Well i finally got around to watching District 9 (along with about 6 other movies since friday, thanks to the aforementioned-by-phil netflix/roku combination, which leaves me with a mere 240 movies in my streaming+dvd queues).
I realize i'm a contrarian (but not completely alone, i'd like to point out) in saying this, but... what the fuck?
I got the impression that the writer said "i've got sci-fi for the fan boys, and a controversial/moral/intellectual topic for the bourgeois.. i don't need to worry about having a reasonable/sensible plot!" And apparently it worked. Yeah, those who know me know that i "suck the fun out of things" by asking too many questions, and i understand that with some movies the whole purpose of the movie is to force you to think about the possibilities, come up with theories, discuss with friends, etc..... I loved donnie darko and it didn't explain shit.
but the questions in this movie were much more mundane, but so pervasive that it utterly destroyed my ability to care about the plot of the movie because i was so fixated on the fact that how the situation had come about was not being justified to me.
Questions without answers, mainly because if they were answered the whole need for the conflict wouldn't exist:
Why did the ship come to earth?
Why was the ship broken? Did it need more "fluid" or was that just the command module? If it needed more fluid, why didn't they make some on the ship (presumably way easier than spending 20 years doing it on earth!)
Why did the "command module" just "fall off"?
Why did only one alien in the entire fucking population know about this magical command module?
Why wasn't he able to organize a couple additional aliens to collect more of the special fluid, when they were turning over their weapons to the humans left and right? Didn't anyone else want to go back to the mothership?
Why did the other aliens trade giant battlesuits capable of fighting off an entire small army (particular in the hands of someone more capable than our bumbling, human protagonist) for 100 cans of cat food instead of using it to better their situation?
Who were the aliens? (prisoners? colonists? military? cruise ship passengers?)
Why was the protagonist so retarded as to knock out the one guy who knew how to get him back to the mothership and cure his condition? did he really think he'd be able to do that by himself? Oh but luckily he has a change of heart......eventually, after creating another unnecessary crisis.
If the writer couldn't be bothered to provide an actual back story to justify his setup, then i'm not willing to buy into his "brilliant" recreation of a historical human rights atrocity in an "innovative" scifi environment. Movies aren't just cute ideas, they've got to hang together if you want your audience to be able to follow you on your journey.
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