Comments on: District 9: What Did You Think?

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 01:19:28 +0000

Not sure how I ended up on the wrong side of this. I’m mixed but overall positive on D9

Overall, I’ve got to say, it might be pretty budget at times, but I actually prefer Alive in Joburg over District 9. Perhaps AIJ was responsible for misaligning my expectations.

By: Saberj

Saberj — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:37:57 +0000

First off, yeah you did. It was called, “Two Geeks 102: Coming soon” or some similar statement that ended up being untrue. When the conversation broke down into a District 9 discussion, I changed the title to reflect something accurate.

Secondly, I do think it was better. And you missed your chance for the Transformers 2 bashing. Take that to the correct thread so I have one place to ignore all of those opinions at.

By: SeriouslynotWill

SeriouslynotWill — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:26:49 +0000

First off, i didn’t post this article…secondly Randy if you think Transformers 2 was better than this you may start a GSE civil war. Rusty I don’t even have anything to say to you;)

By: TotallyNotNick

TotallyNotNick — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:52:20 +0000

When I want the latest views on the world of science fiction cinema, I turn to Jamie King

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:35:15 +0000

oddly enough those were the two people whose oppinions I care about the most.

By: Keoki

Keoki — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:17:16 +0000

hahahahaha seems like a good place for him

By: TotallyNotNick

TotallyNotNick — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:23:33 +0000

Gentlemen, let’s not hate on George Bush. The man was my Wal Mart greeter last week. Nice dude

By: john_pavlich

john_pavlich — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 06:11:26 +0000

District 9 fans should check out the latest episode of http://www.slashfilmcast.com to hear a discussion/review, with comments from Fanboys director Kyle Newman and Sin City co-star, Jaime King.

By: Keoki

Keoki — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:52:12 +0000

i think it was right around the time you voted W in for a second term

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:14:05 +0000

@ I guess you’d be pissed to know it opened north of the border as well then?

New Foundland has it?!?!!?!

This is a classic example of how Americas stature abroad has fallen during the Bush years. When did America become a third world country?

By: TotallyNotNick

TotallyNotNick — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:40:38 +0000

hahaha

By: Keoki

Keoki — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:57:07 +0000

I guess you’d be pissed to know it opened north of the border as well then?

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:02:04 +0000

This is TOTAL fucking BULLSHIT. It is my god given RIGHT as an american to see movies before the rest of the shithole. That’s our reward for single handedly winning world war II.
Did the germans get it too? I’m gonna be fucking irate.

And did you just tell me the last line of the movie? Why would you do that? That is grossly inconsiderate.

By: Polygon_Wizard

Polygon_Wizard — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:42:03 +0000

Trust me, transforming robots aren’t necessarily that much harder to pull off….just flashier. Look at all those shiny metal parts!

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:08:42 +0000

Yeah it has. It’s got both Quentin’s best and worst qualities. I think it makes me angry to know that there is a great film to be made there but because nobody has the balls to restrain the director or tell him to hire an editor the movie suffers. Sigh, the last line is ‘You know, I think this is my masterpiece’, no Quentin, no it isn’t

By: TotallyNotNick

TotallyNotNick — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:45:06 +0000

Dude! Funny People, yes! Loved that one as well!

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:12:50 +0000

jack, has Inglorious Basterds opened in England?

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:12:02 +0000

Who’d have guessed it, my favourite film me the year is Funny People, typical but I loved every minute of it.

By: Saberj

Saberj — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:06:18 +0000

I’d love for Transformers to have effects on District 9’s level. I’m not sure it’s possible, though. Transformers would be a lot more difficult to pull off, given the fact that such a large part of the movie is giant robots. District 9 was great, but there wasn’t a lot that they had to do. The mothership wasn’t shown for most of the movie, and neither was the mecha. Beyond that, there was only the aliens. While the aliens are impressive, they aren’t as hard to pull off as transforming robots and such.

I’m not quite sure how my top ten movies fall. I should probably do that soon. But I think Transformers would be right around the top 5. Star Trek and Harry Potter would definitely make the top 5. I think 500 days of Summer is probably in there too. Moon would be top 10. Up and Hangover were great as well. Lots of movies I really enjoyed this year. But I sincerely enjoyed Transformers, yeah.

By: TotallyNotNick

TotallyNotNick — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:42:30 +0000

I ADORED District 9! It might be my favorite film of the year so far. After watching D9 and Star Trek and Moon; three fantastic science fiction movies, I’m really excited about where the genre can (or might) go in the decade to come. Transformers to me isn’t even relevant. It’s like talking about a Big Mac or something.

By: Polygon_Wizard

Polygon_Wizard — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:18:48 +0000

Unfortunately for me, there are several movies on Rusty’s list that I want to see, but never made it/won’t make it into theaters here, so I’ll have to wait for DVD. That said, these are my top 5 favorite movies that I HAVE seen this year:

1. Up
2. District 9
3. Star Trek
4. 500 Days of Summer
5. Coraline OR Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (depending on the day you asked me)

By: Polygon_Wizard

Polygon_Wizard — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:14:41 +0000

Nope. Inglorious Basterds opens this upcoming weekend in the States.

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:30:55 +0000

I liked District 9, but I felt it was flawed… same with half the movies I’ve seen this year, anyone seen IB yet? That’s an odd movie.

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:09:30 +0000

brothers bloom rounds it out to ten

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:03:01 +0000

And is Tranies 2 really one of your five favorite films of the year?! Good heavens! Have you seen any of the following?
Hurt Locker
Up
Adventureland
Drag Me To Hell
Observe and Report
Paper Heart
Away We Go
Moon
Star Trek

That’s about 8 films (I still haven’t seen Ponyo but will this week) that are all much better than Trannies.

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:57:45 +0000

Dont you think that District 9 was a huge step forward in effect work though? Not necessarily in terms of sophisticated fancy-pants effects that cost the most, but in terms of sfx intelligently integrated into the scene.

I think in terms of effects I care more about the utilization of effects more than whether or not they’re the most sophisticated. That’s why I think King Kong (’39) remains a better effects film than Transformers even though the work might not be as realistic. The robots in Trans never ascend to actual character, they remain background effects like explosions and space ships. I do think that Bay has a lot of talent in this one specific area (working with effects artsits and convincingly composoting his shots) but his films remain failures even when considered as straight spectacle.

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:51:19 +0000

I think the performance was mostly one guy, but multiple motion capture artists worked on rendering it. I’d have to go back and read which ever interview it was though.

By: Polygon_Wizard

Polygon_Wizard — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:04:00 +0000

I read somewhere that 99% of the mocap performance work for the aliens was done by one guy. If true, that would have been a ton of stuff for just one guy to wrap his head around, especially in any scene with several aliens interacting.

By: Saberj

Saberj — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:54:19 +0000

Yeah, I loved the main character’s performance. It was hard to tell that it was the same guy when you compared the beginning and end of the film. And as mentioned, the special effects were very well done. I just didn’t care for a majority of the plot.

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:34:34 +0000

@ I loved every second of it, and I thought the guy playing Wikus was fascinating to watch.

yes, I agree. Sharlto Copley is quite good and reminiscent of an early p.jackson protagonist.

And apparently the majority of fx work (all the aliens) were done by a Vancouver BC fx house. And I agree, you can smell the aliens through the screen.