District 9



""There's a lot of secrets in District 9.""

A 2009 science-fiction Thriller/Mockumentary by Neill Blomkamp, based on his short film Alive in Joburg (which can be found on Youtube) and produced by Peter Jackson.

In 1982, a massive flying saucer came to a halt above the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. After three months of complete silence, the government had the ship boarded. Surprisingly, most of the aliens turned out to be confused, timid and starved. They were "drones" -- working class aliens, incapable of surviving or piloting their starship on their own, and their leaders had mysteriously disappeared.

In August 2010, after many failed attempts to integrate the aliens into South African society, they found themselves confined to "District 9", a fenced-off shanty-town operated by multinational defense contractor MNU. The first third of the film is filmed documentary-style, focusing on sniveling corporate git Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a MNU agent who is given the task of evicting the aliens (derogatorily nicknamed "prawns") from District 9. His job is to get the legal paperwork out of the way, so that the aliens can be transported to a new concentration camp in the wilderness, where they can't bother humans.

During a search for weapons in a shack belonging to the alien "Christopher Johnson", he accidentally opens up an alien device, spraying goo all over him. As the day drags on, he's forced to get a lot closer to the "prawns" than he'd have liked. As Wikus gets forcibly drawn into the life of the aliens and pursued by MNU, the documentary aspect slowly starts taking a backseat to Wikus' personal horrors and Christopher's efforts to save his people.

The film itself is an odd (but very fitting) combination of a sociopolitical Improv Mockumentary, extreme violence based on (among other things) Robo Cop and Halo, and a classic science-fiction horror story (slash Black Comedy) very much like The Fly. Depending on how you watch it, it's either a scathing political satire with cool action elements, or a kickass horror film with an underlying social moral. Word of God says both interpretations are valid.

District 9 includes examples of:

 * Action Survivor: Wikus.
 * Alien Among Us: Kind of. The whole point of the eponymous district is to ensure that the aliens are not among us.
 * Alien Catnip: Cat food.
 * Aliens In Johannesburg: The aliens manage to get stuck over what was at the time one of the most racist and xenophobic countries on the planet. They also Lampshade the fact that the ship didn't arrive in New York or London.
 * Alien Invasion:
 * Aliens Speaking English: Averted. The prawns understand English (and the humans who work with them understand their language), but both are physically incapable of speaking the other's language. Ironically, the aliens were voiced by a human actor.
 * All There in the Manual: The promotional websites provide quite a bit of Backstory.
 * Alternate History: The aliens landed in 1982. Technology, on the other hand, hasn't changed, due to MNU solely focusing on attempting to capitalize on alien weaponry.
 * Always Chaotic Evil: News reports at the beginning establish that regular citizens see the prawns this way, accusing them of eating live animals, kidnapping people, derailing trains, and burning down townships. Whether or not they actually do those things is open to interpretation. Even if they did do them, it'd be unclear whether they really understood the ramifications of their actions, given the cultural divide. When violent resistance groups in South Africa would attempt to send a message by, for example, derailing trains, the government would give excuses like 'the natives don't understand the system involved' and so on to cover up the unrest and keep it from spreading.
 * An Arm and A Leg: Wikus
 * And Then John Was a Zombie: And then
 * The Apartheid Era: with aliens!
 * Apologetic Attacker: Wikus, when he is forced to
 * Applied Phlebotinum: The mysterious alien "fluid," which powers all of their technology, . Word of God says it's meant to repair things, which probably would apply to medical aid as well.
 * As Himself: The newsreader who makes the announcement that Wikus has contracted an alien STD can in real life be seen nearly every night on the SABC News at 7.
 * As You Know: Mainly averted except when CJ, on the last day of his 20 year magic juice collection program, explains the entire thing to his friend.
 * Attack Attack Attack: The human mercenaries seems curiously unperturbed about the alien weaponry splattering their colleagues all over the landscape, aside from Koobus getting shellshocked a tiny bit.
 * Badass: The Nigerian gang boss, who, among other things, calmly and nonchalantly stares straight down the flaming barrel of an alien gun that just blasted one of his men through the wall of the building, while it's being trained on him from six inches away.
 * Badass Abnormal: Wikus and CJ.
 * Banned in China: Nigeria has banned the movie because it "portrays Nigerians as gangsters and cannibals." There are some cannibalistic Nigerian gangsters in the film. but it never says all Nigerians are gangsters. Nigerian immigrants into South Africa are often poor and are blamed for an increase in crime. The cannibalism is actually inspired by the treatment of albinos in Tanzania.
 * Bald of Evil: Smit, Koobus (pronounced with a short O), and at least one of Koobus' mercenaries. Although the baldness might just be a coincidence: for African(-Americans), a clean shave is a pretty standard haircut. The same goes for soldiers, mercenaries and other military people.
 * Bee People: The only insight into the alien's biology is from an entomologist, saying they are a colony-based organism like ants or bees. Word of God has stated that the prawns on Earth are a worker caste, explaining why they're listless without direction from a leader caste. There's no official explanation as to why Christopher is different from the rest, but he might be a leader caste prawn. There might also be a hive mind at work.
 * Big Fookin' Gun: All the alien weapons fit this title. The weakest alien gun is some sort of compressed air blaster which can knock out an entire wall and fling people dozens of feet away. Then it goes to Lethal, to Unnecessarily Lethal, to "Just What The Fuck Did The Aliens Fight That Needed Such Outrageous Firepower?" When the power armor goes live, its main guns are BFG versions of the lightning cannon and automatic rifle, and when the mercenaries oppose it they get no traction until
 * Big Damn Heroes:
 * Big Damn Villains: The Nigerians attack the MNU convoy as soon as they arrest Wikus after his failed dropship escape.
 * Bigger Stick - The only reason why Wikus and CJ's succeeds, and their later
 * Bilingual Dialogue: Prawns and humans are totally unable to speak the others' language, so this suffices. Africans are also shown speaking different languages to each other at the same time.
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Black and Gray Morality: The movie has almost no unambiguously good people, aside from "Christopher Johnson" and his son, the former being the only alien who tries being diplomatic and uses violence only as a last resort (even after ).
 * Black Best Friend: Fundiswa, the guy who is partnered with Wikus in the beginning and proves to be one of the more morally upstanding people
 * Black Comedy:
 * The first call from Tanya that Wikus gets? It's her sobbing and crying about him cheating on her, and him declaring Bill Clinton style that he did not have "pornographic relations" with an alien. It's obviously meant to be awkward and weird, since MNU's explanation of his transformation is that he has an STD from fucking Prauns, complete with saucy picture.
 * Wikus being strapped into a firing range and forced to shoot an alien is horrifying. Wikus being covered in chunks of the alien's flesh is hilarious.
 * The entire "surprise party" scene counts. Wikus is in the initial stages of and has literally soiled his pants from the shock, so his constant awkwardness throughout is highly amusing until the moment he suddenly vomits and collapses. If you listen closely at the beginning, he says he might have crapped his pants.
 * Blatant Lies:
 * Various people in the opening mockumentary state that MNU keeps the aliens safe and gives them what they need. Uh-huh.
 * Also, Piet Smit claiming that his daughter's marriage to Wikus wasn't a factor in choosing him as field commander for the relocation effort (immediately after we see his parents proclaim that he "wasn't very smart").
 * Bloody Hilarious: This is a very serious, layered movie. That doesn't make seeing people explode like balloons any less funny.
 * Blown Across the Room: averted; Christopher protects himself with a rectangle of sheetmetal, and catches several bullets with it - at no point is he even in danger of falling, much less of being blown away by the energy of the bullet impacts.
 * Played straight with the alien gun, but it's justified as it seems to be its explicit purpose.
 * Body Horror:
 * Alien weapons frequently gib or maim.
 * Boldly Coming: Interspecies prostitutes are briefly mentioned.
 * Break the Cutie: The cuties here would probably be Christopher and his son who, while maybe not as dramatically abused in the film as Wikus, probably had to endure a lot more hardship.
 * Break the Haughty: Wikus. Some people count this as Break the Cutie, due to his portrayal as a joyfully bumbling white-collar government lackey who makes paper mache sentiments for his pretty wife.
 * Brick Joke:
 * Of the darkest type.
 * Yet another dark one in the deleted scenes: remember the "population growth control" flamethrower unit that Wikus calls in to kill a shack filled with babies? When Wikus hijacks an APC (for the assault on the MNU headquarters), they get killed (or at least, flung around a bit).
 * Wikus
 * A merc loses an arm in the eviction. Another gets his arm blasted off due to Wikus' rampage.
 * Bullet Catch: Also, the armor has the ability to suspend incoming bullets in a force-field generated from one of its arms and then fire them back at the assailants.
 * Bulletproof Vest: Most of the MNU employees wear them. Wikus has one with a calculator on it. Fadiswa was supposed to get one. He was also one of the only people not to get mauled.
 * Bullying a Dragon: Let's all commit horrible acts against an alien race that would be classified as crimes against humanity if they were human. Did we mention that the alien race in question happens to have the ability to tear a man limb from limb, insanely powerful weapons, Mini Mecha only they can use, a huge ship, ?
 * Call Back: Wikus' "This is quite a find, yeah?" upon It's what Wikus said when he found the weapons cache during the MNU eviction sweep.
 * Camera Abuse: Koobus and his MNU mercenaries get pretty rough with the camera crew during the first half of the movie, and the camera lens ends up spattered in blood a few times. In the aforementioned scene, Koobus even yells abuse at the cameraman Trent - the actual cinematographer of the film.
 * Cannibalism Superpower: The Nigerians think they can do this by eating alien body parts (the alien DNA will let them use the alien weapons). The non-existent success rate does not discourage them.
 * Car Fu: Used twice. First by the Nigerians against the MNU, secondly
 * Catch and Return:
 * Changed My Mind, Kid: Wikus runs from the captured Christopher in the middle of the climatic battle. As Christopher is about to die he changes his mind. Unstoppable Rage meets mecha!
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * , and more subtly, the.
 * In addition, Wikus's sidekick is shown in the documentary sections in  Sure enough, at the end it's revealed that   He's in jail because
 * Children Are Innocent: Well, as innocent as you can be when you're living in a crime-ridden slum. One of Wikus' worst acts is, and Christopher Johnson, , works hard not to get his son's hopes up, for fear of having to crush them. Christopher even tries to cheer up his son by saying that D10 will be a much better place and that they should be happy. It gets crushed when Wikus says it's a concentration camp. Christopher is caught off-guard by this honesty, which is unfortunately a new desolation, helping to humanize (so to speak) both Christopher and Wikus.
 * Cluster F-Bomb: Wikus seems to drop this whenever he's upset (which is a lot). Koobus and some of the other mercenaries drop them whenever. May challenge Casino or The Boondock Saints for sheer volume of f-bombs. According to the IMDB, it's dropped 137 times. This may or may not be partly due to all of Wikus' lines being improvised. He's actually cursing in Afrikaans, though the word in question ("fok") is the same as the f-word in all but spelling.
 * Cold-Blooded Torture: MNU's experiments on
 * Colonel Badass: Koobus the mercenary commander. Despite being a Complete Monster, he's actually quite fearless, keeping his head even when faced by the awesome power of the alien weaponry. In the end
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: Christopher and his son are the only green prawns we see throughout the film. It might be that green prawns are more intelligent, or it might simply be a way to visually distinguish the important characters from the rest. When.
 * Color Me Black: The Fantastic Racism version of the trope.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: A Mega Corp is involved; of course there's going to be those. Smit is the main one in the film.
 * Crapsack World: District 9 is pretty much the most run-down, degraded, depressing, hopeless hellhole of a town you could ever possibly imagine. And, for Truth in Television value, it was filmed in an actual South African shanty-town whose residents were being resettled by the government at the time of filming. In the commentary, the director pretty much describes it as Hell on Earth.
 * Color Me Black: The Fantastic Racism version of the trope.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: A Mega Corp is involved; of course there's going to be those. Smit is the main one in the film.
 * Crapsack World: District 9 is pretty much the most run-down, degraded, depressing, hopeless hellhole of a town you could ever possibly imagine. And, for Truth in Television value, it was filmed in an actual South African shanty-town whose residents were being resettled by the government at the time of filming. In the commentary, the director pretty much describes it as Hell on Earth.


 * Daddy's Girl: Tanya. Only that her dad is a lying, manipulative Complete Monster.
 * Death Glare: Koobus gives one to his subordinate when he has to be reminded that they have orders Wikus is to be captured alive. He gives another to
 * Death Ray: At least one of the alien weapons could only be called this.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?:
 * The police brutality perpetrated by the MNU soldiers, the "No Non-Human Loitering" signs, and even the title of the film itself are all decidedly unsubtle, with chilling effect.
 * The MNU militant insignia shows a goat with 2 horns, 2 ears and an elongated beard that makes it look like a upside down star.
 * The shaven-headed Koobus seems very reminiscent of Neo-Nazis. Particularly the lines of how he "loved watching prawns die" and calling Wikus a "filthy half-breed". The actor deliberately gave Koobus an English accent and a loathing of Wikus (an Afrikaaner).
 * The aliens' drug-like addiction to cat food is based on a very common colonial occurrence: you find some substance the natives don't have (usually alcohol, caffeine, or sugar), get them hooked on it, and then make unfair deals with them that exploit their addiction.
 * The treatment Wikus receives from his fellow humans after the news media claims he's been infected with an alien STD recalls the social ostracism of people infected with HIV/AIDS.
 * Doomed Protagonist
 * The Dragon: Koobus Venter and Moraneau to Piet Smit.
 * Dramatic Irony: One of the first things we learn is that something happens to Wikus. When he is heading into D9, he tells his assistant he doesn't need to wear a protective mask or a bulletproof vest.
 * Drone of Dread: Parts of the soundtrack, used extensively on Prawnkus.
 * Dueling Movies:
 * With Avatar, both competing for the title of "Humans Are the Real Monsters: The Movie"
 * Not dueling in content, but it was one of three films released in the fall/winter of 2009 with "Nine" in the title, causing a little confusion among the less...attentive of moviegoers.
 * Dying Like Animals: A lot of the aliens fall into the Lambs category. Only Christopher could really be said to be Fighting for Survival rather than merely prolonging the inevitable.
 * Enemy Mine: So, team up with the former leader of your oppressors who is, is now at the top of their Most Wanted list, and can get you into their secure facility to retrieve the one item critical to your plan... all right, when do we start?
 * Even Evil Has Standards: Even though Wikus clearly is alright with.
 * Evil Gloating: Twice. Colonel Koobus really likes the sound of his own voice. He does shoot an alien in the head after a similar rambling speech in the beginning of the movie, so apparently he just likes to dick around with his victims before killing them, and just happens to get interrupted before the critical moment in the later confrontations.
 * It extends to his own men as well. Wikus manages to hear Koobus' order to shoot Christopher twice, and runs the distance back to the scene in the time it takes the merc to raise the gun to Christopher's head.
 * Evil Versus Evil: A massive fight occurs between the evil MNU mercenaries and the evil Nigerian gangsters. Both want to use Wikus' corpse so that they can activate prawn weaponry, although the gangsters are considerably less scientific about it.
 * Evilutionary Biologist: Dr. Moraneau, the MNU head doctor. It's strongly implied that those things in the jars were his attempts at fusing human babies with alien DNA.
 * Extreme Graphical Representation: Alien vehicles are piloted via holographic control panels that also provide a 3D map of the environment.
 * Eyes of Gold: Despite their insectoid bodies, the aliens have yellow, almost feline, eyes. This isn't very far-fetched given scientists' study of "camera eyes" and how frequently they pop up in nature.
 * Eye of Newt: The native gangsters chop up Prawns for witchcraft in an attempt to gain the ability to use their bio-mechanically locked weaponry.
 * Fan Nickname: Christopher's son is referred to as either "C.J." or "Oliver" in most works of fandom, despite having no apparent canon name. The DVD subtitles give his name as "Little C.J." The name Oliver can actually be considered canon, as it was mentioned in this post to Christopher's blog that he  two children, named Oliver and Sherry.
 * Fantastic Ghetto: The eponymous District 9.
 * Fantastic Racism: So much.
 * Fingore: This is an Homage to The Fly. Wikus even does the same fingernail-nibbling in the mirror that Jeff Goldblum did, to great effect.
 * Fire-Forged Friends: Wikus and Christopher, by the end.
 * Firing in The Air A Lot: The Nigerians.
 * First Contact: A rather dark take on it. Just look at the trailer! Talked about by a sociologist during the Mockumentary, who says that people were expecting bright lights and music from heaven.
 * First-Name Basis: Koobus' last name is "Venter."
 * Fix It in Post: After Wikus is sprayed in the face with the fluid, he asks the cameraman to have it taken out of the final cut. If he did, we wouldn't be talking about it.
 * Foreign Cuss Word: Wikus uses several Afrikaans naughty words during his many, many rants. Moreover, every time he says the F-word, it's actually its Afrikaans counterpart.
 * For the Evulz: Koobus's only real motive is that he loves to kill prawns.
 * The Great Repair: Christopher's goal throughout the movie.
 * Genre Shift:
 * The first trailer makes it look like it's going to be a documentary about xenophobia in South Africa... then bam, the spaceship appears. It is a documentary about xenophobia in South Africa, just not the one you might have expected.
 * Within the film itself, the beginning is mostly shot in a Mockumentary format with some conventional shots, then flips to mostly conventional around the time of.
 * GIFT: Christopher is infinitely more fiery on his blog.
 * Going Native: Inverted, since the outsiders aren't native to Earth. White oppressor (Wikus)
 * Gorn: The alien weapons more often than not blow their targets into tiny, bloody pieces.
 * G-Rated Drug: Cat food. Practically the only G-rated thing in the whole film.
 * Half-Human Hybrid:
 * Handicapped Badass / Evil Cripple: The Nigerian gang leader is confined to a wheelchair.
 * Happily Married: Wikus and Tanya,
 * Harmful Healing
 * Harpo Does Something Funny: All of Wikus' lines are improvised.
 * Heel Face Turn:
 * Hermaphrodite: In a deleted scene, a scientist explains that the aliens have both male and female reproductive organs, being able to impregnate and become pregnant themselves. Whether this is still canon is unknown, but it leads to some interesting Fridge Logic. And, of course, the corresponding fanfic.
 * Heroic BSOD:
 * Humans Are the Real Monsters:
 * And how: not only do they abuse the shit out of the aliens but When it comes to the prawns themselves, one of the mercenaries says he gets off on killing prawns to Christopher's face, other people kill and eat prawns, and MNU has been vivisecting and experimenting on them in an attempt to create supersoldiers.
 * The pro-alien humans appear in a brief scene as a human (prawn?) rights organization protesting outside District 9. It's pretty clear that the reason MNU keeps their evil activities secret is so they don't come down on them like the wrath of God and since
 * Hypocritical Humor:
 * I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin: Apparently cat food is like crack cocaine to the aliens, without the health issues. (Maybe. Given the tone of the movie, there's a roughly one hundred percent chance that the cat food was detrimental to the aliens' health; the makers just didn't have a way to highlight it.)
 * Idiot Hero: Oh deary deary me, where to begin. Let's start with Wikus' own mom referring to him as "not very bright," and go from there. The outtakes from the documentary say Wikus is playing dumb as protective colouring. Up to a point.
 * Idiot Hero: Oh deary deary me, where to begin. Let's start with Wikus' own mom referring to him as "not very bright," and go from there. The outtakes from the documentary say Wikus is playing dumb as protective colouring. Up to a point.

Case in point: After fleeing the MNU lab, Wikus's location is pinpointed inside the compound thanks to them tracing a cellphone conversation he has with his wife. While he probably should have known better, it's a little forgivable since at that moment he's clearly panicking and not sure about what he's going to do next. Then, later in the movie, he lets it happen again.
 * I'm An Alientarian: The Nigerian gang believes that eating prawn body parts will grant them power over the alien's DNA-activated technology. They eat the limbs raw. They don't even afford the prawns the dignity of paella.
 * Immune to Bullets: The prawns' exoskeleton is tough enough to take a shot from a handgun, provided it isn't armor-piercing, but that's it.
 * Imported Alien Phlebotinum: The goal of MNU and the Nigerian gangsters.
 * Impossibly Cool Weapon: Pretty much every alien weapon suffers from More Dakka, Macross Missile Massacre, or Beam Spam. Consider especially the phrase "Needs more pig cannon!"
 * Improv: A lot of dialogue in the film was made up by the actors on the spot, including pretty much everything Wikus and Christopher say. Christopher's dialogue was first spoken in English by the actor, then later re-dubbed to alien speak, with the subtitles following the improvised lines. The acting directions, however, were mapped out in painstaking detail.
 * Indy Ploy: Wikus gets them into MNU headquarters, but hasn't bothered to work out how to get out again, mainly because he thinks it's a suicide mission anyway. Christopher has to think up a plan on the spot to save both their butts.
 * Innocent Aliens: The humans claim that the drones think setting fire to things and derailing trains is recreational and a bit of sport. Given that this was how the government would write off the exact same types of actions by violent resistance groups in apartheid South Africa, the validity of this claim is questionable.
 * Insectoid Aliens
 * Inspired By: The real life forced removal of over 60,000 blacks from District 6 in Cape Town. And the whole "Nigerians eating alien body parts to get their powers" thing is sadly inspired by what happens to Albinos in Tanzania. Similar instances of cannibalism have occurred during the Second Congo War, with the victims being Mbuti pygmies. In one of the DVD extras there is a brief conversation with Neil Blomkamp where he talks about growing up in apartheid South Africa. His decision to use this setting wasn't necessarily a decision to make a moralistic movie, but to put aliens and Sci Fi into a realistic third-world crapsack environment - and what better setting than what he knew growing up?
 * Interspecies Prostitution: Many wonder how exactly that works? Many would rather not know.
 * In Working Order: Averted, and a major plot point. Humans can't seem to find a way to operate the alien weapons. The only way you can do this is for someone to turn into an alien... which MNU tries to exploit when Wikus is halfway through his metamorphosis.
 * Ironic Birthday: Or, in this case, an ironic surprise promotion party.
 * It Got Worse: Jesus Christ, does it ever.
 * Jittercam: At least in the beginning.
 * Jerkass: Our first indicator that Koobus is this is when he yells at Wikus for no reason after Wikus tells him he needs to put on a bulletproof vest.
 * Wikus himself counts as this, to a lesser extent. At first.
 * Karma Houdini: Smit, Moraneau, and the rest of the MNU higher-ups. However, considering that
 * Karmic Death:
 * Karmic Transformation: Hoo boy,.
 * Kick the Dog: It is a little harder to like Wikus after the alien abortion scene and the attack on Christopher, the real hero of the story.
 * Last Stand:
 * Late Arrival Spoiler: The 82nd Oscars' montage of the film gave away the fact that . As did the commercial spots for the DVD release, as well as spoiling
 * Ludicrous Gibs: A common end-result of the usage of alien weaponry.
 * MacGuffin Guy: Eventually,.
 * Macross Missile Massacre: The Mini Mecha is capable of this, though it takes a while to set it up. The missiles robotech to the target, too. In the commentary, the director refers to this trope almost by name. He was a fan of Macross/Robotech growing up and added the effect as a Shout Out.
 * Meaningful Name: Christopher Johnson. "Christopher" is also the patron saint of travelers. "Van de Merwe" is a generic name given to characters who are the butt of ethnic jokes against Afrikaaners.
 * Mega Corp: Multi-National United, or MNU, who are interested in the aliens' technology and are using them for cheap labor.
 * Messianic Archetype: Christopher Johnson intends to save the prawns from poverty and slavery, one way or another. If he comes back with firepower and a grudge, it might be a case of Dark Messiah, or hopefully Kung Fu Jesus. Note that his initials are an inversion of those of Jesus Christ. Since Christ is actually a title not a name, it works regardless.
 * Metamorphosis:
 * Mighty Whitey: Played with/subverted/deconstructed. Wikus is a very flawed character. Even though he becomes heroic at the end and gets the support of the prawns, he clearly has not become some great messianic figure usually seen with these type of character.
 * Mini Mecha: Shows up pretty early in the film, traded to the Nigerians for cat food.
 * Mismatched Eyes:
 * Mockumentary: For the first third, the very end, and bits and pieces throughout.
 * Mood Whiplash: Given the tone, pretty much every joke in the film.
 * Mr. Fixit: Christopher's son.


 * A Nazi By Any Other Name: While it's not quite as in-your-face as the references to Apartheid,
 * Nepotism: Wikus is the MNU manager Piet Smit's son-in-law, who lampshades this with a Suspiciously Specific Denial of such. In this case, however,
 * Network to The Rescue: The film's entire existence is this trope. Neill Blomkamp was Peter Jackson's choice to helm the Halo film. When the budget of that reached $145 million, the studios canned it. Jackson then went to Blomkamp and essentially said "Sorry that didn't work out, here's $30 million, go have fun." It also counts as a complete avoidance of Executive Meddling. Jackson knew exactly what Neil was capable of and wanted him to do whatever he wanted, knowing it would be awesome.
 * Never Trust a Trailer: Pretty much all the footage in the trailers was filmed specifically for promotion, and does not appear in the finished film.
 * Next Sunday AD: It's shown at various points that the "present" of the story is August, 2010.
 * Nicknaming the Enemy: "Prawns".
 * No Holds Barred Beatdown: Christopher is the unfortunate victim of one of these.
 * No Kill Like Overkill: Again, every single time It is glorious. Eventually reaches the point where all you can ask is, "Just what the fuck are the prawns used to fighting?" Though perhaps it's a case of Puny Earthlings, as the aliens seem to treat getting shot by a handgun as equivalent to a hard shove several times.
 * No Name Given: Christopher's son is never named in-film. It's Oliver, as seen on his "MNU Spreads Lies" blog.
 * Not With the Safety On You Won't: During a raid on Christopher's shanty, the mercenary taking point has his rifle, on safe as seen from the gun-mounted camera's POV.
 * Not So Different: MNU and the Nigerian gangsters. They both want Wikus for the same reason. Given just how advanced the alien technology is, it's entirely possible that the scientific approach would wield equal results, that is to say; none at all. To a much greater extent Prawns and Humans.
 * Ominous Floating Spaceship: Its subverted as the humans find out that the aliens are helpless
 * One-Woman Wail: Played perfectly straight, and foreshadowed by a One Man Wail.
 * Orgasmic Combat: The first sign that something is seriously wrong with Koobus is the breathy laughter and orgasmic sigh he lets out when he shoots an alien point-blank.
 * Overprotective Dad: Smit, who obviously thinks Wikus isn't worthy of his daughter Tanya, from his first appearance in that interview.
 * Pardon My Klingon: Generally averted, as whenever the aliens use whatever equates to profanity in their language, the subtitles simply display regular English profanity.
 * Plot Armor: Koobus. He's immune to machine guns, lightning cannons, rockets, Car Fu -- you name it, he walks away from it..
 * Possession Implies Mastery: Averted with MNU and the Nigerian gangsters, who can't work alien tech. Likewise, most prawns who can't explain it. Played straight with Christopher, who
 * Precision F-Strike:
 * Private Military Contractors: MNU's entire security force.
 * Product Placement: Right in the foreground of the the first shot in the movie!
 * Psycho for Hire: Koobus and his bounty hunter team. "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this. I love watching prawns die!" To their credit, it seems that most of the grunts are just Punch Clock Villains, while the higher-ups (who have been presumably doing it longer) are the psychos.
 * Punch Clock Villain: Wikus starts out as one of these. The MNU people who aren't Complete Monsters also qualify.
 * Reality Subtext: Comes from the quote "if they were from another country, maybe we would understand" in the first half. Maybe intentional, maybe not, but it's hard to deny. In May 2008, (black) South Africans rioted to expel Zimbabweans (primarily) as well as Malawians and Mozambicans from the country, or hack them to death with machetes--whichever. At least two people died and many more were injured. Thousands of people left the country, while others were deported, and there's still (as there has been for decades) an underlying nationalist sentiment. So yeah, no.
 * Red Herring: Fundiswa Mhlanga, citing concern for his family, asks for a ballistic vest at the beginning of the operation to service eviction notices to the aliens. As he cannot find one, Wikus assures him not to worry about it.
 * Red Right Hand: A major plot device is Ironically, it's not
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
 * Rock Beats Laser: The MNU mercs, after a fair amount of effort,
 * Rule 34: Yes, there is actually porn of Christopher with a penis despite him being an alien.
 * Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: The Nigerians, with their black market cat food, illegal arms dealing, inter-species prostitution, and, are working District 9 from every possible angle.
 * Scannable Man: The left side of every prawn's head has white paint with a decal on it.
 * Scary Black Man: Generally averted given that the film takes place in South Africa, but damn the Nigerian gang boss Obesanjo is one scary dude, despite being in a wheelchair and never raising his voice.
 * Scenery Porn: The choppers flying toward the Mothership is definitely this.
 * Scenery Gorn: Oh yeah.
 * Serkis Folk: The aliens are completely computer-generated. The deleted scenes on the DVD (only one of which has CGI added in, by the way) also reveal that Jason Cope played pretty much every single grown alien in the film that got more than five seconds of screen time. Blomkamp describes the animation process as "rotomation," a portmanteau of rotoscopy and animation. Basically, Cope was digitally erased from the footage and his performance was referenced by the animators, but not actually recorded move-for-move.
 * Separated By a Common Language: The "prawns" to which the aliens are compared are not the seafood, but the Parktown prawn, a species of cricket found in South Africa. Which are known to eat cat food if they can...
 * Sequel Hook: Christopher will be back. In three years, no less, which is a very reasonable timeframe for a sequel to be made. And the aliens are living in District 10 by the end of the movie, so there's your title right there. This is about as unsubtle as it gets.
 * Sheep in Wolf's Clothing: Wikus.
 * Shock Party: "Baby, listen, I might've crapped in my pants - " "SURPRISE!!!"
 * Shout Out:
 * During, you can see Tetra Vaal Biosafety on the wall. Also, the  looks a lot like the   from Tetra Vaal (also by Neill Blomkamp), and "Tetra Vaal" signs can clearly be seen inside MNU headquarters.
 * As mentioned above, the armor's Macross Missile Massacre is a reference to that trope's namer.
 * Situational Sword: Prawn weapons require prawn DNA to work. Most of the plot is driven by MNU seeing Wikus as their only shot at being able to operate the far superior Prawn weaponry.
 * Some Call Me... Tim: The only alien with a name is "Christopher Johnson". The origin of this moniker is explained through Christopher's blog, where he states that the MNU has assigned all aliens new, human names as a form of cultural repression - this is implied in the film itself, but never stated outright.
 * Starfish Aliens: Averted. Although the prawns are far from Rubber Forehead Aliens, they still have humanoid shape and body language as well as recognizable facial expressions. Blomkamp originally intended on them looking more alien, but realized that they would be harder to emphasize with. The original short has the aliens looking much more inscrutable.
 * Storming the Castle: Wikus and Christopher at the MNU labs.
 * Strapped to An Operating Table: Played horrifyingly straight with Wikus, who is fully conscious while his own father-in-law orders his vivisection.
 * Tested On Humans: Inverted . An offhand comment by Moraneau indicates that there have been previous (fatal) attempts to integrate human and alien DNA. Also played straight: a horribly mutated human fetus is visible in a jar during the
 * They Would Cut You Up: Unlike most examples, they damn well very happily would cut you up.
 * They Walk Among Us
 * Title Drop: "There's a lot of secrets in District 9."
 * Too Dumb to Live: The Nigerian gangster boss was apparently so megalomaniacal that his reaction to was . Predictably,.
 * Took a Level In Badass: By the look of it, Wikus. Then again:
 * Trademark Favorite Food: The aliens love cat food, bordering on drug addiction at times.
 * Trailers Always Spoil: If you haven't seen the film, just watch the DVD ads.
 * Transhuman Treachery: Inverted;
 * Unreliable Narrator: We get our initial ideas about the prawns from possibly biased documentary footage and a making-of video for a bit of corporate spin. Not everything they say is true.
 * Unstoppable Rage: Wikus in his Last Stand.
 * Villainous Rescue: Subverted.
 * Viral Marketing:
 * The in-universe Multinational United webpage, and Christopher Johnson's blog. In addition, signs have appeared in major cities, instructing people to report all sightings of non-humans to an MNU hotline, which has its own website.
 * At Comic Con, they had people handing out various fliers asking for donations to support humanitarian efforts in District 9.
 * The first viral ad was a sign outside a bathroom at Comi-Con '07, announcing "NO ALIENS ALLOWED".
 * There's a Facebook group called MNU Spreads Lies.
 * Viral Transformation:
 * Virus Victim Symptoms:
 * Vomit Indiscretion Shot: A lot. Even a  vomits oil at one point.
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: A being named Christopher is both helped and betrayed by a person who follows him, comes close to being executed, and ascends into the heavens with promises of bringing back salvation three days years later. Hmm. Also, Van der Merwe is the south african counterpart of John Doe.
 * What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: It's very heavily implied (and even pointed out in the DVD special features) that this is why MNU can get away with what they do. Played absolutely straight in the fact that Christopher is easily the most compassionate character in the film. And he's one of the aliens.
 * What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Apparently, less than the dirt they're standing on. This movie is pretty much about exploring this trope. Lampshaded in the first five minutes or so. If you take Christopher to be a master alien to the drones stuck on this C-grade planet full of primitives, well we're the aliens and What Measure Is A Non Prawn? Nothing. Until one is willing to sacrifice himself for him and his son.
 * What You Are in The Dark: Happens to Wikus.
 * Wild Mass Guessing: the film intentionally leaves a lot of questions open, leaving plenty of room for Wild Mass Guessing.
 * Window Pain:
 * Word of God: The fluid?
 * Your Head Asplode: The result of, in the cases when it's not Your Entire Body Asplode Most notably in the case of , whose head actually swells up before exploding.
 * You Shall Not Pass: