The following was written by a good friend of mine in response to my review of District 9. He’s an incredible movie goer, has seen hundreds more movies than I, and thus, his judgment and taste is often taken with such incredible weight that I follow it.

“Lucas Says:
August 15, 2009 at 9:10 pm e

I’ll take the bait and “talk about it”.

¡¡¡CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!

I’ll have to admit that I was quite sceptical about this movie when I first saw the trailer, especially when the bold text informed me that the Special Effects Don, Peter Jackson, had attached himself to the project; which is how I always imagine theses things, like parasites feeding off of young talent. Take for example Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Ask anyone who the director of the film was and they’ll tell you Tim Burton, guess what world?! it wasn’t ol Timmy but the very talented Henry Selick. Great movies should stand on their own and not the bloated fame of Hollywood’s cookie cutter elite.

Regarding District 9, the subject of this post, I will agree that it is a well executed addition to my beloved Sci-Fi universe, pun if you must, but I can not state that it is the best Sci-Fi of the decade. And I can, in fact, remember a few Sci-Fi flicks that were at least as good, including but not limited to: The Moon, Sunshine, Star Trek (2009), The Man From Earth, Children of Men, and I’m sure if I took some time I could think of a few more. I was very irritated that the only prawns that showed any sort of human emotion were conveniently the two that we were meant to be attached to, I couldn’t have cared less about the rest of the bugs left on the ground. Kill em all for all I care because apparently the only two with any sort of worth are safely stored away on the mother ship. It would have been a bit more powerful if the hero had felt compassion for the stranded Aliens as a result of his moral fiber. Being forced to reflect on his treatment of the prawns while becoming one himself is slightly less poignant, and certainly more self serving.

There were a couple more details that I will not nitpick, ultimately I loved the movie. Like all great Sci-Fi flicks it dealt with a moral dilemma in a fictional setting, albeit with the use of a slightly hokie device.”

Below I will include some of my reasoning as to what I saw better in District 9 than two of the movies he brought up.

Touche Luke, Touche. Unfortunately I have yet to see Moon, Children of Men, or The Man From Earth, so I cannot speculate on those movies. Concerning Sunshine, I had a hard time debating if District 9 should be praised above our sunbound crew of the Icuris. This was a definite thought of mine and came into mind several times while writing the review. Obviously I settled on District 9 as the champion of the two. While yes District 9 had some flaws as all movies do (you put into word what I could not express or put a finger on), Sunshine was set in such an incredible and fascinating world far beyond any earth we know today, that it was something beyond belief. Yet the characters were so diverse and played so well that THEY, not the setting at all, were the real story (imo). Thus with District 9 being grounded on Earth, and shot in such a way that added to its realism I chose it. Another word on Sunshine is that it was a far more beautiful film that 9 cannot even touch.

Star Trek (2009) was a wonderfully entertaining sci-fi, yet was almost wholly unoriginal in the fact it was using a predesigned character set that almost every person that saw it was at least slightly familiar with. Taking into account that his required some fancy moves by all involved to set it out as an original Star Trek did give it some weight, yet (once again imo) did not have the breath of originality that District 9 had. All be it Star Trek was a much more epic film. Also, the social issue confrontation that many of our sci-fi fathers built into their universes felt very lacking here.

I don’t say that these two movies were not fantastic, I thought so of each, I am merely asserting my views as to why District 9 was a better sci-fi. I will go onto do my research by watching these other movies mentioned though, all of which I have heard of and have a great desire to experience.

EDIT (Sunday August16th 7:07)

As relating to Peter Jackson attaching his name to the movie. From what I mentioned earlier about Jackson and Blomkamp originally slated for Halo, this movie was (not to demean it) but an total hail-mary afterthought once the Halo movie was taken from them. Now, the scheme was exactly as Lucas said it was, IF this movie was Halo. But it’s not. It’s a post abortion love child of Blomkamp with Jackson as some creative help. Jackson may have given enough weight to carry this movie, but Sony (holding the distribution rights) with its tell nothing advertising campaign and forcing Jackson to make a first-time appearance at Comic-Con, created so much ‘underground’ buzz, that Sony felt comfortable taking this movie nation wide it’s first weekend.

\Had this movie not been backed by Jackson and Sony, I feel it might have turned out a lot like Moon (which I haven’t seen). Moon was screened at Sundance (where Luke saw and then told me about) then was very limited released. While those sorts of movies truly are wonderful works of the silver screen, we must not fault an amazing virgin director and lead actor whom have this amazing story to tell, just because they got lucky with a big name and wide distribution.

Also, it’s wonderful to note that D-9 made $37 million it’s first weekend (Yes, that means they made $6 million more than it cost in three-ish days), and as the New York Times tells, it might have been a very specific crowd that forked over that $37 mil, but this movie is starting to belong to everyone. We’ll see where D-9 falls as the weeks go on, but either way, this overly ambitious, under funded film is a major break for Blomkamp and Copley, whom I’m sure will get plenty more gigs.