# Finally saw District 9 (unboxed spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 11, 2010, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773 "2010-12-11T10:45:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![The\_Amazing\_Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@The\_Amazing\_Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Amazing_Hanna)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/21 "2010-12-12T11:18:42Z")
District Nine is Watermelon Man with aliens. Simple as that. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/22 "2010-12-12T11:56:06Z")
It’s a great deal more sophisticated than that. It’s _Watermelon Man_ with aliens and _power armor_. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/23 "2010-12-12T12:46:43Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > By positing a population that is genuinely, demonstrably, genetically inferior to humans, we have to throw out all of our preconceptions about how to interact with them. The prawns aren’t genetically inferior to humans (whatever that means really). Clearly they are technologically more advanced so they are at least as intelligent and physically they can tear a human apart. They can communicate with each other (and humans) and clearly form emotional attachments. But they are also very different. I wouldn’t read too much into prawn society or abilities from the film. All we know about them is that their ship came to Earth and they were starving. But we also know the ship is still functional. AFAWK, maybe they just lost their refridgeration and all the food spoiled? We don’t know. And we also don’t know the purpose of the ship or the roles of the prawns on board. As far as their ability to organize, they clearly formed small pockets of resistance, salvaging weapons and technology and hiding it away. But how much organization can they do, taken away from their ship and technology and sequestered in a shantytown? ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/24 "2010-12-12T21:29:38Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > I don’t understand why people think this is a movie about apartheid. It takes place in South Africa because it’s a South African film. IOW, it takes place in South Africa for the same reason _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ takes place in the USA. > > If it was about Apartheid it would have taken place on the prawn’s homeworld and the humas would be the invaders and the minority. > > If it’s “about” anything, it’s about immigration. There’s a nod to that in that one of the two sets of villains are Nigerian immigrants to SA. Really though I think its just a good story in its own right. It doesn’t need a message. IIRC, Neil Blomkamp has stated that both “District 9” and the short film that was its predecessor (“Alive in Joburg”) were inspired by what he saw during and after apartheid. As **Hello Again** already pointed out, the title and setting are explicitly tied to Cape Town’s [District Six.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_Six,_Cape_Town) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/25 "2010-12-12T21:45:50Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The prawns aren’t genetically inferior to humans (whatever that means really). Clearly they are technologically more advanced so they are at least as intelligent and physically they can tear a human apart. They can communicate with each other (and humans) and clearly form emotional attachments. As a species, yes, but I was responding to the idea that the Prawns were a highly specialized species, and that the ones who survived the ship plague were the hardier, but less intelligent worker caste. I’m not necessarily subscribing to that interpretation - it does work with what was shown in the movie, but at the same time, if you took a group of humans refugees and treated them the way the Prawns are treated in the movie, I think you’d get largely the same result. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/26 "2010-12-13T00:57:54Z")
Quoth **Miller** : > [@](#): > > …and riddled with drug addiction (the cat food). I didn’t get the impression that cat food was addictive, just that they really, really liked the taste. It’s certainly not an addiction as we know it, since Wikus found himself craving it despite never having had it before. It might even be that there are some nutrients essential to Prawn biology that aren’t found in most Earthly foods, and for which cat food is the only source (or at least, the only source they’ve stumbled upon): In other words, they’re not all riddled with drug addiction, they’re riddled with vitamin deficiency. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/27 "2010-12-13T01:37:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **Miller** :I didn’t get the impression that cat food was addictive, just that they really, really liked the taste. It’s certainly not an addiction as we know it, since Wikus found himself craving it despite never having had it before. It might even be that there are some nutrients essential to Prawn biology that aren’t found in most Earthly foods, and for which cat food is the only source (or at least, the only source they’ve stumbled upon): In other words, they’re not all riddled with drug addiction, they’re riddled with vitamin deficiency. I was thinking more in terms of how they’re willing to engage in self-destructive behavior in order to get their hands on it. They don’t seem to get high off it, but they’ll go after a can of cat food like a crack addict. Whether this is an effect of the addictive properties of Fancy Feast, or simply an illustration of the Prawns inability to comprehend relative value is an open question. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/28 "2010-12-13T01:59:50Z")
> [@Spectralist](#): > > I think an entire movie could easily be made just about mankind’s reaction to the return of the ship and the Prawn’s attempts to stop the experiments on their people. > [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Yeah, I sort of figured the sequel, if one were to be made, would be along the lines of: > > The prawns come back and ask ‘What the FUCK do you think you’re doing?’ to the human race. See, and I feel like though we’d like to see that happen because we like to see things end happily, that might be a little unsatisfying in an actual movie, or not live up to the darker, grittier reality in _District 9_ where the good guys kind of lose. I’d worry that it would turn into a big-budget Hollywood summer blockbuster, a shoot-em-up, and that would kind of do a disservice to the original. I was also a little annoyed that the movie started off in the mockumentary format, showing only pre-recorded interviews, stock footage, and security tapes. As the movie progressed, I saw lots of shots not plausible for a documentary (like when Wikus and Christopher are fighting their way out of the laboratories) and that took me out of the moment. The documentary format was a wonderful choice; I wish they’d stuck to it a little more firmly. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie a lot, but it could have been stronger. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/29 "2010-12-13T02:03:50Z")
It definitely ditches the documentary format entirely after Wikus gets nailed with the spray to just before the epilogue. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/30 "2010-12-13T03:58:13Z")
I think they were knowingly switching from movie-movie to documentary, not that it was some big screwup or anything; we weren’t intended to think that the whole thing was captured by documentary filmmakers, a la _The Office_ ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/31 "2010-12-13T04:56:22Z")
Yeah, the documentary thing was just a way of setting up the story. It’s actually a pretty good way of establishing the way the Prawns are viewed by society at large, by showing us what sort of imagery they’re willing to release for public consumption. For example, the scene of Wikus burning the egg cache - by framing it as a documentary, it clearly establishes that people in general don’t have a problem with treating the aliens like that. Once Wikus is infected with the alien DNA, pretty much every shot in the film doesn’t work for the documentary format, because the entire plot from that point forward is about Wikus being a fugitive, which would be hard to do with a camera crew following you around. There’s also a bit of symbolism going on with the switch in formats. In the beginning, Wikus has wholeheartedly swallowed the mainstream media conception of the Prawns, which is represented by showing him in a documentary about the relocation. After he starts to change, he starts seeing the Prawns for what they really are, instead of filtering them through his media-driven preconceptions, at which point the film switches to a “real” viewpoint, where we see what’s actually happening, and not just the stuff that’s considered fit for public consumption. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/32 "2010-12-13T16:57:34Z")
> [@Tanbarkie](#): > > IIRC, Neil Blomkamp has stated that both “District 9” and the short film that was its predecessor (“Alive in Joburg”) were inspired by what he saw during and after apartheid. As **Hello Again** already pointed out, the title and setting are explicitly tied to Cape Town’s [District Six.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_Six,_Cape_Town) Well what the hell does he know? He just wrote and directed the thing! :mad: Seriously I find this somewhat disappointing. It’s a good movie, but a terrible Apartheid metaphor. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/33 "2010-12-13T17:35:30Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > At any rate, have biologically determined castes is not the same thing as having a hive mind. > > [snip] > > That being said, what Blomenkamp describes in that interview, and what he portrayed in his movie, is not a hive mind, regardless of what label he wants to slap on it. The Prawns manifestly do not have a shared consciousness. This may be a translation problem. Blomenkamp clearly does not mean a shared consciousness. Rather, he means they have a hive-like society, with castes that have different roles and different mental capabilities by caste. Calling it a “hive mind” is an attempt to describe that, but fails because of the English connotations for “shared consciousness” that we have attributed to that phrase. Aside - I think that’s a similar error to what happened with the Borg on Star Trek. They started with a shared consciousness, that someone described as a “hive mind”. Then someone took that phrase, interpreted it differently, and decided they had to have a “hive structure” as well, and suddenly there is a Borg Queen. WTF? > [@msmith537](#): > > It took him 20 years just to get the module working again. My memory is that the reason it took 20 years or whatever to get it working was because he needed a certain quantity of the very rare fluid, and spent that time trying to dig through refuse and whatnot to find any of their technology that might have some. Once he had the fluid, things worked. Without the fluid, it never would work, regardless of any other mechanical/electrical connectivity/functionality. It wasn’t a limitation of his mental ability, it was a limitation of an actual resource he required. ---
**Author:** ![Ura-Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Ura-Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ura-Maru)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/34 "2010-12-13T23:19:24Z")
I’m not sure it had a ‘message’ as such, beyond ‘state run ghettos and institutional oppression is BAD!’ Which I don’t think anyone would actually argue with. At least not overtly. Apartheid was the setting, but only the ‘message’ on the visceral level. That is, ‘my god, why are you making the humans act like such bastards? We would never . . . oh.’ At most, it was a way of showing the worst parts of apartheid to people who would be unlikely to see a dramatic movie about it. (such as myself) It was a nice twist on the Alien Nation theme, (LA may have issues, but the slags could have ended up in worse places) but it seemed more character based. Well, character and action and horror and blowing shit up based. It did kind of fall into the ‘orc trap’ that a lot of SF and fantasy does when it tries to discuss racism, though. If your oppressed species actually IS mentally inferior or unable to adapt to human society, you’ve kind of implied things you probably didn’t mean to. – Was anyone else disappointed they only used the cool-as-fuck shockwave gun a couple of times? The effects for the lightning-that-makes-people-explode gun was probably a lot cheaper, but not NEARLY as fun. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773/35 "2010-12-14T14:31:58Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > Seriously I find this somewhat disappointing. It’s a good movie, but a terrible Apartheid metaphor. It’s not a metaphor in the slightest, and it’s not just an apartheid metaphor, but also a xenophobia one. Wikus would have been \*exactly the same \*character 30 years ago, only with Blacks rather than aliens. The same bureaucratic stance, the same justifications for atrocity, the same language. So ultimately it’s about people like Wikus, or the people interviewed at the beginning (some of which was _actual news footage_, only they were talking about Zimbabwean refugees), not the aliens-as-metaphor angle. he message is “_plus ca change_” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-district-9-unboxed-spoilers/563773.md?page=1)