District 9: Difference between revisions
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[[File:district_9_001_7595.png|frame]]
{{quote|''"There's a lot of secrets in [[Title Drop|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]].
[[Alternate History|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"
In [[Next Sunday
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, [[Metamorphosis|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.
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* [[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.
* [[
* [[An Arm and a Leg]]: Wikus {{spoiler|attempts to chop his arm off, believing it'll stop his metamorphosis, but he only manages to get a finger off and stops due to the pain.}}
* [[And Then John Was a Zombie]]: And then {{spoiler|Wikus was a prawn.}}
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* [[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 [http://io9.com/5331799/district-9s-director-tells-us-all-about-his-alien-back-story hive mind] at work.
* [[BFG (weapon)|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 {{spoiler|used by Wikus and Christopher in the MNU raid}}, and when the mercenaries oppose it they get no traction until {{spoiler|a mercenary is able to severely damage it with a [http://world.guns.ru/sniper/sn55-e.htm familiar-looking South African anti-tank rifle.] Needless to say, the mech was a LOT more vulnerable to small-arms fire afterwards.}}
* [[Big Damn Heroes]]:
** {{spoiler|It appears that Wikus is going to abandon Christopher at the hands of the psychotic Koobus when Wikus runs away in his giant mech, until he hears from the mech's audio that Koobus has ordered one of his goons to kill Christopher. Cursing to himself, Wikus runs back. Cut to Christopher having a gun pressed to his head by the aforementioned goon. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|The goon's entire arm is suddenly blown off.]]}}
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* [[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 {{spoiler|Wikus thrice during the final battle, once when he runs off to abandon his friend, the second when the mech is near-dead and is hit by a car, and the third when he's about to kill Wikus.}}
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* [[Hypocritical Humor]]: {{spoiler|After telling Christopher not to kill anyone Wikus kills a guard after being shot at. When questioned by Christopher he responds, "He was shooting at me!"}}
* [[I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!|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 coloring. 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 a Humanitarian|I'm An Alientarian]]: The Nigerian gang [[You Fail Biology Forever|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. {{spoiler|Trying to eat Wikus after he becomes a [[Half-Human Hybrid]] also kind of counts.}}
* [[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. {{spoiler|The [[Mini-Mecha]] is functionally immune to small arms, and can use its Gravity Gun to catch bullets and shoot them back at those who fired them; it's the big guns Wikus has to watch out for.}}
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* [[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, {{spoiler|the unethical medical experiments including vivisection, the [[wikipedia:Fascism#Abortion.2C eugenics and euthanasia|forced "abortion"]] of a shed full of larval aliens by [http://www.ww2incolor.com/dramatic/life_185.html burning them] [http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/father-desbois-featured-in-national-geographic-special-on-nazi-europe/ alive], and the description of the new District 10 as "[[wikipedia:Nazi concentration camps|like a concentration camp]]."}}
* [[Nepotism]]: Wikus is the MNU manager Piet Smit's son-in-law, who [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this with a [[Suspiciously Specific Denial]] of such. In this case, however, {{spoiler|events later in the film invert the trope: Smit clearly gave him the promotion knowing that he was out of his depth and hoping he would be humiliated or somehow end up killed by the aliens.}}
* [[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
* [[Nicknaming the Enemy]]: "Prawns".
* [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]: Christopher is the unfortunate victim of one of these. {{spoiler|After the MNU mercs are done with the Nigerian gangsters, they get Christopher out of the truck he's in and Koobus starts beating him with metal pipes and rifle butts to get him to talk. He's so badly hurt that when Wikus [[Big Damn Heroes|comes in]], he has to tug Christopher to his feet. Christopher is later ''lapsing in and out of consciousness'' because he's so badly hurt.}}
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* [[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]]
* [[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 {{spoiler|lives on top of the command module for the mothership, and has been fixing it up for 20 years. [[Fridge Brilliance|Of course, it's possible that he was in it when it went down...]]}}
* [[Precision F-Strike]]: {{spoiler|Christopher yelling "Fuck!" in Alien when Wikus blows up a guard at MNU.}}
* [[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 Villain
* [[Punch Clock Villain]]: Wikus starts out as one of these. The MNU people who aren't [[Complete Monster
* [[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. {{spoiler|Not only is Mhlanga not killed, as expected, but he is the only character of the three who doesn't get attacked by an alien.}}
* [[Red Right Hand]]: A major plot device is {{spoiler|Wikus' alien arm, especially how it lets him operate prawn technology.}} Ironically, it's not {{spoiler|his arm that gives him away before he can get to ''District 9''; it's his mustache, his most identifiable facial trait. If he had shaved it after going on the run, the people in the restaurant probably wouldn't have freaked out during the news report about him.}}
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* [[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 {{spoiler|the alien [[Mini-Mecha]] slaughtering all his men}} was {{spoiler|to start ''ranting'' at it in a fit of annoyed pique}}. Predictably, {{spoiler|[[Your Head Asplode|his head was impaled and detonated]] [[Killed Mid-Sentence|mid-rant]]}}.
* [[Took a Level
* [[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.
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* [[Villainous Rescue]]: Subverted. {{spoiler|The gangsters show up just as Wikus and Christopher are being taken away by the PMC troops, resulting in [[Evil Versus Evil]] as noted below.}}
* [[Viral Marketing]]:
** The in-universe Multinational United [https://web.archive.org/web/20120320124212/http://www.
** 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".
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[[Category:Zoic Studios]]
[[Category:Hugo Award]]
[[Category:District 9]]▼
[[Category:Film]]
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