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* The thing that bugs me most of this movie, is how Wilkus keeps pulling things off of his body. "Ooh, a fingernail came off, let me pull on allmy otehr ones to see if it happens again. Ooh is that a tooth that fell out, well let me try to get some more! Hey is that my skin getting pushed by some weird growth? [[TooDumbToLive I wonder what will happen if I pull on it?]]
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* The thing that bugs me most of this movie, is how
** If you brushed your hair and got a clump for your trouble, wouldn't you try again just to be sure? Same thing here but more extreme. Wikus, especially at the start, is having trouble believing it's really happening.
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* The thing that bugs me most of this movie, is how Wilkus keeps pulling things off of his body. "Ooh, a fingernail came off, let me pull on allmy otehr ones to see if it happens again. Ooh is that a tooth that fell out, well let me try to get some more! Hey is that my skin getting pushed by some weird growth? [[TooDumbToLive I wonder what will happen if I pull on it?]]
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** was the fulid the fuel or something else that caused the metamorphosis? I kind of like the idea that it was a defence mechanism and it makes more since because otherwise Christopher woud be pissed
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** was the fulid the fuel or something else that caused the metamorphosis? I kind of like the idea that it was a defence mechanism and it makes more since sense because otherwise Christopher woud would be pissed
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**Wickus [[Understatement may not be the best example of someone who isn't prejudiced against the aliens]]. Consider his almost-gleeful burning of their eggs ("popcorn") and his disgust with the way they live, with no acknowledgment that their situation isn't exactly optimal for gracious living.
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***It is very common for people's name for themselves to mean something similar "The People" or "Us Cool Strong Awesome Folks" and for their neighbors' name for them to mean something like "Those Guys" or "The Fish Eaters" or "The People Who Have a Certain Physical Characteristic That We Cool Strong Awesome Folks Don't." I do agree that "prawn" as transliterated from the aliens' language doesn't translate directly to "prawn."
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** Word Of God says that the fuel was actually nanomachines that were supposed to repair the ship, and when they came in contact with Wikus, they "repaired" him and turned into a prawn.
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** Word Of God says that the fuel was actually nanomachines that were supposed to repair the ship, and when they came in contact with Wikus, they "repaired" him and turned into a prawn.
*So where, exactly was the Gauteng or South African government in all this? The issue of the aliens aside, governments tend not to like it when private international corporations building up their own private armies and run around doing whatever the hell they like on that government's soil. Even if they had contracts with MNU to build that stuff for them, I have real trouble believing that there wouldn't be regulations or inspectors or ''something'' to keep MNU from doing what it just did. If nothing else, why didn't someone from the government go "whoa up there cowboys, what's going on here?" when they found out that a private company with no loyalties to South Africa was doing something questionable with one of their human citizens? Or at least, why the hell did they put the guy who told them all that in prison?
*So where, exactly was the Gauteng or South African government in all this? The issue of the aliens aside, governments tend not to like it when private international corporations building up their own private armies and run around doing whatever the hell they like on that government's soil. Even if they had contracts with MNU to build that stuff for them, I have real trouble believing that there wouldn't be regulations or inspectors or ''something'' to keep MNU from doing what it just did. If nothing else, why didn't someone from the government go "whoa up there cowboys, what's going on here?" when they found out that a private company with no loyalties to South Africa was doing something questionable with one of their human citizens? Or at least, why the hell did they put the guy who told them all that in prison?
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* It bugs me how unblushingly xenophiles switch from one interpretation to another depending on which one is more convinient momentarily: now it's "prawns are just apathetic and disorganised drones and without their HiveMind they cannot stand for themselves or interact with humans in any sentient matter", and then it's "all the terrible things those horrible humans were telling about the prawns were lies! They do care about their kids and they do value life and property, and even if they derailed those trains it's just because they were pissed at those horrible humans for treating them badly". Would you kindly make up your mind, becasue you can't possible have both.
** Why not? Christopher could have been one of the ruling class and was a child/egg when all the other rulers died.
** Why not? Christopher could have been one of the ruling class and was a child/egg when all the other rulers died.
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* It bugs me how unblushingly xenophiles switch from one interpretation to another depending on which one is more convinient momentarily: now it's "prawns are just apathetic and disorganised drones and without their HiveMind they cannot stand for themselves or interact with humans in any sentient matter", and then it's "all the terrible things those horrible humans were telling about the prawns were lies! They do care about their kids and they do value life and property, and even if they derailed those trains it's just because they were pissed at those horrible humans for treating them badly". Would you kindly make up your mind, becasue because you can't possible have both.
** Why not? Christopher could have been one of the ruling class and was a child/egg when all the other rulersdied.died.
*** Also, can't a political movement have different factions with different methods? Malcolm X and Martin Luthur King, Jr. had similar goals-but the devil was in the details.
** Why not? Christopher could have been one of the ruling class and was a child/egg when all the other rulers
*** Also, can't a political movement have different factions with different methods? Malcolm X and Martin Luthur King, Jr. had similar goals-but the devil was in the details.
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** Yeah, this bugged me, too, especially because we keep being told both in the movie and through other material that most of the prawns are a caste of workers of dubious individual worth-yet Christopher cares passionately for each individual, almost like a {{A Father To His Men}}. It may be that with a bit more guidance from the leader caste, worker prawns may be more valuable as individuals than conditions in District 9 permit. However, it could also be that Christopher just thinks of his people as extensions of himself or doesn't appreciate an outside force whittling down his ranks.
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**** That's all very nice and reasonable, except for one hitch: in order for those arguments to work, xenos must have a mean to ''comprehend'' them! You mean to tell us, that those leaderless drones not only made an accurate assumption on the Earthlings' potential, despite only witnessing the very least of it, but managed to make a coherent common decision to stand down. All 2 millions of them. Ri-i-ight. Of course, we're not talking about anything akin to organised warfare here, but rather a chaotic and senseless bloody uprising that could only result in numerous civillian casualties before being brutally suppressed with most of the aliens exterminated. Do you see any reasons why it '''didn't''' happend? I don't. Individual aliens seem fit and mindlessly violent enough, but the whole population is suddenly humble, timid and reasonable?
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** Word Of God says that the fuel was actually nanomachines that were supposed to repair the ship, and when they came in contact with Wikus, they "repaired" him and turned into a prawn.
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**It's stated that the Prawns use bio-technology that not only requires Prawn DNA but is implied to be operated through their nervous system. Thus, the fluid would not, like the above troper said, be a simple gasoline analogue but appears rather to be a genetic intermediary between the machines and the Prawns' bodies. As such, it probably has Prawn DNA in it and uses that DNA to "correct" supposed "irregularities" to keep the operation of the machines as efficient and fluent as possible.
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** Their fuel is a lot more complex than gasoline. It's distilled from their genetically-locked alien guns. But, to the question, it is never explained. It's just a plot device.
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*Now, forgive me if this point was explained in the movie and I just missed it, but why did the fuel of an alien ship of all things start turning Wikus into a prawn? I just find it strange that minimal exposure to an alien fluid ,the fuel source of a ship of all things (Would exposure to Diesal turn a prawn into a human?) would radically alter one's DNA to the point where they slowly turn into a member of another species.
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** Besides, Christopher may only be a pilot. You wouldn't expect a airplane pilot to be able to operate a tank, so Christopher may not have had any experience with the suit himself.
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*** You're always free to assume God can make up a body for himself if he wants--and if that body looks human in order to be better understood by a human, so be it. Also, without knowing exactly what line it refers to, things like "hands" can be pretty metaphorical.
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** That seems the most likely. Why would they campaign for anyone else? I'm South African BTW, so I do know more or less how the ANC operates politically, and they're populist/socialist - they're ''emphatically not'' in the business of championing minority causes. Also, since this is AlternateHistory (and Wikus has a ''new'' South African flag on his desk, as in the flag that in our timeline was adopted ''after'' SA became fully democratic), what makes you think they ''aren't'' in government? If not completely in control, then at least in a coalition with the National Party? The aliens arriving seems to have changed everything in the movie's timeline. You need to look at the ANC's motives ... not just assume that they're AlwaysLawfulGood and then wonder why in the movie they aren't living up to an ideology they don't actually have in [[RealLife Reality Land]].
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** Being South African, this troper finds it annoying that to many fans of the movie, the [[BrokenAesop take home lesson]] seems to have been "South Africans are evil and should get invaded by the aliens and it will serve them right". Did people miss the (ironically-named) "human rights" groups protesting the eviction? How about the fact that someone would need to oversee the aliens, and the guys who got the job turned out to be an Evil Corporation, who are not answerable to the South African citizenry in general? Plus, I think you're all overestimating how tolerant ''you'd'' be in that situation. Lest we forget, [[EagleLand America]] also has a history of segregation and reservations, and [[TheApartheidEra South Africa's crime]] was being 30-40 years behind the US socially. So I'd say that the movie is about the human condition in general, not about how evil South Africans are (or Nigerians, for that matter). As for [[HumansAreMorons humanity being stupid]], keep in mind the disillusionment when it turned out the aliens were all pretty dumb (or so it seemed at any rate). Some of the deleted scenes also had a (black, vaguely American-accented) MNU big-shot speculate that the aliens were slaves, pirates who stole the ship, etc. Plus, after almost 30 years nobody was expecting a retaliation, whereas for MNU ('''Multi-National''' United, mind ... not "Stupid/Evil South African-only Corporation") the payoff was weapons tech that could change the entire international balance of power, in favor of whoever paid them the alien mothership's weight in platinum. So ja ... I suppose humans really are that stupid/reckless in this movie, ... and that isn't somehow limited to South Africans. All of humanity seems to be in on this, the [[AmericaSavesTheDay fantasies]] of foreign fanfic writers notwithstanding.
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*** Christopher didn't keep his word, actually; he was the one who sprung the "it'll take three years because my plans take priority" thing on Wikus. Granted, the future of all his fellow South African prawns was at stake, but still. To me the point was that ''neither'' of them wanted much more to do with each other than was necessary to achieve their goals. Only by the end of the movie do they have any kind of [[FireForgedFriends friendship]] going on.
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**** South Americans? What movie were you watching? ;) By the way, the Parktown Prawn is basically a cockroach and can become a pest, like anything else, if its population is not kept in check. I don't think there's any hidden lesson here. Aliens look like roaches, we call roaches prawns, ergo we call aliens prawns. Simple.
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*** The thing about this movie is, everyone thought there was some profound lesson or that the aliens in general and Christopher in particular were supposed to be the MarySue. Reviewers were all like, "oh I get it, it's an allegory for Apartheid/racism/etc., and therefore it sucks / is a brilliant social commentary". But actually, it's just stuff that happens and there's not much of a moral. So I think any kind of "hey, sorry for being racist" moment for Wikus would not only be impractical i.t.o. the storyline, it also wouldn't fit the tone and intent of the movie. It's supposed to be realistic (for a given value of realism) and if the characters took time out for anime-esque confessions of guilt or a "what did we learn today kids" moral, I think it'd very easily turn [[{{Narm}} Narmy]]. Not that the movie isn't already full of {{Narm}} to begin with, but you know.
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**** [[WordOfGod The director said they're named after those insects]], and actually has a very good reason why: most South Americans consider them pests and kill them on sight, but Neil knows that they're quite harmless and beneficial, eating other household pests. They don't deserve the hate they're given, [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped much like the Prawns]].
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** It would be hard, but not impossible. Learning a new language from scratch is much easier if you have a native speaker handy, especially if that native speaker looks enough like you that you can tell when it's pointing at something. [[EnemyMine Enemy Mine]] touched on this as well, and it only took a matter of months in that movie. Learning a new language from scratch with no one to guide you through it, on the other hand, is much more difficult if not impossible--the only reason modern scholars have any idea how to read Egyptian hieroglyphics is that they had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone this thing]] to act as a primer. Even now, a lot of it's still based on guesswork, since the three languages on the Rosetta Stone aren't perfect one-to-one translations. But given enough time, eventually the humans and Prawns would pick up each other's languages, so it's not ''that'' crazy.
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**** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si6CHruMn7c This]] isn't that far from the truth either, sadly.
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*** Or maybe Christopher believes in redundancy and gathered extra fluid just in case. Since we know so little about how the stuff works in the first place, it's hard to speculate. It's possible that the fluid loss was great enough to force Christopher to sacrifice certain systems on the way home ("I'm gonna miss having a flush toilet"), but not so great as to force him to scrub the mission completely.
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*** It's worth mentioning that, when he's being experimented on by MNU scientists and realizes they're going to make him shoot a prawn, he begs them to let him shoot another dead pig instead. If he really doesn't feel bad about mistreating the prawns, he shouldn't care, yet he does. Wikus also makes a point at the very end of sending Christopher off, not with a "Don't forget to come back for me," but a "Go save your son" or something to that effect. He's seen that the prawns aren't so different from humans, including their attachment to their children.
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***Or maybe he needed to collect enough to create a critical mass of fluid that would then imbue a single drop with enough power to activate the dropship
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*** One example is poor statistics. It may make sense to us, but then again, we're the only intelligent, technologically advanced society in the entire universe-that we know of.
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Getting rid of an argument. <3
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*** Are you fucking kidding me? muslims slaughter non-believers every day. You think an alien race would get a hand wave from imams? At the VERY least the aliens would be seen as infidels and added to the "Saw their heads off next" list.
*** Yeah, it gets really hard to manage for American Muslims like me when I'm trying to work for my degree, hold a job, all while continuously killing every infidel I see. Stop being a racist asshole.
*** Yeah, it gets really hard to manage for American Muslims like me when I'm trying to work for my degree, hold a job, all while continuously killing every infidel I see. Stop being a racist asshole.
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** When exactly could they switch? The only opportunity was the moment Wikus rescued Christopher, and getting out of that armor was likely to get them both shot. The soldiers would have capitalized the second Wikus gave up his advantage.
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*What makes you think they even exist in that universe?
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*** I got the impression that the choice between treating Wikus or going home was more of a time constraint than a materiel constraint. After twenty years of oppression, Chris was probably anxious to get home ASAP, before anyone managed to board the mothership without permission. If Wikus hadn't freaked out over the timetable, he probably could have been turned back to a human during the trip, but that would've meant riding an alien spaceship for three years.
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** I agree. Also, he was very weak and his earlier protests and resistance were ineffectual. Basically, the guy's a big wimp, plus he was tied down. What was he gonna do?
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** They knew. A) It was caught on tape. B) They passed the little cylinder around in the lab; Wikus saw it.
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** Maybe he felt he had to wait until little CJ was old enough to travel. If you think about it, collecting extra fuel is a good idea - a failsafe in case something went wrong.
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* Why didn't Wikus and Christopher switch so that Christopher could pilot the mecha? Wikus sucks at it; presumably, Christopher would be better at fighting in it. (I speculate that Wikus had no idea how to get out of the armor.)
* Why didn't Wikus and Christopher switch so that Christopher could pilot the mecha? Wikus sucks at it; presumably, Christopher would be better at fighting in it. (I speculate that Wikus had no idea how to get out of the armor.)
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* He looked like he was going into shock. (Had a rough couple of days.) When he was overpowered and tied down, he freaked out. Also! The Nigerians thought they knew what Wikus had [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean done]] which had resulted in his condition, and they didn't care, they still wanted to eat him.
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** Perhaps the alien really said "What is that word you just said?" Or maybe he knew the Clickese for "eviction" but doesn't understand the concept behind it nevertheless, the way I do not really know what a voir dire is.
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*** I agree, I think even if the Prawns weren't leaderless the hard facts are they were outnumbered, the five largest militaries in the world (China, the US, India, Russia, and North Korea) comprise about 6.8 million active duty soldiers. What ratio of humans to prawns is considered a fair fight? Even if it were 50:1 we'd still probably win. Also I feel like there's a point of diminishing returns on energy weapons vs. nukes. Even if their most powerful stuff was the equivalent of a 1MT bomb, they'd have to chuck it pretty far to hope to stop our ability to retaliate. Even take the powered armor suit that Wikus used. Granted he clearly didn't use it to its full potential and a skilled operator would have lasted much longer against the same amount of force. But I'd still say the thing has only a very good chance against an Abrams Tank. Now let's think about its chances against twenty Abrams Tanks. You can see where things start to level off.
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**Several reasons. One, he was generalizing. Maybe Wikus started this in the middle of the work week. But that might not be right. Two, he just messed up and didn't catch himself. It's been known to happen. Three, RuleOfDrama. Exaggeration isn't uncommon in the news.
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***My guess is between that or they were honestly trying to make it easier to understand the guy. I had no problems understanding Wikus, but the gang leader was nearly unintelligible to me if I shut my eyes.
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*** I don't think that has any practical application--if they were to use these weapons in war, how would they move around these prawns-in-a-box? For the bigger mech-things, they required more complicated use than simply pulling a trigger, and if you have a hostage that aware of the weapon he has, he'd turn it against you. It'd be better to have willing participants, which I suppose is why they didn't need Wikus alive, since he was a hostage (although the most obvious intelligent thing to do would be to keep him alive for experimentation purposes).
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***Is it actually ever said in the movie they're named after the insect prawns? Because I have a hard time believing nobody saw the similarities between the crustacean before they decided to up and name them after bugs. Especially because there are a number of other pests that are far more common and derogatory that could have been used.
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*** You don't think life as a prawn isn't some sort of [[HoistByHisOwnPetard karmic justice]]? He can't see his "angel", he's treated like the very things he once despised and looked down upon, has no friends, must learn a new culture and how to speak a new language, and is pretty much alone in the world until Christopher maybe, ''maybe'' comes back.
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*** Yeah, it gets really hard to manage for American Muslims like me when I'm trying to work for my degree, hold a job, all while continuously killing every infidel I see. Stop being a racist asshole.
