Doug

My hovercraft is full of eels!!!!

They totally ripped off 343 Guilty Spark from Halo.

Ha-cha!! When I get Halo: Reach I will shatter and sob all over the floor. I will play with the frenzy of a rabid raccoon, and be thrown into a deconvolution of reasoning by its sheer beauty and power, like my face caught fire and someone put it out with a shovel, because that's just the way the Halo cookie crumbles.

Old black converse, dusty jeans and a Ramones t-shirt.

Had some good effects. Strong premise. Cardboard, two-dimensional villain. It's screenwriting 101--if you make a villain this 100% evil it is never interesting. Compelling villains resmble the hero. But this was an adolescent look at evil. Oooo, bad military; oooo evil bad guy. C'mon--what BS. The character Wez in THE ROAD WARRIOR did this character much, much better. D9's hero was woefully miscast and it was a frighteningly inconsistent performance. Do I believe for one second that this character has the stones to go into the district to carry off that mission? No, it's absurd. The actress who played his wife gave a truly awful performance. The aliens were strong and weak to suit plot-points. The telegraphed alien eye-batting was bathic. For me, District 9 was every bit the student film. And there's nothing worse than inexperience ruining a great premise. I was very disappointed. Praise for this mediocre effort is astonishingly inaccurate.

FROM WIRED MAGAZINE:

"It's impossible to describe in words the sheer beauty of Cameron's realisation of his hybrid world of science fiction and fantasy, but as you observe the sheer scale, magnificence and care that has gone into the creatures and settings, you realise you're experiencing a perfect moment of fantasy indulgence. You realise that yes, this is what science fiction and fantasy should look like. You may have had the same feeling when you first saw a lightsabre drawn, or those wondrous first moments of magic in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Cameron's boyhood fascination with fiction really shows, but to me the world feels like some sort of beautiful merging of The Legend of Zelda, Halo and Bioshock. I was utterly awestruck by the majesty of the world presented, for the first time since Peter Jacksons' interpretation of The Lord Of The Rings.

The sense of style is enhanced by the technology which buoys this film. The highest praise for Cameron's melding of cinema with stereoscopic 3D (the type with the dorky glasses) is that you could tell that for him, 3D is a means of expression, not an effects tool. He minimises the use of the "extreme close up" 3D effects, the objects seemingly so close to you that you could touch them, which is a blessing. It allows him to take proper advantage of the real benefit of 3D, which is to give the entire film an amazing sense of depth. After the first minute, your eyes adjust and other than the occasional money-shot, you find yourself relaxing into the immersive experience, free to enjoy the wonder of the film, not the effects themselves.

Much has been made of the alleged 60/40 split of CGI and live action, respectively. Just as much has been written about the fact that part of the reason for Avatar's delay was Cameron waiting for the state of the art to catch up with his vision for the film. So did he achieve his aim of photorealistic CGI? I think the question misses the point. Regardless of how highly detailed the CGI may be, you're still aware of its presence because, well, you didn't ride a dragon to work this morning. Of course it's CGI. But more important than the level of realism is the skill with which Cameron has integrated live action and rendered imagery. There's no jarring juxtaposition of live action and CGI, or even of flat versus 3D. Cameron is the first director to mix all these elements seamlessly."

Octapus Motor: you get no disagreement that ALIEN is an elite sci-fi motion picture. One of the best in cinematic history.

You get huge disagreement about everything you said re: ALIENS. It is--simply--one of the finest action films ever made. From sheer storytelling perspective ALIENS is the better script, which Cameron wrote. The thing's a juggernaut. You should read it. It's incredibly well-written. The film is incredibly well-made.

Did most of you see the same trailer I did? The one I saw--you know... here in flameless reality... was exceptional. Great concept--a paralyzed man who "lives" through an alien being. The man tells amazing love stories wrapped in technological morality tales. To me, it looks more like fantasy than sci-fi, which was a surprise to me. I can't wait to see it.

I'd beat the snot outta that Ewok.

Yeah? Then he f*cked it up. That was bad CGI. So, then Spielberg just felt compelled to lighten the tone at the end. That's exactly what Kubrick would NOT have wanted.