as you might know there are several different kinds of "nerd" or "dork". Most people start out as kids falling in love with Transformers, Power Rangers, comic books, the Sunday comics, or maybe just general things like science. As a kid I read a lot of comic strips like Fox Trot, Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes ect. ect.
My parents would often refer to these as "dessert" books. Yes I was reading, which is good, but I wasn't reading something that took brain power. So I went on a search for something "meatier". I remember the first time I found a fantasy novel that I enjoyed and new this was something I could really read and satisfied my parents. This of course lead my father to start to steer me towards a genre he enjoyed, science fiction.
Long way around for an introduction to District 9, huh? It's because you need to understand how deep seated my love for GOOD science fiction is, not only as an adult but since I was 12 years old.
Good science fiction is hard to find. It's especially hard to find in a movie theater since I’ve been cognitive enough to know the difference. Sure, I love bad science fiction too. Who doesn’t? I’ve been given many a glare when in the middle of a gossip session about the latest on Dr. Who, when I point out its fun science fiction but not very GOOD science fiction.
Sure, Independence Day was a fun let’s-go-shoot-aliens-fuck-yeah-humanity movie; but good science fiction? No. Not even close. There have been several jokes about the random guy sneezing which makes Jeff Goldblum think he can bring down the aliens with a virus, not the basis of good science fiction.
District 9, however, is really good science fiction. Sure it has some problems but they’re the kind of problems that doesn’t take away from anything. I was lucky enough to go see the movie with someone else who also really likes science fiction, so we discussed in length some of the plot points after the movie and late into the night, but I never stopped in the middle of the movie to ask, REALLY?
Again, not a perfect movie, but GOOD science fiction.
Sharlto Copley, does an amazing job as Wikus Van De Merwe, a stumbling government bureaucrat who is just as racist as anyone else in the movie and the most unlikely action star ever. But this is what sells us. Sure something like, Inglorious Basterds, is a lot of fun but do I see myself on the same level as Na-zi killer Brad Pitt? No. Can I identify with Wikus? Yes.
Wikus is humanity incarnate. He was just at work, trying not to fuck up the promotion his father-in-law gave him, sure he was horrible to these aliens but these are conditions many people across the world face (which was a little bit, WAKE-UP-SHEEPLE), and he saw it as just doing his job.
Wikus does eventually start to show humanity can have kindness towards something we don’t understand, and at the same time finally becomes a badass with a little help from a MEC and a cute little kid. I don’t want to give too much away because this is not a movie you have to see on the big screen to appreciate, so if you’re like me and money is tight at times, rent it. But I would first encourage you to maybe not go to the bar a few nights or eat a sandwich at home to save the 7 bucks and see it as soon as possible.
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