District 9 - stuns movie industry with viral marketing


Selene

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Michael:

You should follow this, I am now. Fascinating ... they started marketing this with a physical ad posters about a year ago, an international sign type poster saying no non humans permitted and a web site.

Then when you went to the pre-release website, you had an option the human or non human portal.

Graphics look excellent.

Whynot - Is this as big in South Africa which is the other place it was released?

http://www.district9movie.com/

Poke around the site. Fascinating.

At any rate, it grossed 37 million the first week which was more than it cost to make it and market it!!

As Michael would say DAYAAM!

Adam

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This movie is no where near as good as the critics make it out. The story's themes are the evils of racism and "multi-national" corporations. The aliens are portrayed as refugees like those 300 Chinese workers who ran aground in Long Island. Although they own incredible technology, they do not trade it, and are kept poor and living in an apartheid era ghetto, where they are lorded over by "MNU" Multi-National-something which is supposedly a greedy evil company that does Mengele style experiments on the aliens, and uses force to rule them. The movie's "hero" is a nasty and laughable corporate hack/prison warden type who becomes contaminated with alien DNA which somehow makes him able to use alien technology. He is then imprisoned and his death is faked, until he escapes and takes refuge with the aliens. The plot has more holes than Ted Kennedy's liver. The film is full of the standard marxist bullshit, blah, blah blah...

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This movie is no where near as good as the critics make it out. The story's themes are the evils of racism and "multi-national" corporations. The aliens are portrayed as refugees like those 300 Chinese workers who ran aground in Long Island. Although they own incredible technology, they do not trade it, and are kept poor and living in an apartheid era ghetto, where they are lorded over by "MNU" Multi-National-something which is supposedly a greedy evil company that does Mengele style experiments on the aliens, and uses force to rule them. The movie's "hero" is a nasty and laughable corporate hack/prison warden type who becomes contaminated with alien DNA which somehow makes him able to use alien technology. He is then imprisoned and his death is faked, until he escapes and takes refuge with the aliens. The plot has more holes than Ted Kennedy's liver. The film is full of the standard marxist bullshit, blah, blah blah...

Ted:

I see that after poking around on the web page. The only reason I brought it up here is because of the manner of marketing that appears to be hugely successful.

Also, since WHYnot is South African, we would get as good a field report on that "Very Strange Society" as Drury called it as possible.

There is one "media issue" being generated already, in that Nigerians are apparently portrayed as vicious, gun running thugs which is apparently the way South Africans also believe. The Nigerians are claiming discrimination.

Adam

Edited by Selene
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I thought the movie was interesting. Think of -Alien Nation- and -Independence Day- and -Transformers- meet Aparheidt. It is unusual see motion pictures produced or located in the Republic of South Africa. I hope more will come.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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The Nigerians are pretty much portrayed as the same as the Kenyan Mau Maus, (gangsters and superstitious cannibals) and I don't see that they have grounds to complain.

The movie is barely worth watching if you like sci-fi, have nothing better to do, and don't mind listening to icksints that are worse to put up with than car sickness. The aliens are passive, the humans obtuse and abusive, the ability to use technology is based not upon knowledge but upon DNA signature, and the possibility of trade never occurs to anyone. The aliens eat CAT FOOD while they have an interstellar space ship levitating over Johannesburg for a decade. The film is one long liberal guilt trip with enough sci-fi for a half our episode of The Outer Limits. Utter bullshit.

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I have to very much disagree, Ted. I liked the movie a great deal on the whole. I don't think it was Marxist at all. In fact, the bad guys were the social engineers, patterned after apartheid, who tried to remove and control the aliens. The sympathetic character was the father and child who wanted to get home.

I don't think it is a liberal guilt trip to be against apartheid. It was a strongly anti-racist movie, strongly anti-big government, strongly anti-relocation camps. The bureaucrat wasn't supposed to be likable (till he slowly changes through being in the shoes of those being shot at). The reason he could operate alien weapons is because, like a fingerprint or eye scan, only alien tissue or DNA could operate them.

If you don't like how the Obama Admin thinks it knows better than us peons, or how colonialists and imperialists tend to shoot first and ask questions later, and don't like urban renewal = negro removal (an allusion to the sixties and seventies) and don't like barbed wire 'camps' or busing, then you will cheer a movie which is against all those things. It is very rare to see an anti-big government movie. If I recommended movies because of their politics, I'd recommend it on that basis alone.

But I seldom go to movies for political reasons, but rather aesthetic ones. "District 9" is rather well-done as a film and different from most of what you will see. Gruesome, but it had to be. And all the action made sense, not just an excuse for a car chase or shootout suddenly coming out of left field and over and over - with little reason or anticipation. A good action picture with less mindlessness than the most recent Harry Potter film or most of the recent summer 'explosions' films this year [i like those of the HP books I've read, often don't care for the mindless HP movies] - I couldn't even sit through Transformers XXXVII.

I'm recommending it to my friends. Not the best movie I've seen in six months, but better than most.

Edited by Philip Coates
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I have to very much disagree, Ted. I liked the movie a great deal on the whole. I don't think it was Marxist at all. In fact, the bad guys were the social engineers, patterned after apartheid, who tried to remove and control the aliens. The sympathetic character was the father and child who wanted to get home.

I don't think it is a liberal guilt trip to be against apartheid. It was a strongly anti-racist movie, strongly anti-big government, strongly anti-relocation camps. The bureaucrat wasn't supposed to be likable (till he slowly changes through being in the shoes of those being shot at). The reason he could operate alien weapons is because, like a fingerprint or eye scan, only alien tissue or DNA could operate them.

If you don't like how the Obama Admin thinks it knows better than us peons, or how colonialists and imperialists tend to shoot first and ask questions later, and don't like urban renewal = negro removal (an allusion to the sixties and seventies) and don't like barbed wire 'camps' or busing, then you will cheer a movie which is against all those things. It is very rare to see an anti-big government movie. If I recommended movies because of their politics, I'd recommend it on that basis alone.

But I seldom go to movies for political reasons, but rather aesthetic ones. "District 9" is rather well-done as a film and different from most of what you will see. Gruesome, but it had to be. And all the action made sense, not just an excuse for a car chase or shootout suddenly coming out of left field and over and over - with little reason or anticipation. A good action picture with less mindlessness than the most recent Harry Potter film or most of the recent summer 'explosions' films this year [like those of the HP I'v be read books, often don't care for the mindless movies] - I couldn't even sit through Transformers XXXVII.

I'm recommending it to my friends. And to everyone on this list. Not the best movie I've seen in six months, but better than most.

Phil, you seem to have missed that MNU, (multi-national united) the authority that ran the ghettos, was a business, primarily concerned with what profit they could get out of the aliens, whom they fed cat food in return.

The movie is full of stupid plot holes. It is leftist propaganda run amok. Its concepts of economics, statecraft, and the world is as puerile as the beliefs of a hippy college freshman.

For example, regard plot holes, the "hero" escapes from the MNU military-industrial complex, and, while running down the street, is filmed by news crews in helicopters, who show his every move on live TV, but the bad guys, who have their own army, can neither shoot, nor find, nor kill the guy.

Or, when the alien ship arrives, it sits floating above Johannesburg for almost a year before humans fly up and cut their way inside. Inside they find starving aliens. Why did the aliens not try to land or escape? Why were they starving, after traveling years in space without hunger? Why did they not communicate with the humans? Why did humans not stay on the ship to explore the technology, which the aliens did not try to control or hide from them? Where is human curiosity or trade driven by the profit motive.

As far as you can tell, all humans like to do is put aliens in ghettos and feed them cat food to get their kicks at abusing a new minority.

Where is the UN? Where are the Russians, NATO, the US? The news reporters keep wondering if the aliens might take offense and declare war on the earth for the way a corporation chartered by the SA government has mistreated them. Do you think that the US or no outside power would have stepped in, initiated trade and research?

The movie seems to have been developed by a bull session of unshaven marxists who threw some concepts against the wall, and the ones that stuck were "cat food, refugees, racism, arms dealers."

Yes, if you are an adult, and find it is easy to suspend belief while having your intelligence insulted, you can watch this movie. In fact, I did sit through its entirety. Once. Not again.

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> MNU, (multi-national united) the authority that ran the ghettos, was a business,

Yes but as I recall it seemed very much not a free enterprise operation, but more a *fascist* business - one existing as the fair-haired boy of or a creature of or to do the bidding of government. Sort of like Obama's buddies at Goldman Sachs or Amtrak or those at GM or Citibank and the others to whom the plums are handed while the others don't get bailed out or are over-regulated. And the genocidal actions, the bullying, the apartheid, the camps, the shootings, the breaking into people's houses, the airborne storm trooper-dude were and could only be at the behest of government.

If someone were to do a movie 'exposing' the profiteers from big government, the recipients of the handouts, like Goldman or Amtrak or GM today or showing them as criminals or negligent (or irresponsible) or complicit in the financial problems or whatever, I would say they were making an accurate film, not a Marxist one. Remember Rand's point that big businesses today are often the biggest profiteers from and colluders with big government. [see also Kolko.]

The MNU was acting as an arm of government.

Edited by Philip Coates
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> MNU, (multi-national united) the authority that ran the ghettos, was a business,

Yes but as I recall it seemed very much not a free enterprise operation, but more a *fascist* business - one existing as the fair-haired boy of or a creature of or to do the bidding of government. Sort of like Obama's buddies at Goldman Sachs or Amtrak or those at GM or Citibank and the others to whom the plums are handed while the others don't get bailed out or are over-regulated. And the genocidal actions, the bullying, the apartheid, the camps, the shootings, the breaking into people's houses, the airborne storm trooper-dude were and could only be at the behest of government.

If someone were to do a movie 'exposing' Goldman or Amtrak or GM today or showing them as criminals (or irresponsible) or complicit in the financial problems or whatever, I would hardly say they were making a Marxist film.

Neither goldman, amtrak nor gm is an arms dealer, uses armed patrols against people they oppress and cheat and shows a cavalier racist attitude one would expect from the Japanese against prisoners of war. Yes, in so far as it portrays a mixed economy, business-as-bad-guy potentially pleases marxist and capitalist equally. In so far as innocent people who discount my interpretation can enjoy it, fine with me, and I do understand both that and how you could have enjoyed this movie. But my interpretation is not wrong.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The best part of the film, for me, was seeing the change of the main character throughout the course of the film.

~ Shane

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I feel the film had a great premise, but just descended into pure stupidity with it's host of two dimensional characters(Nigerian War Lord, check. Evil Greedy Weapons Dealer CEO, check.) and general inclination to focus on the action just to reveal in the visual splendor of it all.

Some people mistakingly call it "one of the smartest Sci-Fi flicks to come out in years", which is completely wrong. It's a well made film no doubt, but it's about as shallow as they get when it comes to plot. However, the action is extremely well choreographed, and it was refreshing to see an action film where you can actually tell what the hell is going on frame to frame.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Geez, there's been this space ship suspended above me in Jo'burg all this time, and I had to find out from you guys.

That's about the reaction of the average Seffrican, who seems utterly bemused by all the fuss (and success) of this movie!

It hasn't been on circuit long here, and I am always the last person to catch a new movie - if at all - so I haven't seen it. You have made up my mind to view this one.

The title is of course based on the notorious District 6 in Cape Town, which was razed to the ground during apartheid times, with 'forced removals' of its longstanding inhabitants.

Despite having a highly talented film production capability in SA, nothing made here has grabbed much attention on the world market; it seems this has changed things a bit.

Interesting that the first ever full- length feature film ever made (The Voortrekkers,circa 1900) was S.African. So it's taken us a while to get noticed again.

Yes, Adam, this is a strange society as A. Drury identified. Trouble is, it's getting stranger all the time -- no fiction can match or come close to the reality of our daily headlines.

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Geez, there's been this space ship suspended above me in Jo'burg all this time, and I had to find out from you guys.

That's about the reaction of the average Seffrican, who seems utterly bemused by all the fuss (and success) of this movie!

It hasn't been on circuit long here, and I am always the last person to catch a new movie - if at all - so I haven't seen it. You have made up my mind to view this one.

The title is of course based on the notorious District 6 in Cape Town, which was razed to the ground during apartheid times, with 'forced removals' of its longstanding inhabitants.

Despite having a highly talented film production capability in SA, nothing made here has grabbed much attention on the world market; it seems this has changed things a bit.

Interesting that the first ever full- length feature film ever made (The Voortrekkers,circa 1900) was S.African. So it's taken us a while to get noticed again.

Yes, Adam, this is a strange society as A. Drury identified. Trouble is, it's getting stranger all the time -- no fiction can match or come close to the reality of our daily headlines.

I love listening to your icksints.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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District 9 is what happens when -Independence Day- and -Alien Nation- go out together on a blind date.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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District 9 is what happens when -Independence Day- and -Alien Nation- go out together on a blind date.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ha! I also have a feeling that the sheer novelty of the locale and actors ('icksints' and all), coupled with the incomparable political background existing here, is what has appealed to those jaded palates in the West.

As I said earlier, truth is stranger than Science Fiction in sunny S.A., Ba'al.

Tony

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