[SPOILERS] District 9 Review Thread

[fgalkin]

While being chased by other MNU cars and helicopters? Who know where they're going? How hard it is to radio the police the roadblock all the highways into District 9?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Sephirius]

While being chased by other MNU cars and helicopters? Who know where they're going? How hard it is to radio the police the roadblock all the highways into District 9?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

MNU is obviously trying to keep it on the down-lo, and alerting checkpoints would just complicate their search and the chances that another competing party would intercept Wikus on the way there.

MNU knows Wikus and Christopher are going to D9, why should it stop them from trying to get into what is essentially a walled prison? They know nothing about the plans for the ship, and they can't hide in there forever. MNU is in the right on this one, when given their limited knowledge of Wikus' plans.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Perhaps when they were on route to MNU headquarters they would be legally under the jurisdiction of SA and Johannesburg in particular? I could see MNU not doing anything then, particularly since they already had Wikus in their little shop of horrors. If he gets taken by the police that could lead to some unwelcomed questions for MNU, particularly if they interrogate Wikus before MNU could intervene. Then again, that would be dependent on knowing Wikus was going to a location where they could presumably do with him as they wish (ie thier HQ)and the level of security and general surprise by the villians seemed to indicate otherwise.

Alternatively, maybe they couldn't be sure that Wikus wouldn't be shot by some of thier lower ranks when they would encounter him. Wasn't it only that Colonel guy and his mercs that went in after them in the end. I don't recall seeing any of the SWAT like guys from the beginning.

[fgalkin]

While being chased by other MNU cars and helicopters? Who know where they're going? How hard it is to radio the police the roadblock all the highways into District 9?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

MNU is obviously trying to keep it on the down-lo, and alerting checkpoints would just complicate their search and the chances that another competing party would intercept Wikus on the way there.

MNU knows Wikus and Christopher are going to D9, why should it stop them from trying to get into what is essentially a walled prison? They know nothing about the plans for the ship, and they can't hide in there forever. MNU is in the right on this one, when given their limited knowledge of Wikus' plans.

By that time, the knowledge of Wikus being an alien mutant is already out. They have admitted a terrorist act on their building. Alerting the police about Wikus would not significantly endanger their plans. He is listed as contagious and highly dangerous, clearly a menace to public safety- the police are obligated to stop him, even if he was not a wanted terrorist. Which he is.

And what "competing party" are you talking about? Have we ever seen or heard about one?

And D9 being hard to hide in? Have you SEEN the place? It's a nightmare to search through- there's almost two million Prawns in a confined space, plus the Nigerians. Each one of them having their own hide-outs. It's a fucking labyrinth is what it is. You can tell MNU has no idea what is going on there, because of the way they had no idea what they would be finding there and when during the eviction.

One would need a massive manhunt to even have a chance of finding him there. Plus, prawns have just attacked the MNU headquarters. Why? How many? What if there are more of these aggressive prawns and they mean business? You're looking at the potential for a massive urban firefight against aliens with advanced weapons.

All of which can be avoided by simply blocking the roads into D9.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Balrog]

Presumably, they did not want to risk having Wikus get captured by the police and telling them his story. Because unless the police/government are on the take with MNU, being told that the Evil Corporation is hosting a little shop of horrors in their basement would raise uncomfortable questions.

[fgalkin]

Presumably, they did not want to risk having Wikus get captured by the police and telling them his story. Because unless the police/government are on the take with MNU, being told that the Evil Corporation is hosting a little shop of horrors in their basement would raise uncomfortable questions.

And they would believe a half-alien terrorist over the words of a multi-billion dollar corporation why?

Also, consider that Wikus' assitant, who did reveal the little shop of horrors is currently on trial for it. And this was actual evidence, not just the ramblings of some guy with a mutant hand. What does that suggest to you about the relationship between MNU and the South African government?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Molyneux]

Keep in mind that the man leading the hunt for Wikus wants to kill him. He's been ordered to take Wikus in alive, but he did say that he just wants to kill him himself - something that the Johannesburg police might not look kindly on.

[fgalkin]

Keep in mind that the man leading the hunt for Wikus wants to kill him. He's been ordered to take Wikus in alive, but he did say that he just wants to kill him himself - something that the Johannesburg police might not look kindly on.

Uh....no. They were taking him in when they first got him, before the Nigerians attacked and stole him, remember? The leader only decided to kill him after Wikus killed his entire team (whether for that, or due to lack of witnesses is irrelevant). He would not kill Wikus when others are present- he's a sadist but he won't jeopardize his career over it.

So no, he would not order the police to stand down because he wants to kill him.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Molyneux]

Keep in mind that the man leading the hunt for Wikus wants to kill him. He's been ordered to take Wikus in alive, but he did say that he just wants to kill him himself - something that the Johannesburg police might not look kindly on.

Uh....no. They were taking him in when they first got him, before the Nigerians attacked and stole him, remember? The leader only decided to kill him after Wikus killed his entire team (whether for that, or due to lack of witnesses is irrelevant). He would not kill Wikus when others are present- he's a sadist but he won't jeopardize his career over it.

So no, he would not order the police to stand down because he wants to kill him.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Ah, right - my mistake.
Maybe there simply wasn't time to set up roadblocks, then? Do we know roughly how far the MNU building was from District 9, anyway?

[fgalkin]

Keep in mind that the man leading the hunt for Wikus wants to kill him. He's been ordered to take Wikus in alive, but he did say that he just wants to kill him himself - something that the Johannesburg police might not look kindly on.

Uh....no. They were taking him in when they first got him, before the Nigerians attacked and stole him, remember? The leader only decided to kill him after Wikus killed his entire team (whether for that, or due to lack of witnesses is irrelevant). He would not kill Wikus when others are present- he's a sadist but he won't jeopardize his career over it.

So no, he would not order the police to stand down because he wants to kill him.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Ah, right - my mistake.
Maybe there simply wasn't time to set up roadblocks, then? Do we know roughly how far the MNU building was from District 9, anyway?

Far enough that it took Wikus something like the much of the day and the most of the night to get there on foot (IIRC). Not to mention that the JMPD loves it's roadblocks. And operates 88 at a time, every Friday.

Keep them coming, folks. The more silly arguments I see, the dumber this plothole seems.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Molyneux]

Keep them coming, folks. The more silly arguments I see, the dumber this plothole seems.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

All right...how about they simply blew up any roadblocks they saw with the big freakin' lightning gun? If I remember correctly, they still had that when they headed back to D9.

[Balrog]

Keep them coming, folks. The more silly arguments I see, the dumber this plothole seems.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Err, um, oh I know, it was their day off!

I don't remember it taking him that long to get from MNU to Dis9 on foot the first time, and part of that was him trying to avoid him or his giant mutant hand being spotted, not tearing down the street like a bat out of hell. Plus it would make sense for MNU to be located close to the prawns in case they have to respond quickly to an emergency.

As for the police, perhaps it was a matter of lack of prior planning and/or coordination?

[Mayabird]

Umm, guys, no, just, please don't. It's a plot hole. The entrance of District 9 is a freaking guarded gate that can be opened and closed. Hearing excuses is almost as painful as the bullshit 'explanation' of the hive mind making Christopher smarter.

In fact this may be why the movie cut straight from "they escape the HQ" to "they're already back;" they honestly couldn't think of a legitimate way to get them through roadblocks and so forth, so they just skipped it and hoped no one would notice. Honestly I didn't realize it at first.

[Balrog]

Yeah, it is hardly noticeable thanks to the general quality of the film, and it's not such a deep hole that it ruins the rest of the movie. It's implausible, but not completely impossible.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

I just assumed they didn't even bother going through the gate and simply drove straight through a fence somewhere else along the border. I seem to recall a few shots in the movie of the borderline and at least some of it was little more than chain-link fences with razorwire on top.

[Hawkwings]

The first time he sneaks into district 9 it shows him crawling under a section of fence. I can't imagine those would be too difficult for that armored MNU truck to plow through.

[KrauserKrauser]

First off I really enjoyed the movie, every minute of it was great and constantly I was wishing that the most recent SciFi movies could be this good.

While my friends and I were walking out of the theater, the shine faded a bit and we started noticing things that just made no sense.

Cat Food = Alien Crack - Cat food is not some magical concoction, it's mainly meat + chemicals/vitamins. Twenty years of research to determine the active ingredient that makes the Aliens go crazy doesn't seem outlandish, and Cat food itself is cheap as hell. How the Nigerians are able to build their criminal empire on such a cheap product makes no sense unless MNU is regulating the flow of catfood into D9 because of ???, No idea. MNU = Mustachioed Villains #1

Forcing Wickus to fire the weapons - Ok, first off you have a highly food motivated alien that will respond to instructions and a resource that is incredibly cheap to you, cat food, and incredibly valuable to them. Getting the aliens to fire their weapons for your tests should be easy to organize, you shouldn't have to force your one human hybrid by cattleprod to shoot things to see what the effects were. The "scientists" were just more sadists from Evil Co. that were amazed by the effects of the weapons and each test should have been completed years ago using basic logic to bribe the aliens into doing the tests. Yet more contrived evil from Mustachioed Villan Co.

No Humans on the Mothership - So, in 20 years there aren't still going to be teams of scientists taking that ship apart piece by piece? The thing isn't going anywhere but it obviously doing something. If we have teams in Antartica constantly monitoring and exploring, that ship would have people on it as well. Even if there is nothing active going on, figuring out the Antigrav tech and materials would justify a team on the ship. By all rights Christopher should have some unwanted guests on his trip, even though they would likely be killed in vaccuum once he leaves atmo.

There are others like the world magically agreeing to leave the aliens in South Africa and the #1 weapons manufacturer not being equally as interested in the alien weapons. Any sane competition between the two would have the #1 crying foul at any and all violations by MNU to get access to the technology and deprive MNU of the potential revenue.

I want a sequel just as much as I don't want a sequel, it was a great movie that is open for another but might be better left alone.

[Mayabird]

Forcing Wickus to fire the weapons - Ok, first off you have a highly food motivated alien that will respond to instructions and a resource that is incredibly cheap to you, cat food, and incredibly valuable to them. Getting the aliens to fire their weapons for your tests should be easy to organize, you shouldn't have to force your one human hybrid by cattleprod to shoot things to see what the effects were. The "scientists" were just more sadists from Evil Co. that were amazed by the effects of the weapons and each test should have been completed years ago using basic logic to bribe the aliens into doing the tests. Yet more contrived evil from Mustachioed Villan Co.

As a couple of us have mentioned, we think they just wanted to see if Wikus himself could use the weapons with his new weird genetic crap going on since MNU had been doing really evil freaky genetic experiments of their own to make humans able to use the weapons since they couldn't reverse engineer them. Wow, that was a long rambling sentence.

[TheLostVikings]

Forcing Wickus to fire the weapons - Ok, first off you have a highly food motivated alien that will respond to instructions and a resource that is incredibly cheap to you, cat food, and incredibly valuable to them. Getting the aliens to fire their weapons for your tests should be easy to organize, you shouldn't have to force your one human hybrid by cattleprod to shoot things to see what the effects were. The "scientists" were just more sadists from Evil Co. that were amazed by the effects of the weapons and each test should have been completed years ago using basic logic to bribe the aliens into doing the tests. Yet more contrived evil from Mustachioed Villan Co.

Um this is not a plot hole in any way, shape, or form. You completely missed the whole point of that scene. Obviously MNU did the whole "getting aliens to fire their guns" test more than a decade ago. They even figured out that it apparently was some kind of DNA lock. It was explicitly stated that the reason they made Wilkis fire the guns was to test if he (the first and only human-alien hybrid ever) could make the guns work, despite them being keyed to only accept aliens.

Because if he could fire them, that opened up the possibility of making the weapons work with any human. MNU being an arms company and all.

[TithonusSyndrome]

In fact this may be why the movie cut straight from "they escape the HQ" to "they're already back;" they honestly couldn't think of a legitimate way to get them through roadblocks and so forth, so they just skipped it and hoped no one would notice. Honestly I didn't realize it at first.

What's so implausible about them blasting the fuck out of the roadblocks with their weapons? Christopher is if anything even more apt with the lightning cannon than Wikus.

[SylasGaunt]

Cat Food = Alien Crack - Cat food is not some magical concoction, it's mainly meat + chemicals/vitamins. Twenty years of research to determine the active ingredient that makes the Aliens go crazy doesn't seem outlandish, and Cat food itself is cheap as hell. How the Nigerians are able to build their criminal empire on such a cheap product makes no sense unless MNU is regulating the flow of catfood into D9 because of ???, No idea. MNU = Mustachioed Villains #1

It's less a plot hole and more unexplained. The documentary style footage mentions that they haven't yet figured out just what it is about catfoods the prawns love so much.

And their empire isn't built on it, it's just one facet. All those human weapons laying around during the raid were likely coming from them, and Wikus mentions there's a chop-shop in their compound as well.

No Humans on the Mothership - So, in 20 years there aren't still going to be teams of scientists taking that ship apart piece by piece? The thing isn't going anywhere but it obviously doing something. If we have teams in Antartica constantly monitoring and exploring, that ship would have people on it as well. Even if there is nothing active going on, figuring out the Antigrav tech and materials would justify a team on the ship. By all rights Christopher should have some unwanted guests on his trip, even though they would likely be killed in vaccuum once he leaves atmo.

Well since he doesn't leave the command module if there was any team on the mothership they're pretty much irrelavent because either-

A.) Die aboard ship due to things like depressurization like you mention.
B.) They may well have gotten the hell off of it when it started moving for no readily apparent reason.

Also I'm guessing any scientists aboard that ship were being EXTREMELY careful about poking anything since it's hovering right over a city. If you start taking shit apart and accidentally short the anti-grav out it comes crashing down over a heavily populated area.

There are others like the world magically agreeing to leave the aliens in South Africa and the #1 weapons manufacturer not being equally as interested in the alien weapons. Any sane competition between the two would have the #1 crying foul at any and all violations by MNU to get access to the technology and deprive MNU of the potential revenue.

Uhm.. there were people crying foul over MNU violations. There were protestors outside D9, and Wikus' father-in-law mentions having people all over him over the number of aliens killed in the relocation.

[tim31]

Krauser, who do you mean by the number one weapons manufacturer? In the reality of D9, MNU is the number one weapons manufacturer. This is specifically mentioned.

EDIT: just checked, forget I said anything.

[andrewgpaul]

It was explicitly stated that the reason they made Wilkis fire the guns was to test if he (the first and only human-alien hybrid ever) could make the guns work, despite them being keyed to only accept aliens.

The first one to survive - pretty sure one of MNU's scientists mentions something to that end.

[SylasGaunt]

It's mentioned that Wickus is the only successful hybridization of human/prawn DNA where the poor sucker lived, which means MNU had already tried before or they tried sometime between the departure of the mothership and the release of the documentary.

[DPDarkPrimus]

It's mentioned that Wickus is the only successful hybridization of human/prawn DNA where the poor sucker lived, which means MNU had already tried before or they tried sometime between the departure of the mothership and the release of the documentary.

Also the text at the end of the film states that the clerk who had been with Wikus exposed MNU's "illegal gene-splicing programs" or something similar.