District
9
Balmore C.
A2
District
9 is a sci-fi film set in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is based in the year
of 2010. Aliens inhabit the sky; the South African government then goes into
their ship to find many sick, unhealthy looking aliens. They restrict the
aliens into an area called district 9, which is located right outside of
Johannesburg. While the aliens are living here, they are having conflicts with
the local South Africans near District 9. The government then chooses to send
military forces to relocate the aliens to a larger area, or district. Throughout
the whole movie, you never learn the alien’s actual race name; they are referred
to as “Prawns”. In the area where the aliens live, there are poor conditions, it
is dirty, and they are not allowed to leave that area. It could be said that
the aliens are being mistreated by the humans. The story follows a man named
Wikus, who was in charge of relocating the aliens. During the movie, he is
spayed by a black chemical, in one of the homes in district 9. He soon starts
to grow a claw-looking arm, like the arms of the aliens. The military find the
black chemical, takes it to their base, and take Wikus to experiment on him.
Wikus manages to escape and now the military is chasing after him, so he takes
shelter in District 9. While there, he finds the alien who had the black
substance, he tells Wikus that the black substance is needed to power the
mother ship. He tell Helps Wikus retrieve the black substance from the
military. The aliens use it to power their ship and leave, Wikus fully
transforms into an alien and has to wait three years for an antidote so he can
be human again.
District
9 can relate the problems of apartheid with the prawns and humans. The humans
are the white people and the prawns are the black people if we relate the film
to apartheid. The prawns were forced to live in horrible conditions; they were
not able to have the same opportunities as the humans. They were discriminated
and mistreated, that’s the connection the film wanted to have with apartheid. The
humans really wanted them gone, so they secluded the prawns from most human
activity and were very harsh to them, so the film really does have a good
visual idea of apartheid.
In
my opinion, the movie was well thought and was overall an interesting movie to
watch. It takes apartheid to an extreme where black people aren't even viewed
as human anymore more as sick, disgusting, creatures. With that being said, that’s
really the only thing that the film compared apartheid to. They only compared
the prawns and humans to the blacks and whites, not much else. It does get the
message through, however.
My recommendation
to anyone who watches this movie is to pay attention the differences of the
prawns and the humans, compare it to apartheid, and you will the how similar
they both are. It is a great movie, at first, it shows the point of view of the
humans. While the film develops, you really start to see the point of view of
the prawns, so you get to see both sides of the story, which is why I like this
movie.
"Movie Spoiler for the Film - DISTRICT 9." DISTRICT
9. N.p., Nov.-Dec. 2010. Web. 19 Dec. 2013.
"District
9." Review.
N.p., June-July 2011. Web. 19 Dec. 2013..
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ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a very interesting movie and I'll make sure to make time to see it. I can definitely see the relationship between the plot of the story and apartheid. It must of been a very optimistic topic to write about since it was movie related. Since it takes place in Johannesburg, I can get a vivid image of what the setting would look like. A more futuristic Johannesburg sounds like a interesting sight to see. You did well vividly describing the plot of the story. You also connected it to apartheid in a way that's simple to understand. My only concern is that I don't get a good picture of what the aliens really look like. Other than that, great job. Only one question: Did he ever get the antidote?
ReplyDeleteThis movie sounds very interesting, however I could not get into because of the way it was filmed. My parents rented it, and I watched the first 15-20 minutes and left to go do other things. Although I read up on it some and can see your parallels you called out within the movie. I think that's a very interesting way of trying to get people to understand apartheid, through futuristic sci-fi alien movies. All joking aside, you did a very good job of explaining what you saw in similarities between the movie and apartheid, as well as stating the general plot so I would never have to see it. It's okay, I didn't like it anyway. Don't feel to bad. Good job man.
ReplyDeleteI myself have not yet seen District 9 but from the sound of it, it definitely looks like something that i would be interested in. I am very fond of anything alien related. The only thing im confused about is, why didn't the aliens leave after creating the “Black Chemical.”’ You mentioned that Wickus found the “Black chemical” inside the aliens house. Wouldn't it have been much easier and smarter to just leave right after creating the chemical instead of waiting until something goes wrong and then starting to try to retrieve it again. All in all, it was a really good blog. The only thing that i spotted was one grammatical error in the first paragraph.(sentence 17)
ReplyDelete