Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - District 9 is the best SciFi movie this SciFi nerd has seen this decade

guy44 · 08-19-2009, 07:37 PM

There are a couple of interesting things I think should be mentioned.

1) The movie is apparently much more pointedly allegorical if you're South African. The main character's last name van der Merwe is a very common Afrikaner name in SA (I think) and also the name used in a type of joke (van der Merwe is so stupid...etc.). Also, District 6 was a real-life ghetto for blacks who were forced to move to a new ghetto so D6 could be demolished. And the clicks the aliens speak with are reminiscent of the clicks which make up the language used by a sizable black native group that were discriminated against. So all that, and probably more, went right over my head and if I were from SA I'm sure it'd be more powerful for me.

Spoiler: 2) In an interview at the AV club, the director explained a lot he didn't put into the movie. He said that he imagined the aliens had a hive-mind type collective and had lost their queen when they were stranded above earth, and it took 20 years for another leader to be...generated, or born, or something. So that's why they never took initiative and never used their weapons.

08-19-2009, 07:37 PM	#21 (permalink)
guy44 Somnabulist Location: corner of No and Where	There are a couple of interesting things I think should be mentioned. 1) The movie is apparently much more pointedly allegorical if you're South African. The main character's last name van der Merwe is a very common Afrikaner name in SA (I think) and also the name used in a type of joke (van der Merwe is so stupid...etc.). Also, District 6 was a real-life ghetto for blacks who were forced to move to a new ghetto so D6 could be demolished. And the clicks the aliens speak with are reminiscent of the clicks which make up the language used by a sizable black native group that were discriminated against. So all that, and probably more, went right over my head and if I were from SA I'm sure it'd be more powerful for me. Spoiler: 2) In an interview at the AV club, the director explained a lot he didn't put into the movie. He said that he imagined the aliens had a hive-mind type collective and had lost their queen when they were stranded above earth, and it took 20 years for another leader to be...generated, or born, or something. So that's why they never took initiative and never used their weapons. __________________ "You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"