This looks really, really cool. Hopefully Japan isn't way behind the US for release dates, but I have a feeling we will be. For some reason Sci-Fi movies usually come out in the theaters here about when they're coming out on DVD in the States.

First public session in Australia is in around 6.5 hours! I'll let you know what it's like ;D

How Peter Jackson discovered District 9 director Neill Blomkamp.

4 shorts films, including Alive in Joburg (2005), a "documentary" about extraterrestrials marooned in Johannesburg would expand to become District 9.

Great stuff.

Well, I'm back from the theatre.
In a few words : A really great idea, treated meaninglessly.
The picture looks good, so are the aliens and their technology.
The story is not at anytime engaging and is just to predictable.

Hm, I just saw it and thought was an awesome film and very meaningful indeed. Fortunately the director chose to make it an entertaining science fiction movie primarily and a "thinking person's film" more or less in the background. If you want to ignore the social implications, it won't be a problem, but if you want this movie to be deeper than aliens vs. humans, it definitely is. Loved it.

Couldn't agree more although I can see some people not liking it.
However...I rarely get out to movies but I loved it. It was different from what I expected and I liked how I didn't know where the story was going to go.

Top Notch and amazing considering this was a 30 million dollar film. (The hangover by comparision was about 36 million.)

they had to give mike tyson his due

Well said, I agree completely.

Definitely a good film and certainly one of the best Sci-Fi ones to come around in a while.

Loved it.

Saw it with my wife and was really impressed. My wife, who would never have normally been into this kind of movie actually loved it. It was very well done. No over dramical special effects. The movie has a great story line and I look forward to the sequal... I hope there will be one.

Highly recommend this film!

watched this today, great film. believe me, there will be a sequel, they set it up in the end.

I agree with this completely. None of the characters had any depth. Every single 'prawn' except Christopher fell into every single stereotype. They sell their huge guns for cat food for god's sake. Even the seemingly meaningful issues like scientific experimentation, ghettoization, etc. were treated so tangentially. I think that they tried to hard to walk the line between a meaningful film and a mainstream hollywood movie and ended up succeeding at neither.

The cat food is barely even a metaphor. It's a reference to how destitute people are sometimes reduced to eating pet food. It's science-fictionized in context with the suggestion that there's something about cat food that the aliens crave but it's not just a throw away joke. They trade guns for cat food because they're desperate to survive. They can't eat the guns.

There are lots of bits in the movie that might not seem meaningful but are on consideration. This may be a

- - - SPOILER - - -

so don't read if you haven't seen the film, but...

as an example, when Wickus asks an alien to "slow down with the clicks" it's a metaphorical reference to the "! clicks" in Bantu languages (such as the Zulu spoken in SA townships.) "Prawns" is like a derogatory ethnic label or epithet. Early on, when Wickus justifies it by reasoning "well that's what they look like," the movie is referencing how people justify stereotypes and epithets.

And so on and so on. Point being that there's a lot more to this film than what's on the surface. That's why it's great science fiction. It uses the genre to comment on contemporary humanity and its lot.

And yeah, they left it wide open for a sequel. I'm not sure if that would be an error or not. If the sequel can have something to say other than simply resolving Wickus' situation and what happens with the millions of aliens moved to District 10 (which one might presume would be the sequel's title) then it might be worth being made. Otherwise, if it's simply plot resolution and extrapolation, forget it.

I want a baby prawn figure! I hope someone makes them!

I'll have to agree with Dean regarding the movie's underlying social commentary of our tolerance towards other cultures. A lot is said in the movie just through watching the mistreatment and generalizations the humans made towards the prawns.

I enjoyed the movie, at least the parts I wasn't nauseated from motion sickness (none of my friends had any problems)

So now I can add this to the list of films I have to watch on a smaller screen with:

Blair Witch Project
Cloverfield

Just got back from seeing District 9. Haven't read any of this thread yet but here are my thoughts.

First, what I thought was great: Obviously, the effects. Super cool shit with the powered suit, great battle scenes, excellent job of integrating the aliens and whatnot in with the environment so that you accept it as "fact."

Despite all that, the film let me down. It starts with this solid documentary style, a nicely textured backdrop that's all too familar (apartheid all over again). Then both of those things are ditched about 1/3 into the movie, and it gets very conventional. As soon as the mercenary with the shaved head appears in more than three scenes, you know that he's going to face off against the protagonist and have a gruesome death.

Also, the aliens were too humanized in some respects. They had big Yoda eyes that crinkled up in just the right way to garner sympathy when you club them with a rifle butt. They pound their fists in anger. Why go to the trouble to create such a cool complex alien and then make it act like us?

Why was Christopher The Alien suddenly moved by the dead prawns in the research lab? They were barbecuing babies in his back yard for 20 years, he's just starting to get pissed now?

And please, stop it with the fucking endless parade of Jesus metaphors in science fiction films. We got it with ET, no need to repeat it ad nauseum.

I liked Alive in Joburg. I get the feeling that Peter Jackson watched that, said "make a feature-length film out of that," but once the ten minutes of the short film were repeated the director couldn't figure out how to fill the additional two hours, and just dusted off his spec script for Resident Evil 4.

I think the result is definitely worth watching and some of the best cinematic eye candy to date, but it's not much more than that, and ultimately that makes it feel like a lost opportunity.

A couple of things:
Science fiction stories are designed to make you think. To make you think harder than you would experiencing regular fiction. You can do this and entertain at the same time. I think a lot of the Hollywood types can't swallow this idea, though.I thought the idea behind the cat food was that they got high off of it. One of the people interviewed mentions catnip. The scenes of the Nigerians selling it to them reminded me of Somalis lining up for khat.

For that particular scene, I just assumed it was the remains of his partner that died early on when resisting arrest.

Because it's about us, and how we treat our "aliens" who are in fact, us. It's about what happens to people when they are treated like "the other" and segregated and left to fend for themselves.

The movie was intended to reach a wide audience. You're right to cite some things that seemed like retreads of countless other action films or very specific science-fiction films, but I believe this was done very consciously and intentionally. Look who's dime the movie was made on, after all. The director strove for a balance between "message" and "entertainment."

I hope I'm not being obnoxious by stating so many opinions about this movie. I just really liked it and enjoy discussing it.

I liked your khat reading of the cat food by the way. Good one, more cat food for thought.

Not at all. Good discussion is hard to come by sometimes.

I give them big credit for filming in South Africa and not casting an A list dick like tom cruise or will smith. It does help you think, but if you already think, it is a little hollow. entertaining none the less but I think my expectations were sky high...

SPOILER MAYBE!!----------------------------------------------------------------

Alien Gunz are bad ass and they should of been in half the movie with some emotional slaughter like the gang leader, make me really want to see them killed, then kill them. (i would of liked,and expected,the gang and alienz to unite and kick Blackwater's ass.) Not enough vengeance for me.

Finally saw District 9 and loved it. But i couldnt help think the whole time it was a dark up to date version of Buckeroo Banzaii (without the good guys).

Best Buy has a cool pre-order pack for $5. You get a free lithograph and non-human dog tags.