I loved "Alive in Joburg" so much when it was released. I'm afraid that filmmaker Neill Blomkamp did more in that original six minute short film than in the whole of "District 9." Some ideas just don't expand well, I guess.
I had difficulty with "District 9" on two fronts:
1. Logic. I know it's churlish to point out logical inconsistencies, but they were SO HUGE. And so central to the point of the entire movie. We are told that the aliens' space ship broke down over Johannesburg. After a few months we broke into the ship and found all the aliens stumbling around half dead from starvation. We airlifted them down to the ground, where they lived in refugee/concentration camps for twenty years.
Fine.
But... where do all these weapons come from? The alien weapons are central to the plot. And yet it is also central to the plot that the aliens have no way to return to their ship. Did each alien carry five or six giant rail guns in their lap on the original airlift from the ship?
We are told that only the aliens can use their weapons, because of the DNA lock. And in 20 years, no one - not the criminal syndicate, nor the greedy corporation - has been able to find a workaround for this problem. Really? Really.
2. The corporate scapegoat. Now don't get me wrong, I love a good corporate scapegoating. And heartless multi-national corporations make an excellent bad guy. And it gives us the opportunity to have a Michael Scott in charge of either saving or destroying the human race, which is pretty awesome.
But in this case, within the confines of a movie that's about racial tension, refugee camps, and/or apartheid (take your pick), corporations simply can't be blamed for any of those problems. Sad to say, those problems are perpetuated by regular human beings with the best of intentions just like you and me. (For an excellent example of "evil perpetuated by regular human beings with the best of intentions" see Torchwood: Children of Earth.)
There are so many ways the movie could have been better. It's a little bit heartbreaking, to tell you the truth.
For example, the anti-corporate bit could have been excellently handled by saying that MNU decided to "employ" the aliens after they landed. Everyone has to pay their way on Earth, amirite? That's why the aliens went to work in MNU's fine, fine sweatshops. For cat food. Or perhaps farmed for their eggs (which by the way is a sub-plot I wanted to see explored further on Battlestar Galactica).
As for the weapons, their only purpose within the context of the movie is to give the aliens something that we want. Something that we are willing to torture and kill to obtain. Well there are plenty examples of that sort of thing in regular old human history, from precious metals to manual labor.
After all, the reason white South Africans didn't simply kill all of the black South Africans outright under apartheid is that the black South Africans provided all of the manual labor. Every day black South Africans would perform a small-scale emigration from the camps out into the white world, work their asses off, then return to the camps. Apartheid was essentially a recreation of slavery in the American South, except with passports.
Unfortunately I guess that wasn't explodey enough for the movies.
Also just as a side note, "District 9" has some weird hate on for Nigerians. Not sure what's up with that, but Nigerians are as much an evil as the MNU. And they're hardly ever referred to by name, just as "the Nigerians.")
I had difficulty with "District 9" on two fronts:
1. Logic. I know it's churlish to point out logical inconsistencies, but they were SO HUGE. And so central to the point of the entire movie. We are told that the aliens' space ship broke down over Johannesburg. After a few months we broke into the ship and found all the aliens stumbling around half dead from starvation. We airlifted them down to the ground, where they lived in refugee/concentration camps for twenty years.
Fine.
But... where do all these weapons come from? The alien weapons are central to the plot. And yet it is also central to the plot that the aliens have no way to return to their ship. Did each alien carry five or six giant rail guns in their lap on the original airlift from the ship?
We are told that only the aliens can use their weapons, because of the DNA lock. And in 20 years, no one - not the criminal syndicate, nor the greedy corporation - has been able to find a workaround for this problem. Really? Really.
2. The corporate scapegoat. Now don't get me wrong, I love a good corporate scapegoating. And heartless multi-national corporations make an excellent bad guy. And it gives us the opportunity to have a Michael Scott in charge of either saving or destroying the human race, which is pretty awesome.
But in this case, within the confines of a movie that's about racial tension, refugee camps, and/or apartheid (take your pick), corporations simply can't be blamed for any of those problems. Sad to say, those problems are perpetuated by regular human beings with the best of intentions just like you and me. (For an excellent example of "evil perpetuated by regular human beings with the best of intentions" see Torchwood: Children of Earth.)
There are so many ways the movie could have been better. It's a little bit heartbreaking, to tell you the truth.
For example, the anti-corporate bit could have been excellently handled by saying that MNU decided to "employ" the aliens after they landed. Everyone has to pay their way on Earth, amirite? That's why the aliens went to work in MNU's fine, fine sweatshops. For cat food. Or perhaps farmed for their eggs (which by the way is a sub-plot I wanted to see explored further on Battlestar Galactica).
As for the weapons, their only purpose within the context of the movie is to give the aliens something that we want. Something that we are willing to torture and kill to obtain. Well there are plenty examples of that sort of thing in regular old human history, from precious metals to manual labor.
After all, the reason white South Africans didn't simply kill all of the black South Africans outright under apartheid is that the black South Africans provided all of the manual labor. Every day black South Africans would perform a small-scale emigration from the camps out into the white world, work their asses off, then return to the camps. Apartheid was essentially a recreation of slavery in the American South, except with passports.
Unfortunately I guess that wasn't explodey enough for the movies.
Also just as a side note, "District 9" has some weird hate on for Nigerians. Not sure what's up with that, but Nigerians are as much an evil as the MNU. And they're hardly ever referred to by name, just as "the Nigerians.")