I think most readers of Hacker News would enjoy District 9 (I did: 9.5/10) | Hacker News Reader

I think most readers of Hacker News would enjoy District 9 (I did: 9.5/10)

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48 pointsMikeCapone38 comments

I am not sure whether this article will get flagged or not, but I agree completely with you on this. I watched it last friday and wasn't even sure what this movie was about. For the first half an hour I was cursing myself that why did I came, however, everything changed.

This is one of the best sci-fi movies I have ever seen, and I have seen almost all. I am very sure that most of the HN community will love it.

The problem is... then the first hour ended, and the movie became a giant chase reminiscent of Michael Bay: all cops'n'robbers and random killing: see more here: http://jseliger.com/2009/08/18/district-9 .

Let's avoid spoilers for those who haven't seen the movie yet, but I must say that I found the action parts very satisfying. I haven't been literally on the edge of my seat in an action film in a long time.

Bit of a prawn salad in your view, then?

I completely agree. They had something great going, and then got carried away with the theatrics.

This is exactly my problem as well. I still enjoyed, but was expecting something different, something bigger. Not just another chase film, where one man and two aliens take on an army.

Still the best sci-fi film for a long time. (Haven't seen moon yet).

Yes, you have to watch from beginning to end. It starts a bit slow, but it must be taken as a whole.

How many people here did not know about District 9?

I'm guessing pretty much no one and if they hadn't then they wouldn't care now.

Link to something where they go into the technical details of the film, the software they used, what computers, rendering info for the CG, how they were able to make the film with the amount of money they had.

But DO NOT just throw up a link to IMDB.

Don't be rude. Most people don't know where to go looking that kind of stuff, and I think a lot of hackers are interested in sci-fi to start with, he meant well.

Anyway, here's some stuff to satisfy your geekier urges:

    http://vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&id=4032 < business
    http://www.studiodaily.com/main/topstory/Making-Alien-Blood-in-District9_11199.html < compositing
    http://www.red.com/cameras/technology/ < the camera
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_moving < the main technology used for compositing handheld shots
    http://www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/docs/manual.html < u can haz free toolz
    http://mos.futurenet.com/resources/3dworld/TDW94.s_farm.pdf < this kind of thing is quite computationally intensive
    http://structuresynth.sourceforge.net/ < procedural modelling is increasing important in CG

I don't think he was being rude. I think it's a legitimate point, this is a major motion picture, for which I've seen adds on national TV god only knows how many times. Not that any geek needs adds to know this movie is theaters now. How could anyone here not know?

I hadn't heard of it. I pretty much only hear about new movies if the actor comes on the Daily Show or something. I'm thinking about going to see it now, and appreciated the post.

The original post was not to make HN readers aware that the film exist, but rather to recommend it as something that this very specific demographic would probably enjoy.

He had a legitimate point: this may not be appropriate for HN. (note: I'm not saying its not appropriate, thats not for me to decide). I, personally, just don't think the OP worded his post as well as it could have been.

And FWIW, I haven't seen any ads on TV for this. I don't watch much TV though.

//edited for clarification. The irony clarifying a post saying that someone else may not have been clear isn't lost on me.

I'm just trolling (in the benign sense) for other HN members that might be film/video oriented. I don't get on that well with art-school types but it would be nice to know more creatively-inclined HNers in the Bay Area.

This is some good stuff, thanks.

Thanks! I've only read the first two links, but so far it's very interesting stuff.

I'd never heard of the movie until I saw this post. So that's one.

Think of it as an organic version of the Netflix recommendation system. Since a lot of folks here have similar interests in technology-related things, it stands to reason we might enjoy similar movies.

I don't think movie/book/other recommendations are particularly harmful. As long as they're used sparingly.

If you have a link to that stuff please post it. I looked at the Wikipedia page and there's not much of interest there.

Exactly, tell me what's so interesting about the IMDB page?-- it's the same stuff as on Wikipedia.

What's wrong with waiting and putting up something of actual interest?

My goal was mostly to spark a discussion in the comments and see if others agreed with me.

If you don't like it, you don't have to upvote or even read the comments.

I have to say I didn't really like it that much. I enjoyed the "documentary" aspect of the first half or so, but the "plot" in the second half felt pretty weak.

I had the opposite reaction: I didn't care much for the "documentary" portion, especially since I didn't realize that the main character was the main character, so I kept waiting for the prelude to end so we could get to the story. Also, while it was impressive that they could get me to care at least somewhat about this guy by the end, I didn't enjoy the endless scenes that made him so unsympathetic.

The politics were so heavy-handed that I thought the backlash would be fierce. I was wrong; no one seemed to get it. Anyway, the director was painting a pretty pessimistic view of society.

http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/alien_nation/

Aliens? Apartheid? Nelon Mandela? Dresden Codak did that back in 2005! http://dresdencodak.com/2005/10/05/apartheid/

District 9 is an expansion of ideas that Blomkamp first explored in Alive in Joburg, which was released in 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alive_in_Joburg

And as the previous comment notes, this movie is not quite just an apartheid allegory. That would be too easy. Instead, it's largely about present-day Johannesburg, with its massive population of unwanted illegal immigrants, its poverty and its horrific xenophobia. Just a few months ago black foreigners were being burnt and hacked to death in Johannesburg's streets, so the attitudes this movie alludes to have a fair bit of immediacy.

Honestly, this is one of the few movies I've seen recently that I feel perfectly confident in recommending to anyone. It truly is excellent.

I thought it had a decent story, realistic special effects (the prawns look quite real next to the human actors), and humor (for the first half of the movie, the main character could have been plucked right out of Summer Heights High).

I for one am sick and god damn tired of sci fi films not even trying to make sense (internal consistency, or even just basic logic). not going to spoil distrcit 9, but god damn, can you at least consult a sci-fi author? any author will do. any plot holes that he points out within 5 minutes are probably pretty glaring.

I would discuss this further if I could only find an email address for you somewhere.

The general holiness of the plot was pretty bad, 'twas true. I still don't quite buy the central element of the plot: that these refugees showed up here in such bad shape because their brain bugs died, but look here's one left over and he'll go get help!

Um, please consider deleting the spoiler for the sake of people who haven't seen it yet.

flagged. don't fucking ruin the movie for me, I swear I'll see it next week!

I have not seen it yet - but I suspect it's another Monomyth : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth ... it that is true I'll pass

No, it subverts it rather effectively. I agree, this plot structure has become horrendously overused in the movies.

Nope.

Please don't include a personal rating in your submission's title.

I enjoyed D9, despite a lot of internal inconsistencies, nonsensical yelling, and implausible violence.

But, I also enjoyed HN more before testimonials for heavily-promoted mass-market movies -- number one at the box office last week! -- were top stories.

There's tons of such general-interest, pop-culture, pure-entertainment content out there -- even if filtered for techie/scifi tastes. (See a blog like io9, for example.) It could fill much of the front page, every day.

But I guess there's nothing to be done about it; there's 43 upvotes and counting, and it's number one on /classic too.

So I, for one, welcome our future of big-budget movie trailers, funny robot videos, and debates about 'Lost'/'BSG'/etc. Forward, to mass appeal!

isn't it kind of implied that you think most readers would enjoy it simply by posting it?

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