District 9

I saw District 9 yesterday, which also happened to be my 40th birthday. I was just blown away by it. WOW! There were echos of older movies, and yet it was utterly original. At different times watching the movie, I was reminded of the original Terminator, 28 Days Later, Independence Day, and The Office TV series. And as a life-long Star Trek dork, I couldn't help but compare the first contact experiences in this movie to those of various Star Trek series. The Aliens arrive in giant spaceship that looks kind of like those that appear over major cities in Independence Day. There's no "We come in peace" or "Take me to your leader" or even "Shoot to kill" or "We will share our superior technology with you." The aliens are sick, weak, and physically repulsive to the humans. There's no kind benevolent Federation to welcome them, no Star Trek universal translator, there's only Johannesburg, South Africa, a city with it's own turbulent racial history, and limited funds like a lot of cities today. I mean, hell, our mayor just cancelled curbside recycling and parts of the school bus system, and God knows that we here in Montgomery Alabama have our own turbulent racial history. What would we do if suddenly a million refugees suddenly showed up in the airspace over the state capitol?

The director sets up the story quickly with a realistic, faux-documentary style that is reminiscent of something on the History Channel or The Office. We get "experts" telling us of how the aliens came 20 years ago and they seemed like refugees, so in an effort to help they were put in refugee camps and fed, but the camps turned into tent cities and the tent cities turned into a permanent festering slum. Attitudes that were once pretty common in South Africa became common again, but with the aliens on the receiving end of a lot of the nastiness instead of blacks. Into all this the director introduces the main character, Wickus Van De Merwe, a nerdy office worker guy in a short-sleeved shirt and a sweater vest, universal signifiers of middle management. He works for MNU, MultiNational United, a company like Blackwater. They're supposed to go in and evict the Aliens from District 9 and move them to a new camp farther away from the city. We see Wickus and a "documentary" camera crew walking through District 9 knocking on shanty doors, trying to get the aliens to sign eviction notices. He comes across pretty badly during this part, like a slightly retarded anthropologist. He talks into the camera, excited to be on TV, acting like he's a big expert on the aliens, but it's clear that he's not, and really, that no one is. At one point he sets fire to one of the shacks that is being used as some sort of hatchery or incubator for alien young. You can hear a popping sound in the background and he cheerfully explains that the sound of the alien babies dying sounds like popcorn!

Shortly thereafter we see two aliens talking in one of the shacks about an all important cannister of the fluid that must not be lost. Here comes Wickus, officiously stumbling into the middle of things. He gets sprayed with the fluid from the cannister. Things start to change for Wickus. More later.