Some Clarifications of the Negative Comments posted here

Rating: 10/10 (25 September 2009)

I have been reading the various comments, particularly the negative ones, with interest. Everyone seems to come out with very strong opinions without any due diligence... and jumps to various conclusions pretty quickly. If you had been concentrating or reading up a little more you would find out the following: 1) The fact that the aliens seem to be unable to defend themselves and end up living like aimless refugees is not a flaw. Blomkamp, in several interviews, has explained that they are meant to be like drones, communal creatures like an ant colony who don't have independent leadership and don't operate socially in the same way humans do. Their reason for behaving strangely, not helping themselves etc is meant to be a mystery to us and also the human population within the movie. CJ and son are unique... like soldier drones rather than worker bees - make sense? 2) Everyone is making the assumption that the storyline is based on Apartheid segregation and discrimination about the divisions between black and white and thats is not the case. The country has moved on radically since the early 90s and nowadays the main social issue is one of Xenophobia. At the same time that the film was being made, the countries townships were under fire from local black south Africans attacking outsiders from other African countries. Many of the neighbouring countries, and others a distance away,have seen a huge movement of poverty stricken people into SA. They come looking for gold on the streets (egoli) and end up living on the outskirts of the slums .... just like the aliens. We have a Malawian friend who came to get work in SA and gets robbed weekly by local SA folk. This is the main social, criminal, and economic challenge that the country faces. Perhaps that makes more sense in terms of the realism of the movie for anyone South African and also anyone who actually reads newspapers?
3)The main character didn't only transform because of the fluid ... he was also attacked by an alien and ended up getting is arm ripped open. It was the combination of these events that caused the transformation. Doh ! An excellent, incredible acting performance by novice Sharlto Copley who perhaps should have waited before accepting the A team? A better movie may have been out there.
Nice to see a movie that is brave enough to use gritty, grey smelling setting instead of the Pyramids, Petra, Paris etc.... much harder to make it engaging with such bleak background ! Great for the underdogs to do do well despite Hollywoods lack of support for Halo. Not only is Blomkamp a newcomer, he is also a very young director.