District 9/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • The prawns are worker bees without a queen: they are dim-witted, listless, and have only the two modus operandi "obedient" and "violent." Equivalently, they are bio-engineered soldiers.
      • Or perhaps the prawns are not inherently stupid and violent drones. It's a reflection of their refugee status: poor, lost, confused, exploited, oppressed, without jobs or hopes. They are only violent and listless as some ghettoized human refugees are.
      • Finally, perhaps the prawn were already unwanted brutalised refugees being dumped on Earth to get them away from an "alien Johannesburg."
    • Wikus: at the start, is he just an ignorant Punch Clock Villain just following where his bureaucracy takes him, or does he edge into Complete Monster territory? Does he continue to help Christopher due to a newfound empathy for these rational, feeling beings, or because (at first) it serves his own ends and (at the end of the story) allows him to wallow in his rage? Again, on the other hand, he watches with a warm smile as Christopher and little C.J. depart, and is shown still making little trinkets for his wife -- just as he did before -- in District 10, so the "wallowing in his rage" thing holds very little water. Honestly the best way to characterize Wikus is as Completely Human. Confused, angry, bitter, depressed, determined, nihilistic. Everything you would expect a punch-clock white-collar worker to experience under the same pressures and circumstances.
  • Anvilicious: The promotional website and trailers drop anvils on racism, illegal immigration, and pretty much anything that can be tangentially related to Apartheid. The movie is a little more subtle. Of course, Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.
  • Complete Monster: Piet Smit, Koobus Venter, and Obesandjo are all strong contenders for this label.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The soundtrack combains traditional South African music with modern music spectacularly.
  • Director Displacement
  • Drinking Game: The District 9 drinking game: drink every time Wikus van der Merwe swears. Hope you enjoy that liver transplant.
  • Fandom Rivalry: Hardcore D9 fans often face-off against hardcore Avatar fans because of the similar story structure and the fact that both films were sci-fi flicks nominated for Best Picture Oscar. Of course, there are many who like both movies, and others—like Doug Walker—that hate both.
  • Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: Wikus. Let's count 'em: Falls victim to a slow Karmic Transformation, gets Strapped to An Operating Table and used for Cold-Blooded Torture, becomes a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, almost falls victim to cannibals... he hits a lot of the more, shall we say, unconventional fetishes, in rapid succession.
  • Fridge Horror: According to his blog, Christopher had two children. We saw Oliver, but what happened to Sherry?
  • Fridge Logic: At the beginning, it's assumed Christopher has just collected enough fuel to do what he needs to. Then during the course of the movie, a (not insignificant) amount gets sprayed on Wikus' face, and some may have been removed while MNU had the canister; yet there's still enough to power the dropship. Why did he wait and collect more than exactly what he needed?
    • Fridge Brilliance: Christopher knew he would probably need a bit of firepower and shielding to keep MNU at bay while he went up to the mothership. The amount of fuel sprayed on Wikus' face were the last drops that Christopher collected specifically for those extra bits of safety, which is why Wikus and Little C.J. were shot down so easily.
  • Memetic Badass: In much the same way as Col. Quaritch, Col. Koobus has developed a reputation as awesome.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Listing which named humans don't cross it would be many, many times easier than the alternative.
  • Nausea Fuel: A shit-ton. Body Horror, Vomit Indiscretion Shots and Gorn galore.
  • So Cool Its Awesome: Just see the film.
  • Tear Jerker:
    • The end scene where the prawn Wikus makes little metal flowers for Tanya out of trash and leaves them on her doorstep.
    • It's also pretty hard not to feel bad for the poor guy when he promises his wife that he'll return to her.
    • The scene where Christopher's son asks when they'll be going home, and Christopher answers that they're not going now, and instead are going to the District 10 and even says how nice it probably is. Especially sad since Wikus, the audience, and Christopher himself know that it's really not.
    • The scene in which Wikus is tested upon by the MNU scientists. Especially the part when they're forcing him to test the guns, tasering him when he refuses, and then they bring out the live subject: an innocent, terrified alien. That Wikus promptly freaks out is one of the first signs that he's not a total asshole, but that just makes it worse.
    • Wikus' Last Stand to get Christopher back to his shuttle, which is also a Roaring Rampage of Revenge as the power armor falls apart around Wikus. The look on his face once the mini mecha finally dies and Koobus drags him out makes it clear that he expects to be taken back to MNU for vivisectioning, but is too beat down to care about anything but the fact that Christopher got to safety with his son. CMOA as well.
    • The look on Christopher Johnson's face as he sees a prawn's corpse on the MNU HQ having been operated on and tested.
  • Ugly Cute: Christopher and his son. Especially his son. Between his own youthful antics, Christopher's fatherly gestures, general tininess, and his various Crowning Moments, the little guy is just asking for a massive hug. Extra-specially when he compares his arm to Wikus's and says endearingly, "We're the same!" Awww... kinda.
    • The Mini-Mecha has tiny little antennae, like the prawns. Awwww.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: Obvious just from the trailer. The aliens? The gigantic spaceship hovering over the city? All CGI. All made on a budget of just $30 million. While Weta Workshop designed the aliens (who, appropriately enough, resemble big crickets), at the time of the movie's post-production, Weta Digital was too busy working on visual effects for Avatar, and made only the mothership and the dropship. Most of the VFX were made by companies based in Vancouver (where Neill Blomkamp lives), with Image Engine taking the biggest part. While they are experienced, and already worked on other Hollywood movies, they did just small bits -- District 9 was their first large project.
  • The Woobie: Christopher and his son both come to mind, being pretty much the only unambiguously good beings in the entire movie, and who suffer great hardships.
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