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    • CommentAuthorsimian
    • CommentTimeSep 9th 2009
     
    So I saw "9" and was kind of disappointed by the writing on display. After the movie, my friend and I spent a while trying to figure out exactly what the plot to the movie was and it just resulted in many picked nits.
    1. So what exactly was the Talisman and how was it supposed to work? Were the little constructs SUPPOSED to use it to activate the machine before being able to destroy it? What kind of idiot would design the weapon to work that way?
    2. Why did 9 wake up years after all the others?
    3. Why did the scientist have to break up his soul into 9 parts?
    4. Why didn't the scientist do a better job of instructing his constructs of what they had to do?
    5. What exactly is the timing of all this? 1 indicates that it's been years since the war, yet we see bodies not yet fully decomposed (they have skin on them.) How long does it take to rot? Or did they mummify?
    6. How can these things be "older" than others?
    7. What caused the machines to go dormant in the first place? If they were just going to shut themselves down after a while, what really made the constructs with souls in them necessary?
    8. What was the point of 9 not having a voice at the start of the movie only to have him get one in the first five minutes (the movie had several "oh, it's a problem ... no wait now it isn't" moments.)
    9. Why did the construct voiced by Crispin Glover have a key around his neck? This was jarring because, towards the end of the movie, 9 sees an old jewel box with a lock on it and for a moment you think "oh, hey, maybe he needs that key!" but then he just pops it open with no trouble.

    We figured the main problem stemmed from the fact that there really wasn't a coherent story to be told. Elements are thrown about without trying to tie them together. For starters, the scientist's video says the machines rebelled because they were designed with his intellect but not his soul. As a result, his solution was the make nine constructs, each with a part of his soul, to use the Talisman--somehow for some reason--to stop it. However, when the main machine gets the Talisman it seems to be able to use it to drain the parts of the scientist's soul from the constructs. Wouldn't it have made more sense if the solution was for the nine constructs to feed the scientist's soul into the machine so that it no longer has the problem of being pure intellect?

    The movie had nice visuals, animation, and unique action sequences, but when you're going to mire the whole thing around characters going "oh, what should we do" then you need to give it a real PLOT. Otherwise, have them crack some one liners and happily move from one mindless set piece to the next so we can appreciate it for being a simple action movie as opposed to an action movie with aspirations of being more but failed.