District 9
District 9 is a 2009 science fiction action film directed and co-written by Neill Blomkamp. It was a co-production of New Zealand, the United States, and South Africa. The film stars Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, and David James, and was adapted from Blomkamp's 2005 short film Alive in Joburg.
The film is partially presented in a mock documentary format by featuring fictional interviews, news footage, and video from surveillance cameras. The story, which explores themes of humanity, xenophobia and social segregation, begins in an alternate 1982, when an alien spaceship appears over Johannesburg, South Africa. When a population of sick and malnourished insectoid aliens is discovered on the ship, the South African government confines them to an internment camp called District 9. The title and premise of District 9 were inspired by events in Cape Town's District Six, during the apartheid era.
District 9 premiered on 23 July 2009 at San Diego Comic-Con, and was released in New Zealand on 13 August, the United States on 14 August and South Africa on 28 August, by TriStar Pictures. It received positive reviews from critics, and was a financial success, earning $211 million on a budget of $30 million. It garnered numerous award nominations, including Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects, and Best Film Editing.
Plot
In 1982, an enormous extraterrestrial spaceship arrives and hovers over the South African city of Johannesburg. Inside, an investigation team finds over a million malnourished insect-like aliens and the South African government relocates them to a camp called District 9. Over the years, District 9 becomes a slum, and locals come to view the aliensderogatorily called "Prawns"as filthy, violent animals who bleed resources from humans.Following unrest between the aliens and locals, the government hires Multinational United, a large defense contractor, to relocate the aliens to a new camp outside the city. Piet Smit, an MNU executive, appoints his son-in-law and MNU bureaucrat, Wikus van de Merwe, to lead the relocation. Meanwhile, three aliens named Christopher Johnson, his young son CJ, and his friend Paul search a District 9 garbage dump for Prawn technology; Christopher has spent the last 20 years synthesizing fuel from their contents. They finally fill an entire container in Paul's shack as the relocation begins, but when Wikus comes to serve Paul a notice, he finds the hidden container and accidentally sprays some fuel into his face. Koobus Venter, a cruel MNU mercenary, kills Paul.
Wikus begins mutating into a Prawn, starting with his left arm that was injured after the exposure. He is taken to an underground MNU lab, where researchers discover his hybrid DNA grants Wikus the ability to operate Prawn weaponry, which is biologically restricted from humans. Seeing the potential for profitable weapons research, Smit orders Wikus's body to be harvested for genetic material. Wikus, however, overpowers the lab personnel and escapes. While Venter's forces hunt him, a fake news story is broadcast claiming Wikus is a wanted fugitive, who has contracted a contagious disease from copulating with aliens.
Wikus takes refuge in District 9, finding Christopher and the spaceship's command module dropship concealed underneath his shack. Christopher explains that the confiscated fuel is needed to reactivate the dropship, which can then dock with the mothership. This would allow Christopher to rescue his people and return home, and cure Wikus with the equipment onboard. Encouraged by a phone call from his wife, Tania, Wikus steals powerful alien weapons from Obesandjo, a Nigerian crime lord who believes eating Wikus' alien arm will grant him alien abilities.
Wikus and Christopher attack MNU and retrieve the fuel from the underground lab, where Christopher is horrified by the brutal experiments MNU has performed on his people. Returning to the shack, Christopher decides that he must leave Earth immediately and return with help, therefore he must postpone curing Wikus's condition. Enraged, Wikus knocks Christopher unconscious and attempts to fly the module to the mothership, but Venter has it shot down. Venter captures Wikus and Christopher, but Obesandjo's gang ambushes them and abduct Wikus.
CJ, who remained hidden in the dropship, remotely activates the mothership and a large robotic alien battle suit in Obesandjo's base. The suit guns down the Nigerians; Wikus enters the suit and attempts to trade Christopher's life for his own as he escapes. However, when he hears Venter's order to kill Christopher, he has a change of heart and returns to rescue Christopher from the mercenaries. Heading towards the dropship, the two come under heavy fire; Wikus decides to stay behind and fend off the mercenaries, buying time for Christopher to escape, who promises to return in three years and cure Wikus. After all of the other mercenaries are killed, Venter finally cripples the suit, but several Prawns kill and dismember him before he can execute Wikus. Christopher makes it into the dropship with CJ, and the dropship is levitated via a tractor beam back into the mothership, which finally leaves Earth.
Wikus disappears, MNU's experiments are exposed to the public, and the aliens are moved to a new camp named District 10. Tania finds a handcrafted metal flower on her doorstep, giving her hope that Wikus is still alive. Wikus, now fully transformed into a Prawn, is shown in a junkyard crafting more flowers for his wife.
Cast
Themes
Like Alive in Joburg, the short film on which the feature film is based, the setting of District 9 is inspired by historical events during the apartheid era, particularly alluding to District Six, an inner-city residential area in Cape Town, declared a "whites only" area by the government in 1966, with 60,000 people forcibly removed to Cape Flats, away. The film also refers to contemporary evictions and forced removals to suburban ghettos in post-apartheid South Africa, as well as the resistance of its residents. This includes the high-profile attempted forced removal of the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Cape Town to temporary relocation areas in Delft, plus evictions in the shack settlement Chiawelo, where the film was actually shot. Blikkiesdorp, a temporary relocation area in Cape Town, has also been compared with the District 9 camp, earning a front-page spread in the Daily Voice.Dr. Shohini Chauduri wrote that District 9 even echoes apartheid in its title, as it is reminiscent "of District 6 in Cape Town, declared a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act". She also discusses how the wide shots used in District 9 strongly emphasize the idea of exclusion under apartheid. The separation of people and "prawns" into human and non-human zones marks South Africa's social divisions.
The film emphasizes the irony of Wikus and the impact of his experiences on his personality, which shows him becoming more humane as he becomes less biologically human. The film uses his story to pose the question of humanity as the "prawn" characters in the film are shown to be kinder to Wikus than the actual humans are as he undergoes his transformation. The film also features the portrayal of Nigerian Arms dealers, provoking thought on conflict between marginalized communities. Chris Mikesell from the University of Hawaii newspaper Ka Leo writes that "Substitute 'black,' 'Asian,' 'Mexican,' 'illegal,' 'Jew,' 'white,' or any number of different labels for the word 'prawn' in this film and you will hear the hidden truth behind the dialogue".
Themes of racism and xenophobia are shown in the form of speciesism. Used to describe the aliens, the word "prawn" is a reference to the Parktown prawn, a king cricket species considered a pest in South Africa. Copley has said that the theme is not intended to be the main focus of the work, but can work at a subconscious level even if it is not noticed. The racism in the film is portrayed on an institutional level, as despite the brutality towards the aliens by MNU exposed to the public they are still relocated as originally planned.
Duane Dudek of the Journal Sentinel wrote that "The result is an action film about xenophobia, in which all races of humans are united in their dislike and mistrust of an insect-like species".
Another underlying theme in District 9 is states' reliance on multinational corporations as a form of government-funded enforcement. As MNU represents the type of corporation which partners with governments, the negative portrayal of MNU in the film depicts the dangers of outsourcing militaries and bureaucracies to private contractors.
Production
Development
Producer Peter Jackson planned to produce a film adaptation based on the Halo video game franchise with first-time director Neill Blomkamp. Due to a lack of financing, the Halo adaptation was placed on hold. Jackson and Blomkamp discussed pursuing alternative projects and eventually chose to produce and direct, respectively, District 9 featuring props and items originally made for the Halo film. Blomkamp had previously directed commercials and short films, but District 9 was his first feature film. The director co-wrote the script with his wife, Terri Tatchell, and chose to film in South Africa, where he was born.In District 9, Tatchell and Blomkamp returned to the world explored in his short film Alive in Joburg, choosing characters, moments and concepts that they found interesting including the documentary-style filmmaking, staged interviews, alien designs, alien technology/mecha suits, and the parallels to racial conflict and segregation in South Africa, and fleshing out these elements for the feature film.
QED International financed the negative cost. After the 2007 American Film Market, QED partnered with Sony's TriStar Pictures for distribution in English-language territories, Korea, Italy, Russia and Portugal.