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District 9 Rises From the Ashes of Halo 207

JohnSmedley sent in a story about what might be the last SciFi film worth caring about this summer. He writes "Wired has an interesting piece up on the upcoming District 9 release. District 9 rose from the ashes of a failed Halo movie and expands on 'Alive in Jo'Burg' which is a South African short film by Blomkamp. Both the short and full feature films expand and explore a premise in which aliens in space are treated as badly as illegal immigrants and the underclass. The story begins as a damaged alien craft lands in Africa. The foreign race is quarantined in a remote area called District 9, and from there are subjected to xenophobia, and the desire of a multi-national conglomerate to steal their technology. The film is an exploration of what would happen in terms of segregation between an alien race and humans, subjecting the stranded visitors to the very human condition of greed, fear, and exploitation. District 9 will be in theatres on August 14'th, and you can view the trailers from the viewpoint of Multi-National United."
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District 9 Rises From the Ashes of Halo

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  • The referenced site in the article on Wired for the trailer and the D-9 site in the article here do not work for me it seems. I found a good trailer on the site Sony made for it [district9movie.com].

    This is sure to be a movie that I am going to watch, very interesting story. It also interests me that the director is from South Africa, the way the aliens are moved to camps does seem to have some parallels with the Apartheid [wikipedia.org]

    • by Bakkster ( 1529253 ) <.Bakkster.man. .at. .gmail.com.> on Monday July 27, 2009 @09:15AM (#28836705)

      I'm still hoping that this movie will actually be a good, cerebral Science Fiction story; rather than just another disposable alien-action movie built on what would otherwise be a great plot to explore.

      Still crossing my fingers.

    • by krou ( 1027572 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @09:52AM (#28837209)
      Even though there are obviously parallels with Apartheid, I think there are much closer parallels to the recent and growing xenophobia against immigrants (illegal or not) in South Africa. Incidentally, there's a good interview with Blomkamp here [slashfilm.com] where he notes that both of these played crucial roles in the film. He also mentions that in the first week of filming, the recent xenophobic riots took place where people were murdered and burnt alive etc. Alive in Jo'Burg was also clearly influenced by xenophobia.
  • Moon (Score:4, Informative)

    by u38cg ( 607297 ) <calum@callingthetune.co.uk> on Monday July 27, 2009 @07:52AM (#28835715) Homepage
    Another fantastic sci-fi piece recently released is Moon, directed by one Duncan Jones. Strongly recommend it, if you can find it - it's been reasonably widely released in Britain, not sure about the US and the rest of the world.
    • by rrwood ( 27261 )

      Fantastic? Meh. It was a rehash of a lot of ideas we've seen done in films and books over the past 20-30 years, with nothing particularly new added. Go re-watch 2001, Bladerunner and re-read some early John Varley instead.

      If, on the other hand, this is the first time you've seen these ideas explored in film or fiction, I could see this being a very interesting movie.

      • Re:Moon (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Aqualung812 ( 959532 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @08:28AM (#28836125)
        Same could be said about "V for Vendetta [imdb.com]" and "Equilibrium [imdb.com]". Bah, just go read or watch "1984".
        However, watching or reading 1984 just flat drains the soul. The other two movies are more entertaining, have a happier ending, yet still deliver the core of the same message as 1984. Does it soften the message? Somewhat. However, they reach far more people, and those that watch it don't usually kill themselves during the closing credits.
        Respect the originals, yet keep refreshing it to new audiences. Often, those that like the new versions end up hungry to read about the original source material.
        • Re:Moon (Score:4, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27, 2009 @08:45AM (#28836329)

          Besides, how are we all supposed to read 1984 when Amazon.com deleted it from all our Kindles?

          • Re:Moon (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Minwee ( 522556 ) <dcr@neverwhen.org> on Monday July 27, 2009 @09:27AM (#28836871) Homepage

            You could consider investing in more reliable cellulose-based storage media. You'll find that a lot of popular ebooks have been translated into this "paper" format over the last, oh, 500 years and there's a good chance that your city even has one or more brick-and-mortar retailers who specialize in them.

            Get 'em before the fad passes.

        • Re:Moon (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Bakkster ( 1529253 ) <.Bakkster.man. .at. .gmail.com.> on Monday July 27, 2009 @09:32AM (#28836927)

          Does it soften the message? Somewhat. However, they reach far more people, and those that watch it don't usually kill themselves during the closing credits. Respect the originals, yet keep refreshing it to new audiences. Often, those that like the new versions end up hungry to read about the original source material.

          That's, of course, assuming that the first exploration of a theme is the best. I would venture that while 1984, V for Vendetta, and Equilibrium explore the same space, they do it in unique ways. None are, what I would consider, a definitive work; neither are the newer movies a simple rehash of 1984.

          In 1984, the 'resistance' comes from within the government and is a trap, while Equilibrium has the government using its own agent who defects, yet V for Vendetta is a resistance of an outsider. These are unique explorations, and it would be disappointing if anyone thought that any single piece was a sufficient exploration of the theme. Taken as a whole, however, the reader/viewer can make their own, deeper connections.

        • "1984" vs "WE" (Score:3, Interesting)

          by jbssm ( 961115 )
          Actually I'm a big fan of Orwell, but after reading We from Zamiatine. I must say that Orwell, was at least "heavily inspired" (not to say an harsher word), by the much less know work of Zamiatine.
          • Thank you for that, I'll have to look Zamiatine up.
          • by ianare ( 1132971 )

            I agree, much of the setup is nearly identical (the journal aspect for example). You do have to give it to Orwell for 'newspeak' though. Absolutely brilliant, and completely missing from We.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by caitsith01 ( 606117 )

            I am a big fan of "We" but I must say I find it to be much more in the vein of Brave New World or Brazil than 1984. It presents a society which attempts, perhaps even genuinely attempts, to run itself on principled and idealistic grounds, but which in reality imposes a bureaucratic dystopia on its people because (a) those ideals are fundamentally misplaced and (b) the very notion of forcing people to live according to particular principles is doomed to have that result. But, for example, D's friend R is a

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Kurusuki ( 1049294 )
          I don't know. I tried watching 1984 once, and only made it about 30 minutes in before I had to stop watching. The movie is just so bland. It's a movie about the message, one of those artsy political movies that doesn't need any semblance of flow. The people who watch it will already be well versed in the mantra it preaches. However, V for Vendetta and Equilibrium both set out to entertain with an undertone of the 1984 mantra. This lets people take in the meaning without having to put forth any thought. Wat
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Aqualung812 ( 959532 )
            I agree, watching 1984 is a painful experience. I think the book is less so, since you're not forced to consume it all at once like a movie.
            And your point about "An Inconvenient Truth" is a good one, "The Day After Tomorrow" is the entertaining version of it. I think there are some people that would have never watched "Truth" without first seeing "Tomorrow" and getting a spark of intrest that allows them to sit through the bland power point.
            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by Jonny_eh ( 765306 )

              The Day After Tomorrow was not entertaining. I'd rather watch a 2 hour presentation by Al Gore.

          • by ianare ( 1132971 )

            I found that watching 1984 before reading the book was extremely boring and bland. However after reading the book, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. The adaptation could be considered too literal, but once put into proper context is truly a masterpiece. A little like 2001 in a way (yes, yes, I know the book was written after the movie).

        • Re:Moon (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ianare ( 1132971 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @10:18AM (#28837639)

          The whole point of 1984 is to make you feel like shit. If you were uplifted by a hollywood type happy ending, it would lose much of its power. Why is it that many people think a movie that makes you feel bad is a bad movie ?

          The two movies you mentioned are the typical hollywood stuff ... entertainment and almost nothing else. Not bad for blowing a couple hours, but nothing that will change the way you look at the world like 1984 has done for many people.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Aqualung812 ( 959532 )
            I agree with your first paragraph. However, many people, including one of the posters in this thread, have turned off 1984 after a short time because they don't want to feel like shit. I have a feeling that some of them, not all, may go and try 1984 again someday if they watch a "lite" version of it in one of the remakes then hear how the underlying theme is based on 1984.
            You can't change the way someone looks at the world if they won't listen to you. You need to get their attention first.
          • The problem with 1984, though, is that it crushes any hope that any resistance is useful.

            In order to get people fight for change, you have to give them the hope that their fight will result in change, or perhaps a small change, or a piece of the change. Without that hope, they're just dying.

            Equilibrium and V for Vendetta show that the hero doesn't sacrifice himself needlessly.

            As Admiral Adama said (roughly, I don't remember the exact quote): It's not enough just to live.

            So, if you go to movies to walk out f

            • by ianare ( 1132971 )

              To me the point is that we need to make sure things never get to that point in the first place. Because once a ruthless and totalitarian system in place, it is impossible to resist from within. See : present North Korea, Nazi occupied France, Saddam's Iraq, etc ...

              • by Knara ( 9377 )
                Impossible, or just very difficult to sustain, much less succeed? Because all those regimes had(have) resistance movements (N. Korea's is harder to see, since there's not a ton of info that gets out, but they don't have prisons with political prisoners due to everyone toe-ing the party line).
              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                by caitsith01 ( 606117 )

                To me the point is that we need to make sure things never get to that point in the first place. Because once a ruthless and totalitarian system in place, it is impossible to resist from within. See : present North Korea, Nazi occupied France, Saddam's Iraq, etc ...

                Precisely. Orwell is telling us that the time to fight the totalitarian state is before it assumes power, not after, because we are reaching a point technologically where it will no longer be possible to fight it after it takes power. So instead of depressing us, 1984 should galvanize us to stop anything similar from ever arising.

                Meanwhile we happily let our elected 'representatives' permit total surveillance, secret police, torture, free speech zones, unexplained foreign wars, state-sponsored corporation

        • by sorak ( 246725 )

          I don't know if I would say the message is the same. At the very least, the viewer could take different interpretations from "V For Vendetta" and 1984. In 1984, the reason the ending is bad is because the author may be suggesting that human beings can be subjugated and brainwashed, and because those in power can create an stable balance of power that keeps the lower class subservient to those in power.

          V for Vendetta is more hopeful. One of the differences can be summed up as:
          .
          1984: Fight for your rights now

      • Re:Moon (Score:4, Insightful)

        by agrif ( 960591 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @08:38AM (#28836237) Homepage

        I think the biggest thing about Moon is that it is the first hard science fiction film in a long time that has gained even the meager attention it has. Hard Sci-Fi is a dying breed, as far as I can tell from the last decade or so.

        Maybe Moon didn't introduce any new ideas. But it did present those ideas in a medium where it is easier to evoke an emotional response, if it's done correctly. Moon did it very well, at least in my opinion, and it reached a wider audience than most sci-fi.

        If Moon is playing near you, I highly recommend you see it.

        • by u38cg ( 607297 )
          Indeed. Mrs u38cg enjoyed it, and in all honesty, she only went to see it because of the director's pappy. Now she might even read an Iain Banks novel...
        • by tgd ( 2822 )

          I haven't seen Moon, but I thought Sunshine falls into that category of unusually hard Sci-Fi that got wide attention.

      • The fact that you get to reference Varley (and not in conjunction with "Millenium") is why I so loved it. Yup, it's got pieces in there from Phantoms of Kansas, but it's an actual Science Fiction flick. Not scifi, not SciFi/Action. And for that reason alone it should be commended. And it doesn't hurt that it's a really well-done movie. Saw it and The Hurt Locker last week - and while it was a bit draining, emotionally, that was the best movie experience I've had in a while. If you like Science Fiction

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by TheLink ( 130905 )
        I don't care if it's a rehash, if it's a good rehash it could still be entertaining, interesting and even mind provoking.

        After all, lots of movies/stories are a rehash of ideas more than 2000 years old.
      • Re:Moon (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ajs ( 35943 ) <[ajs] [at] [ajs.com]> on Monday July 27, 2009 @09:24AM (#28836837) Homepage Journal

        Fantastic? Meh. It was a rehash of a lot of ideas we've seen done in films and books over the past 20-30 years, with nothing particularly new added. Go re-watch 2001, Bladerunner and re-read some early John Varley instead.

        I'm getting so tired of this nonsense. Bladerunner was a film noir [wikipedia.org] set in the future with robots. It wasn't new. Asimov did androids struggling with their (lack of) humanity in the 50s, and all Dick added was his drug addicted sense of a decaying reality to which Scott added a very provincially 1980s aesthetic. Go watch Metropolis and the Maltese Falcon. There, see how easy it is to throw stones at a good and viewing-worthy film?

        Fact of the matter is that premise doesn't matter. Every premise has been done. Every idea has been pushed through the salad-tosser that is the writer's pen. What remains is the actual writing, and in the case of film acting and directing. Moon is, as I've heard (and I really do want to go see it), well written, acted and directed. If the idea is also compelling, that's great, but do we go to see a murder-mystery because we've never seen a detective confront the suspects before? Do we go to see space opera because we've never seen ships shooting at each other before? No, we go because we, as humans, enjoy the act of story-telling. It's an art, and good art is good art, even when the subject has been painted/drawn/written about/sculpted or filmed before.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by ajs ( 35943 )

          salad-tosser that is the writer's pen

          Yeah, I think I meant Salad Shooter(tm) [saladshooter.com] there. We'll just ignore what salad-tossing pens might be a metaphor for....

        • by sorak ( 246725 )

          Asimov did androids struggling with their (lack of) humanity in the 50s

          And don't forget Pinocchio [wikipedia.org] before that!

    • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *
      It's was pretty widely released here in the U.S. a few weeks ago. It even played in one of my local multi-plexes (though there was only me and three other people in the theater when I went to see it, sadly). I really wish more people would show up for this excellent and thoughtful piece of science fiction, instead of just turning out in droves for Michael Bay blow-em-up movies that just use sci-fi as an excuse for a lot of gee-whiz FX shots.
      • My wife and I went to see it after seeing the trailer. We both felt that while the revelations that occurred about what was going on somewhat obvious pretty quickly, it was well worth watching. We agreed that the lack of slasher/blow-em-up type movie was refreshing. Sam Rockwell did a pretty good job playing basically the only part (parts??) in the movie other than GERTY. The plot even had an opportunity for a 'final show-down' sequence involving lots of blood and mayhem, but it was very well directed to a
    • Agreed, Moon was fantastic. It draws a lot from 2001, but that's not a bad thing. It was refreshing to see such a well made sci-fi movie that was not dressed up for mass audiences. In other words, they didn't add explosions, comic relief characters, etc. for the sake of selling tickets.

      The movie website has a release schedule [sonypictures.com] - go see it if you can!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by yincrash ( 854885 )
      In case anyone doesn't know, the one Duncan Jones is the son of the one David Bowie.

      I saw the movie at the Tribeca Film Festival followed by a question and answer with him. It's a fantastic scifi feature for a directorial debut. I hope he continues making more films in the future.
    • by skeeto ( 1138903 )
      I've been really wanted to see this but it won't be showing in any theaters reasonably close to me. And so far no torrents to be found.
    • by DaveGod ( 703167 )

      I can also recommend Moon.

      I will say though that I went into the film having simply been told "a guy is alone on a moon base and things start to go wrong". This is the best way to go. If you really must watch the trailer [youtube.com], stop at 1 min.

  • by Culture20 ( 968837 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @07:53AM (#28835723)
    At least these aliens are slightly more alien, but they're still bipedal oxygen breathers with bilateral symmetry. I look forward to the District 9 TV series, but not to the romantic relationship between Detective Matt Sikes and (what is now) a giant bug living in the apartment next door.
    • by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @08:07AM (#28835881) Journal

      At least these aliens are slightly more alien, but they're still bipedal oxygen breathers with bilateral symmetry.

      FWIW, it took evolution billions of years to come up with that this is a very efficient way of moving intelligent beings with use of free appendages (arms + hands) around a solid earth crust with an oxygen atmosphere. I'm not so sure this is a "one in hundreds" of potentially useful evolutionary ideas, but rather one in very few. That it's symmetric comes from cellular division, and there is so far little supporting evidence that alternative mechanisms can support a two meter tall intelligent organism well.

      • by Lumpy ( 12016 )

        Um 6 appendages with 4 legs and 2 arms would work just as well if not better.
        Stop giving Evolution so much credit. Evolution is dumb, it does not care what is best, just what causes the longest survival to allow more evolution changes. It will allow stupidity to win if dumb is allowed to breed unchecked.

        • Um 6 appendages with 4 legs and 2 arms would work just as well if not better.

          Add another pair of legs to a human, and see how well they do climbing trees.

          You know it would work just as well how? Because you created your own virtual earth and ran genetic simulations on it for a million years?

          Evolution is dumb, it does not care what is best, just what causes the longest survival to allow more evolution changes. It will allow stupidity to win if dumb is allowed to breed unchecked.

          Stupidity doesn't win, but you might need a bigger head to hold a bigger, more complicated brain in order to get more intelligent, and that might get you killed. Which is almost the same thing, but no, stupidity doesn't win. Intelligence just doesn't necessarily win either. Our brain's need for high blood flow is a liability...

        • by wjousts ( 1529427 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @08:56AM (#28836459)

          Um 6 appendages with 4 legs and 2 arms would work just as well if not better.

          Nonsense, you are looking only at the (presumed) benefits of an extra pair of legs without considering the costs. An extra pair of legs requires more energy, it requires more neurons devoted to controlling the extra legs, etc. The benefits? You're slightly less likely to get knocked over?

          • by TheLink ( 130905 )
            An extra pair of arms would help when soldering stuff :). Plenty of other uses - being able to firmly hold stuff while doing things to it.

            As for an extra pair of legs - I don't think something like a centaur would really be that disadvantaged. A centaur would be able to be a very effective predator, and thus consume high energy density food (e.g. other animals) if necessary. Imagine being able to use a spear, and sprint almost as fast as a horse. Perhaps centaurs wouldn't have as much endurance - depends on
          • The benefits? You're slightly less likely to get knocked over?

            You can run like a horse, or climb trees like a leopard.

            • The benefits? You're slightly less likely to get knocked over?

              You can run like a horse, or climb trees like a leopard.

              Last time I checked, leopards did not have four legs and two arms. Besides, we could climb trees just as well as leopards if we had feet that can grip like many other primates. In fact, if I had four legs, but still had non-gripping human feet, I seriously doubt I'd be any better at climbing trees that I am now.

          • An extra pair of legs requires more energy, it requires more neurons devoted to controlling the extra legs, etc

            With this reasoning, millipedes either shouldn't exist or should have massive brains, right?

            I, for one, welcome our many legged, slithering overlords!

            • Millipedes use a very simplified walking strategy (their legs move in a wave from one end to the other) and have very little "brain" power for anything else, nor do they really need much brain power. Millipedes are not very fast either, their main defense consists of rolling up and tasting bad (some species have poisonous or highly irritating secretions).

        • Um 6 appendages with 4 legs and 2 arms would work just as well if not better.

          No. Haven't you ever wondered about those old Ripley's cartoons that showed a man outrunning a horse? Haven't you ever thought through the old tales of Native Americans running down pronghorns? A creature with four legs can accelerate more quickly and run faster for a while but if you've ever seen a four-legged animal collapsed and near death in a foamy sweat from running for too long and too hard, then you'd know that four le

        • by sorak ( 246725 )

          2 extra legs require more food to keep up, and more coordination to, well, coordinate. Evolution may be dumb, but it's also cheap. It will take its time getting rid of those extra appendages, but growing them in the first place is unlikely to ever happen.

      • by EdZ ( 755139 )
        You're assuming an oxygenated environment, a solid crust, a certain range of gravitational pull, composition from cells that divide, etc.
      • FWIW, it took evolution millions of years to come up with a wheel. this is a very efficient way of moving intelligent beings with use of biomagnetics (repulse + attract) around a solid water crust with a nitrogen atmosphere. I'm not so sure this is a "one in hundreds" of potentially useful evolutionary ideas, but rather one in very few. That it's trilaterally symmetric comes from cellular agglomeration, and there is so far little supporting evidence that alternative mechanisms can support a three meter tall intelligent organism well

    • by DarthVain ( 724186 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @10:12AM (#28837531)

      Because yes, if you have a choice of crash landing on a planet that is hospitable and contains life like your own, or on the toxic silicoid life sustaining one you should defiantly choose the one most unlike yourself, you know, just for the sheer challenge.

      Of course I don't know how desperate they were to crash, or what the range of the partially disabled craft was, or if they were low on fuel, because I am not an alien... and you know more importantly, I havn't seen the movie... and even more importantly, it is a freaking' movie.... you know, entertainment?

      On a conceptual level I generally feel the same way about most Science Fiction particularly in movies and tv where 99% of all life encountered is pretty much identical to us with the exception of some forehead ridges, colour, or perhaps some weird facial hair or antennae or something. There has been some exceptions like the Lava monster in old star trek, or stuff like crystalline entity or tar monster later on... Bottom line the reason this is likely the case isn't due to lack of imagination, but rather the reason is for entertainment purposes. James T Kirk can't exactly sleep with the lava monster can he? (well he could try anyway). So they make a green woman alien and call it a day. People need to be able to interact in some meaningful way for it to be entertaining. Why do you think everyone can also communicate so easily? Because it would really suck if you had to sit through an hour of confusion. I can barely comprehend the Japanese language, how the fsck can we comprehend a language developed on another world with no context? Magic technology of course... but again... movie magic.

      • by nilbog ( 732352 )

        Laven! Had you seen episode 20 season 6 of Star Trek: The Next Generation (which appear to be what you're referring to), you would know that life through the galaxy was seeded from the same genetic material millions of years ago, explaining why all the alien races look similar.

        The seed for all those life forms was taken from earth by the preservers and seeded on other M class planets.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek_races#Preservers [wikipedia.org]

    • At least these aliens are slightly more alien, but they're still bipedal oxygen breathers with bilateral symmetry.

      Bilateral symmetry is objectively rational for multicellular organisms on the surface of a planet. Gravity provides a reason to differentiate between up and down, and direction of travel provides a reason to differentiate between forward/backward and side-to-side. No external force makes left different from right. Organisms that don't have bilateral symmetry tend to not care about gravity, or

    • At least these aliens are slightly more alien, but they're still bipedal oxygen breathers with bilateral symmetry. I look forward to the District 9 TV series, but not to the romantic relationship between Detective Matt Sikes and (what is now) a giant bug living in the apartment next door.

      You know, the whole idea of Sikes getting snuggly with a newcomer always seemed kind of screwed up. I mean, salt water is very dangerous to the newcomers, right? Human sweat is pretty salty...

      But that didn't even come close to the silliness of a pregnant George Francisco...

    • Yeah. This lack of any creative thought always struck me. How in the world can you be so dumb to come up with *another* epic failure of bipedal human-like "aliens"??

      Like those scientists, who can't imagine that life can form in a way that is not carbon- and water-based?

      How freaking stuck-inside-the-box can you be??

      I bet the first ten alien lifeforms that come in contact with us, will net even be detected as such by those idiots. (Yeah, I'm angry about it. And rightfully so.)

    • When I first saw a preview a couple days ago, my first thought was that this was an Alien Nation remake and was wondering if that movie/series is old enough for a remake yet.
      • was wondering if that movie/series is old enough for a remake yet.

        Sci-fi channel thinks so. (syfy, ptooi!)

  • Alien Nation (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RenHoek ( 101570 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @07:53AM (#28835735) Homepage

    So.. it sounds like the premise of the Sci-Fi series 'Alient Nation'.. which was a very good series.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      That was my first thought. Actually, I thought of the Alien Nation [imdb.com] movie, which I thought was even better than the series. "Your mother mates out of season!"

      • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *
        The moment after that, when James Caan realizes they don't have testicles, is hilarious too.
      • "What is it?"
        "Casull .454 Magnum. You're talking twice the impact energy of .44 Magnum hot loads."
        "Only holds five."
        "Yeah, the shells are too big for six in an cylinder. Hell, Matt, you don't need but one."

    • Thanks for saying it first.
    • So.. it sounds like the premise of the Sci-Fi series 'Alien Nation'.. which was a very good series.

      It was on Fox before Sci-Fi Channel existed... (And, as others mentioned, it was a movie before that...)

    • How was it good?? It had no aliens at all in it. Just some bald average people with spots on their heads
      And the whole thematic world revolved around the age-old conflict between strangers and natives that's told countless times already.

  • by theolein ( 316044 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @08:19AM (#28836011) Journal

    I'm South African so yay for South Africans of all colours, shapes and broken accents, and yay for an SA director making a really interesting SF movie set in SA. It is really nice to see something that isn't shallow Hollywood crap. It might be shallow South African crap, but at least it's different and interesting shallow South African crap.

    • I thought Charlie Jade was pretty good South African sci-fi. Not a movie, a TV series, but still pretty good.
  • Halo? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mkiefte ( 646004 )
    To suggest that District 9 rose from the ashes of a failed attempt at Halo is disingenuous at best. First off, yet another movie based on a video game is a bad idea anyway. District 9 is more directly an expansion of the short film which can be seen on YouTube. However, an attempt to link it to Halo is most likely a cheap advertising gimmick to get fanboys out to the cinema.
    • Actually, it's a hundred percent accurate that this rose from the ashes of Halo. Peter Jackson said in an interview that after the Halo movie fell through he and Neil decided to do D-9 instead. If it wasn't for Halo, Peter Jackson may never have partnered up with Neil. And if it wasn't for Halo getting killed, this film may not have been made.

      And here's my reference [ign.com]
  • ...not to be confused with "9", "Nine", and "9.99", all of which will also be released in '09.

    I swear, it's worse than all the "Blankety Blank 2000" films we had at the start of the decade.

  • It starts with someone prominently deciding "14th" needs an apostrophe (even though there's nothing omitted) and next thing you know people are eating candy bars with a knife and fork.

  • about as appealing as the failed to appear Halo game movie. Both strike me a perfect examples of idiots in hollywood failing to even begin to grasp their audience, and yet willing to believe they know it, and throwing good money after bad...

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