Well, while watching District 9 I realized it was a science fiction film by someone who hasn’t read a lot of science fiction. It’s a history film by someone too close to the history. Frankly, it’s a film by someone who doesn’t have the tools to make a film.

Let’s tackle those in reverse order:

Film:

It’s a good idea for a short stretched to feature length film. Take a look at the original short and see if you don’t find that bite-size morsel satisfying.

Don’t use what you didn’t see in the film as a fodder to critique the film. I am sure your ability to write dialogue and exposition is better than the writer/director of District 9 Neill Blomkamp.

We’re stuck with that horrendous “documentary” framework because the writer didn’t know how to give us the backstory through dialogue. Stanley Kubrick tried the same approach with 2001, but realized how poorly it worked and removed it. A complete fiction displayed as “documentary” has worked. However, to jump from documentary to omnipresent viewer as needed is simply a mess.

History:

District 6 is where South Africans were relocated during apartheid. The area where District 9 was filmed is a true ghetto in Johannesburg. Predjudice and apartheid are bad. “Nice” oppressors act like friends as long as you follow orders. “Evil” oppressors enjoy killing the weak.

That’s the level of the heavy-handed treatment Blomberg gives the history in the film. “Subtle” was removed from Blomkamp’s How to Make a Film guidebook.

Science Ficton:

Aliens appear and totally ignore us? Read Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. Aliens in caste systems. Aliends who change humans to alien and our hero better understands the aliens. Aliens as oppressors to their own people and shock us into seeing how we do the same thing. Aliens as… seriously, it has all been done before in science fiction by writers far more talented than Blomkamp. Take almost anything by Clarke, Gibson, Pohl, and a dozen other writers and you’ll make a far more nuanced and satisfying film than District 9.

Alien Nation:

Part of the “meh” for me was the quick realization that anyone who felt District 9 was original hasn’t seen Alien Nation. There’s no need to rewrite what another has covered, so take a moment to read: Too Close To Call: 10 Ways District 9 Is An Alien Nation Knockoff

Billy’s Points:

1) I believe the alien cockfight was with alien bugs, not alien children. Look are their shape and try to imagine how much they would have to morph to become a child of about slightly larger size as we see in Christopher’s child.

2) Johnson is obviously of a different class. But how different? Yes, he’s smarter…as is his child.  Maybe the ships are just easy to operate?  Wikus got in the command ship and had it running. I couldn’t do that in a Human jet, let alone an alien spacecraft.

Maybe Chrispher is simply a very well trained pilot? Imagine him as a captain on a ship during the English immigration to America. If we pick the average boatload of immigrants to the New World and abandoned them without leaders…how many would have made a go of it?   The captain, crew,  and a few better trained immigrants?  But even the captian had mostly specialized knowledge about sailing. Could he have grown crops?

I can take apart and put together a computer. I can run electricty and plumbing in a house. I can clean and dress a wound. But, take me miles from everything I know and dump me in a ghetto with no basic living neccessities and come back in 20 years and see if I’m not eating catfood.

2b) I saw Johnson as an alien coyote driving the destitute to another home. Maybe he was a Reganite who closed the hospitals and was shipping his insane to another part of the universae and his ride broke down. Maybe. Maybe. It always helps a poor film when those with imagination view it. They’re sure to come up with answers to all your plot holes.

3) Billy, I’ll wait for the $1 Redbox rental when my wife sees the film. But I remember the scene and I didn’t believe Wikus wouldn’t have fired if he could without the need for a shock. At that point it looked like he didn’t have control of the limb and they needed the shock to make it spasm. He only started to empasize with the “prawn” when he realized the others saw him as no different than one. As a pre-teen, I read “Black Like Me.” Even that book was more subtle than that scene.

4) I haven’t seen “Children of Men.” I’ll get back to you.

I’ll end with the fact this film has obviously set Billy to thinking, and that is a far beter accomplishment than what it achieved as a film.