So I was going over some old journal entries today and I stumbled on this one here. I decided to post it and see what you all think. Feel free to chime in with your comments.
Saturday 8/29/09
Saw District 9…. great movie!
I loved the setting: Johannesburg, South Africa. Their apartheid past was an interesting setting. It was a movie about discrimination, bigotry, and “alienation”, without being a “message” movie. I loved the fact that it oozed action and sci-fi fun without being overly preachy. Yet, the moral fiber was interwoven throughout the plot line masterfully.
I wonder about the little detail of the “cat food scam” that the Nigerians were selling beloved cat food at exorbinant prices. It reminded me of the Europeans giving beads and trinkets for large amounts of gold and land from the native Americans. Obviously, that sort of thing has happened many times in history, so I wonder if it was influenced by another happening.
I loved that the main character went from being the normal politically correct bigot to befriending a prawn and even becoming one. He wasn’t a hateful killer, but just a normal guy that started out laughing about the killing of the prawns and the abortion he commited to their offspring, and ended up, via a twist of fate and circumstance, actually identifying with them on many moral and even physical levels.
One particular scene that was poignant was when the young prawn boy had his arm side-by-side with the protagonist and said they were the same, and the protagonist violently pulled away and cursed about how they weren’t the same. The prawn boy was simply pointing out the obvious, and the protagonist couldn’t see it at that time.
It was a beautiful plot, positioned in the middle of an unsuspecting genre: sci-fi edge-of-your-seat power action movie.
I totally loved it.
What do you think? Comment below!
