[R_H] wrote:
To the point that they can't take the guns apart, or X-ray them or MRI them...stuff like that?
Apparently. I'm sure they did, but it didn't help them.
Hmm. Then the live-fire must have been a great help. Why didn't they just coerce a Prawn to do that in the beginning, instead of Wikus?
Considering that MNU was the world's second largest weapons manufacturer, they presumably did learn quite a bit from studying the weapons, though obviously not enough to make their own people-exploding lightning guns. I dunno, better heat sinks or tricks so you don't need as much maintenance for your tank or something, little things like that which would still be very useful, though not as flashy or the actual original goal to discover.
Also, since that biological lab was some sort of illegal underground thing and they were able to use living aliens (look, I don't want to call them prawns) as target practice, I don't see why they couldn't have coerced them into using the weapons before. I thought they just wanted to see if Wikus could use the weapons himself; they did make him switch to his still-human hand to see if he could still use them and were pleased when it activated.
DPDarkPrimus is my boyfriend!
SDNW4 Nation: The Refuge And, on Nova Terra, Al-Stan the Totally and Completely Honest and Legitimate Weapons Dealer and Used Starship Salesman slept on a bed made of money, with a blaster under his pillow and his sombrero pulled over his face. This is to say, he slept very well indeed.
Just a thought that occurred to me earlier regarding the black fluid:
Is it possible that Christopher started out as a 'normal' worker alien, and through the discovery and exposure to said fluid became a leader/pilot class? This would very easily explain why Wikus was transformed, as well as the relative intelligence disparity between Christopher and his son vs. the rest of their species; and perhaps it also explains their slightly different coloration to others of their kind.
I believe that this fuel is potentially a failsafe against precisely what happened to the Aliens at the start of the film: exposure to the fuel ensures that one can utilize it properly. A simple solution to what could be a large problem, and as we saw in the film, it worked eventually.
Saying smaller engines are better is like saying you don't want huge muscles because you wouldn't fit through the door. So what? You can bench 500. Fuck doors. - MadCat360
Me neither. Can anyone comment on whether or not the term "poleepkwa" is their name for their species, a Chichewa word, or simply restricted to Alive in Joburg and not part of the D9 universe? I've heard people toss it around on other forums in reference to them.
Me neither. Can anyone comment on whether or not the term "poleepkwa" is their name for their species, a Chichewa word, or simply restricted to Alive in Joburg and not part of the D9 universe? I've heard people toss it around on other forums in reference to them.
I am pretty sure that Alive in Joberg is a different continuity, as their are multiple ships of quite diferent design to the one in District 9.
Zor
HAIL ZOR!WE'LL BLOW UP THE OCEAN!
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Sephirius wrote:Just a thought that occurred to me earlier regarding the black fluid:
Is it possible that Christopher started out as a 'normal' worker alien, and through the discovery and exposure to said fluid became a leader/pilot class? This would very easily explain why Wikus was transformed, as well as the relative intelligence disparity between Christopher and his son vs. the rest of their species; and perhaps it also explains their slightly different coloration to others of their kind.
I believe that this fuel is potentially a failsafe against precisely what happened to the Aliens at the start of the film: exposure to the fuel ensures that one can utilize it properly. A simple solution to what could be a large problem, and as we saw in the film, it worked eventually.
Does anyone remember if prawn-Wilkus has the same coloration as Christopher?
Me neither. Can anyone comment on whether or not the term "poleepkwa" is their name for their species, a Chichewa word, or simply restricted to Alive in Joburg and not part of the D9 universe? I've heard people toss it around on other forums in reference to them.
You could also just use the word the aliens use on Christopher's blog, outlanders.
[R_H] wrote:Hmm. Then the live-fire must have been a great help. Why didn't they just coerce a Prawn to do that in the beginning, instead of Wikus?
The whole point of the live fire test was to show that Wikus could actually use the weapons. Until that point, a human was never able to use Prawn weapons. I think there was a quick scene in the MNU laboratory that showed what appeared to be a half Prawn/half human embryo of some sort. MNU had been trying to incorporate Prawn DNA into human DNA so that humans could use Prawn technology but obviously, they've been failing.
Darmalus wrote:
Does anyone remember if prawn-Wilkus has the same coloration as Christopher?
Saw it again the other day, he was green.
Yes, he was, a shade an pattern similar to that of Christopher, I'm 99% sure. Also, to me it is fairly obvious that Wikus is getting more and more intelligent as the transformation progresses.
Saying smaller engines are better is like saying you don't want huge muscles because you wouldn't fit through the door. So what? You can bench 500. Fuck doors. - MadCat360
Darmalus wrote:
Does anyone remember if prawn-Wilkus has the same coloration as Christopher?
Saw it again the other day, he was green.
Yes, he was, a shade an pattern similar to that of Christopher, I'm 99% sure. Also, to me it is fairly obvious that Wikus is getting more and more intelligent as the transformation progresses.
I don't know if that was so or not, but I did wonder at something - did they show or mention any other little artsy-crafty things that Wikus made for his wife aside from that yellow paper-mache bowl that she sat on? That metal rose looked pretty nifty to me and quite a step up from the bowl.
DPDarkPrimus is my boyfriend!
SDNW4 Nation: The Refuge And, on Nova Terra, Al-Stan the Totally and Completely Honest and Legitimate Weapons Dealer and Used Starship Salesman slept on a bed made of money, with a blaster under his pillow and his sombrero pulled over his face. This is to say, he slept very well indeed.
My impression of the 'fuel' was that at least part of what it contained were medical/regenerative nanomachines. When Wilkus began transforming, it started by regrowing his damaged arm as an alien version, and spread from there. From that I'm guessing that the nanomachines did their best to heal Wilkus, but were of course only programmed to produce alien tissue, so they cleared out his arm and then gradually replaced apoptotic human cells with alien ones / interpreted human cells as corrupt and actively converted them. This is the only plausible explanation for the transformation I can think of.
Perhaps they're really all-purpose nanomachines that can repair both biological and technological structures, which would explain why they'd be useful to get the ship running again. It would also explain why tiny quantities could be found in all alien technology (self-repair functionality). Additionally, they could be part of the mind-machine interface used to operate alien technology.
Sephirius wrote:
I don't know if that was so or not, but I did wonder at something - did they show or mention any other little artsy-crafty things that Wikus made for his wife aside from that yellow paper-mache bowl that she sat on? That metal rose looked pretty nifty to me and quite a step up from the bowl.
None specifically though I'm thinking that box she kept them in might have been one of his. She did mention he was doing it all the time (and to the paper mache bowl's credit this was post being sat on).
Sephirius wrote:Just a thought that occurred to me earlier regarding the black fluid:
Is it possible that Christopher started out as a 'normal' worker alien, and through the discovery and exposure to said fluid became a leader/pilot class? This would very easily explain why Wikus was transformed, as well as the relative intelligence disparity between Christopher and his son vs. the rest of their species; and perhaps it also explains their slightly different coloration to others of their kind.
Blomkamp said in an interview that what was likely was that over the course of twenty-plus years without a guiding force behind them, the collective unconscious hive mind of the outlanders eventually selected Christopher as a candidate for leadership and began to increase his mental capacity.
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-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
Isn't that basically the same as a hive mind? Perhaps instead of "woo-woo" telepathic Zerg stuff that you are imagine, the hive mind the dude is talking about might actually be similar to those worker bees and their queen bees and their hive's... mind?
i.e. pheromones and stuff
Except that the bees are man-sized bug aliens in Apartheid South Africa!
I must so watch this movie!
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
[R_H] wrote:Why didn't the MNU scientists try disassembling the Prawn weapons? I can't remember if it was implied they had tried to do so, or had done so.
When we saw Wilkis and Christopher in the underground lab there were tons of alien stuff lying around, and since Christopher could MacGyver up a fairly potent bomb in just a few moments, and it's pretty much a given that some of those parts originated from weapons. (the explosion even had lightning bolts similar to Wilkis gun coming out of it)
Seele wrote:
It seems to me that their entire tech base is centered on some sort of DNA recongnition. Perhaps some time in the prawn's past, they encountered another race and they made it so their own technology can't be used against them. Some sort of built in fail-safe. And that it seems to be built in with the rest of their tech too and MNU wasn't able to do anything. I would assume that they attempted to take their tech apart and rebuild or attempt to rebuild the tech everywhich way they can to no success.
I believe that whatever disaster happened to the so called (Leader Class) might have damaged the device that allowed the prawn to interact with the mothership. The ship wasn't able to activate till it had the correct prawn DNA code till it was fixed. It kind of makes sense since the black liquid that splattered Wikus somehow turn him into a prawn.
Just my thoughts if any of this makes sense.
I wonder that if the refined version of the fluid that Christopher made in his chemistry lab could make something into an "leader-caste" alien, then could the basic version found all over have altered the "prawns" in some way. Maybe they originally didn't all look the same, but were mutated due to exposure to fuel leaks inside their broken down ship?
I actually saw this movie when it first came out, with my mom (read into that what you will).
Anyway, I loved it, it was a fantastic movie from start to finish with some of the most gripping scenes I've seen in years. I was literally on the edge of my seat the whole climax. Plus the way they took apart the whole racial bullshit of South Africa and really tore it all down and made the Afrikaans look like total boobs was hilarious and, for the folks in the theatre and moi, very cathartic. Yes we were all black. Yes we all cheered when the South African soldier got torn limb from limb by the Non-Humans (FYI, that's the "official" in-universe name for them).
The acting was truly inspired, I honestly felt I could enjoy and relate to every character, even the villains had a real human logic and concept to them.
It was easily the best movie I've seen this year, and that's saying something because, for me, this has been a good year for movies. Great action, great drama, great writing, excellent acting all around. THIS is what a movie looks like when it's really "art". THIS is art, period.
DPDarkPrimus wrote:Blomkamp said in an interview that what was likely was that over the course of twenty-plus years without a guiding force behind them, the collective unconscious hive mind of the outlanders eventually selected Christopher as a candidate for leadership and began to increase his mental capacity.
To be honest, I just got the impression that Christopher was one of the dudes in ship originally. I mean, he lived on top of it, so it just seemed intuitive that he had actually started from there.
Hey Ford, side note. How do you feel about having to go all the way out past the G-line to see films that Village 'isn't sure about the broad appeal of'?
tim31 wrote:Hey Ford, side note. How do you feel about having to go all the way out past the G-line to see films that Village 'isn't sure about the broad appeal of'?
Well, it's not really inconvenient as such (it's actually less trouble than going to Hobart), but it's not a great cinema. Certainly I would have preferred going to Eastlands, despite the distance, like I had to do with Downfall.
The constant flicking between characters in the beginning was tiresome, but it's a relatively minor fault that I can forgive. I thought it was a good movie. Question, why were the aliens were there on Earth in the first place?
hongi wrote:The constant flicking between characters in the beginning was tiresome, but it's a relatively minor fault that I can forgive. I thought it was a good movie. Question, why were the aliens were there on Earth in the first place?
They never explained or understood why, same as with most of the other stuff like "why Johannesburg" and "how were they managing to hide a mech in this slum and how'd it get there anyway." I like it better that way, because speculating is a lot more fun (this was part of the appeal of nBSG in its first season, being able to speculate wildly with friends for hours over the latest episode) and the official explanations almost always tend to be dumb and bullshitty.
DPDarkPrimus is my boyfriend!
SDNW4 Nation: The Refuge And, on Nova Terra, Al-Stan the Totally and Completely Honest and Legitimate Weapons Dealer and Used Starship Salesman slept on a bed made of money, with a blaster under his pillow and his sombrero pulled over his face. This is to say, he slept very well indeed.
Mayabird wrote:...official explanations almost always tend to be dumb and bullshitty.
And boring. For me, the worst thing about stories presented with minimal backstory exposition is the fear that, in this day and age, someone will explain it all in the DVD commentary track and it won't come close to your fantasy. It's the same effect that has movie adaptations of books failing to unanimously win hearts and minds.
Just seen it, it gets a 3 out of 5. Liked the Kafkaesque metamorphosis of the Fascistsky Gad into the Bug-Eyed Alien (remember the fried eggs bit in the beginning, "Just like popcorn!"), the premise, and the setting. And the Nigerians, they were hilarious. Disliked the protagonist for most of the film (whiny selfish Nazi), the cartoonish villains (Vivisections ahoy!), credibility-straining bits between action sequences (think our Intrepid Heroes getting from the Evil Lab to District 9 in their stolen car, without anyone trying to stop them) and the lack of resolution. Will wait for the sequel to come out on cable.
"
- PeZook
