(Minor Spoiler Warning for District 9 and the Alien series)
I’m not going to lie — after seeing Inglourious Basterds this weekend it’s hard to think about much else, and while I intended to write an article about it, I feel I must see it at least once more in theaters to even begin comparing it effectively. It’s such an individual work that I’m not sure where to begi
n.
Instead (and at the risk of beating a dead horse), I felt I’d take one more look at the second best film of the summer, District 9. Make no mistake — in any other summer, this would be the best thing you could lay your eyes on. Neill Blomkamp’s film is distinct and unique, and features two lead characters that are far more empathetic than the usual summer fare. One of them is the creation of a computer and motion-capture technology, more effective than Gollum or King Kong could have hoped to be.
While the faux-documentary style of the first 20 minutes or so of the film are the remainder of a short film used to lobby for this project, the rest of the film is as innovative as any work of science fiction to be released in the past decade, alongside works such as Moon and Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men. The elements that do feel familiar are the human trappings of the genre itself — particularly, greed as a motivating factor, compounded with technology and the interruption of a new unforeseen factor. In this case, it is the “prawn” species. In the past, it’s been everything from HAL 9000 to a floating, bleak monolith to the fanged, insect-like species from Alien.
That last one bears much in common with District 9. If only the xenomorphs from the Alien series were a little more civil and communicative (as if), District 9 could easily be a sequel story, with MNU being the new “Company,” the new Weyland-Yutani. Our hero Wikus is another fool endlessly tortured by greedy commerce as Ellen Ripley is. In these science fiction stories, human beings cease to be that and are tools, methods to weaponry, and lives are decided by suits.
In one of the most memorable exchanges from District 9, some of these suits discuss the fate of our hero, who is strapped to a gurney, his DNA slowly melding with that of the “prawn” race. It is mentioned that any attempt to gather the bodily elements needed to operate alien weaponry will be of deadly consequence to Wikus, whose father-in-law stands above him, clutching his hand. “I say we go for it,” says an anonymous executive, muttering an effective death sentence.
I can imagine Ripley’s fate decided much the same way. Corporate greed and science fiction, hand in hand, as always.
District 9 is out in theaters, and it’s a knockout work for a first-time feature director. The Alien franchise launched the careers of Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and David Fincher, each entry proving to be a unique thematic look at its titular creature. All of them are must-see.
