Fun Stuff > ENJOY
District 9
Chesire Cat:
Frankly the way I see it there was only ever two characters in the movie, one was an alien, guess what the other was.
There was many human plot devises, but bottom line is the Colonel didn't worsen the experience for me, he was a personification of racism, and the key to some amazing action sequences.
variable_star:
--- Quote from: Melodic on 30 Aug 2009, 11:59 ---
--- Quote from: Chesire Cat on 30 Aug 2009, 10:50 ---Sure he was a bit over the top
--- End quote ---
Oh come on, he was a two-dimensional piece of artificial rubbish. The Colonel was a horrible, horrible character.
--- End quote ---
Haha, okay. How about one-dimensional characters? Hans Landa, from "Inglourious Basterds", is perhaps the worst characterization I've seen this year. He's selfish, arrogant, and above all viciously cruel - exactly like every Nazi character we've seen for the past fifty years. Yet he gets a pass because the masses think "Well, he is a Nazi. And Nazis were bad. So it makes sense." This isn't to denigrate the performance of Waltz, which is undoubtedly one of the best this year, but even a brilliant performance and crackling dialogue can't save a poorly conceived character - particularly a primary player in the film.
The Colonel was crafted to be precisely what he needed to be - a career military sort with an absolute hatred of the prawns. He was only needed to provide a static villain to Wikus, as opposed to hordes of random Nigerians and nameless MNU soldiers. It's a funny criticism to say characters like this are "two-dimensional". You can pretty much say that about the secondary characters to any film because they're, by definition, "two-dimensional". It's interesting some seem to get hung up on things like this and ultimately miss the point entirely. In the end, it's not about the Colonel or anyone else - it's the Wikus and Christopher show.
Chesire Cat:
I started reading that thinking you were disagreeing with me, Im glad I didnt tl:dr and jump straight to the retort as we seem to be on exactly the same page when it comes to the Colonel.
On the otherhand, I kind of disagree with you entirely about Hans Landa. It was a beautiful portrayal of a bad guy. I mean, he was pure evil but he was seemly very nice and pleasant. But for those who would be his enemies, his pleasantness and uniform make the situation so incredibly tense and if he was a barking dog that was Hitler, it just wouldnt be the same.
Iguana Baritone:
A lot seems to have been said about this movie in retort to things that people have said that they thought were bad. But I agree with the good parts; like I said, it was a decent film. The obvious plot holes and the silly plot device (it was basically a magical elixir of infinite power) took away from that experience. And I also have to say that one of the problems I had was that the aliens (particularly Christopher) felt far too human. When I go to see a sci-fi movie, I expect for there to be at the very least characteristic differences in the alien species. But in this movie, the emotion was the same, the anatomy was the same.
variable_star:
--- Quote from: Chesire Cat on 31 Aug 2009, 00:24 ---On the otherhand, I kind of disagree with you entirely about Hans Landa. It was a beautiful portrayal of a bad guy. I mean, he was pure evil but he was seemly very nice and pleasant.
--- End quote ---
haha Yes, I'm probably in the minority on this one. I've seen dozens and dozens of WWII films from the forties and on into the present and I can tell those who haven't that Hans Landa is (in some form) starring in nearly all of them.
On a related note, this is precisely what impressed me so much with the development of Wikus in D9. A lesser film would've have the events transform him into a more compassionate person, maybe even becoming some sort of freedom fighter for the prawns during the climax. Instead, D9 presents us with a very real, very flawed character. So much so that it's quite easy to view Wikus as an unlikeable protagonist, because even his most selfless act in the film is tempered by the fact that it's still in his best interests to do so.
I liked the contrast between Wikus and the alien Christopher, who is ironically the most human character in the film. It made sense to script the characters this way, considering D9 is one of precious few alien films that makes the humans out to be the oppressors/aggressors and the aliens the oppressed innocents.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version