CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Radical Dreamer (post: 1334675) wrote:Wow, this actually looks pretty intriguing. I'd be interested to see what Peter Jackson's doing these days. XD A neat idea, though!

Danderson (post: 1335475) wrote:Looks good, but I'm really hoping it's not trying to go for the whole "illegal imigration thing." If it starts tying with that debate then it's already lost me....

Cognitive Gear (post: 1335530) wrote:Would you mind explaining why this would ruin it for you? I would actually be pretty happy if they made me think about modern political issues.

Danderson (post: 1335668) wrote:Just the way that they appear to be presenting it. And I typically do not enjoy or take seriously movies that try to present a clear "political" agenda as it amounts to usually nothing more then Hollywood propaganda (movies that come to mind are The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Day After Tomorrow). But that's just my opinion when it comes to movies.

Danderson wrote:And I typically do not enjoy or take seriously movies that try to present a clear "political" agenda as it amounts to usually nothing more then Hollywood propaganda

(movies that come to mind are The Day the Earth Stood Still

Nate (post: 1335797) wrote:Yeah, how dare the creator of something try to express his own views and opinions in it! It should be illegal for people to make something that represents their personal beliefs!

Oh, and you know, you can't have it both ways. If you're saying others shouldn't be allowed to present political agendas in movies, then Christians shouldn't be allowed to present religious agendas in THEIR movies. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

You realize that The Day the Earth Stood Still was originally a black-and-white movie made in 1951, right?

Cognitive Gear (post: 1334677) wrote:He just finished up a movie called The Lovely Bones based on a book of the same title. There should be a trailer for it pretty soon.

Nate (post: 1336246) wrote:I agree that there IS a point where a message is too strong so as to make the entertainment annoying or unenjoyable.

Okay, the title District 9 could refer to two separate things: directly it could refer to an old post-Apartheid system where the city of Johannesburg was divided up into about 12 different districts. District / Region 9 was a industrialized portion of the city towards the South East of the city. Although there were many affluent to lower middle to upper middle class districts in the region, much of its population are poor. The movie was filmed in Katlehong, which is in that general area.

However, the title could also be an allusion to District 6, one of Apartheid Government's biggest sins. District 6 was a "blacks only" historical neighbourhood on the outskirts of Cape Town that was demolished in the late 1960's by the Apartheid Government after the area was re-zoned as a whites-only area. The former occupants were moved onto the Cape Flats where many of their descendants still live in shanty towns. There are other comparrisons and allusions to Apartheid, like the "For Use of Humans Only", which reflects the "White Only" or "Blacks Only" facilities that existed practically side to side of each other still as recently as the 1980s.

Yet it would be wrong to interpret the movie solely as an allegory to Apartheid. Indeed, the allusions are there, but as an allegory it wont work. If anything, the movie so far reflects (for South Africans) last year's Xenophobic riots, which got little coverage in the United States but was big trouble / news here. Many foreigners (both legal immigrants and illegal) were attacked and viciously killed in pogroms; in an effort to protect the foreigners the government had to temporarily place them in internment camps around the country. "It's costing so much money to keep them here" sounds almost like it could have been taken from a newsreport. But even that does not quite cut it (for one thing District 9 went into pre-production almost a year before the pogroms).

I think it would be wrong for anyone to draw any direct parallels between South African politics, past or present; based on the trailers I'd say the movie is actively trying to eschew this. In fact, I can't help but think that it would be wrong to interpret the movie as a straight or even alluded allegory to any era in South Africa's past. Rather it might be about something more general like human nature and all that. A lot of good science fiction usually is about that one way or the other.

Some thoughts about the cast: International audiences will assert that the cast is mostly unknowns. I'd have to agree with that since they are even unknowns by South African standards. There is not one person in the trailer I recognise from anywhere. That's not really a bad thing, but it is surprising considering how many high calibre actors we have hanging around here. Even the director, Neil Blomkamp, is not known here. Most likely that will change.

According to the cast list the main character's surname is "van der Merwe". Amongst white, Afrikaans speaking South Africans that's just about the most common surname you'd find here. It's possible to know dozens of van der Merwe's without them being related to each other. Well, that's my initial thoughts on the movie...

Nate (post: 1336246) wrote:I don't see how it reminds you of Cloverfield. XD Cloverfield was all hype. This movie doesn't have near the level of hype or viral campaigning that Cloverfield did (or maybe it does and I just haven't been exposed to it).

Tommy (post: 1336594) wrote:A mall restroom in my local area had this sign on it:

Davidizer13 (post: 1336640) wrote:I wonder what you'd get if you called that number.

Davidizer13 (post: 1336991) wrote:6 * 3 = 18, which is divisible by 9. How's that?