with them, yet empathize the audience did.

Stunning film. I would put this in my list of top 10 movies I've ever seen without hesitation.




BTW - there are a LOT of spoilers from people on the first page of this thread that aren't labeled as such or hidden by color change or anything. Could the people who made those posts, or the rangers, hide or label those spoilers please?

I thought we'd sort of agreed that spoilers don't need to be tagged so long after a film/tv show had been out? Maybe just change the thread title to include (spoilers)?

Glad you guys liked it.

It only just came out this week over here.

Just sayin

It just came out? What marketing region is your area considered a part of? When I saw it a few weeks ago it was out for quite a while I did not think Europe would be far behind.

I'm starting to think that Gibraltar is the last place in Europe to get anything, TBH, but yeah - it only came out here last week.

We only just got Up and Julie & Julia as well. Next week we've got The Soloist and (500)Days of Summer.

Estel wrote:

We only just got Up and Julie & Julia as well.

Here too. So it's not just you.

So the most northern and the most southern parts of europe are on the same schedule

I'm happy to do whatever rangerly thing needs to be done. Just need to know what people want.

We just got "Up" here as well, but we got "District 9" in early Sept. Go figure...