All right, not all SF movies are all bad.
Yesterday I saw DISTRICT 9, the new alien-invasion movie. This invasion, however, is not by conquerors but by malnourished refugees whose ship has broken down over Johannesburg, South Africa. [WARNING: SPOILERS COMING UP!] Humans ferry the weak survivors, who are insect-like ugly, to a compound on Earth. Later the compound is in the way of urban development, so the aliens are resettled in District 9. This doesn't work, either, and there is a lot of rioting and problems between humans and aliens, so as the movie opens the aliens are all about to be evicted and resettled yet again, in "District 10." The movie's protagonist is a mid-level bureaucrat who is supposed to get alien signatures on eviction notices so the whole thing will look quasi-legal.
The plot is modeled on the resettling of Blacks in Cape Town under apartheid. It is thus a parable. The problem, of course, is that in forcing alien-human relations into the Procrustean bed of human race relations, some parts must be implausibly lopped off. In the movie, no nation but South Africa shows any interest in alien visitation. Where is (for one) the United States? Why isn't District 9 swarming with journalists, biologists, journalists, physicists (there are odd alien weapons in which no one seems interested except Nigerian black-marketeers), and more journalists? The South African/alien relationship happens in an international and journalistic void. And although one sentence evokes the human-rights organizations, there is no evidence that Amnesty International or any of the other groups that protested even during apartheid do anything during the brutality inflicted on the aliens.
One thing that struck me about this movie is how completely it upends the Campbellian idea of SF. John W. Campbell famously did not like stories in which aliens triumphed over humans. Humans had to be both the winners and the good guys. In DISTRICT 9, in contrast, there is not one human being with a decent impulse, until the protagonist grows into that role. It's a lopsided view of humanity that seriously undermines the story.
On the other hand, I was absorbed by the movie. The slums of District 9 look really slum-like. The aliens' desperate acts are poignant. Even during the silly, action-oriented last third, my attention did not lag, and I was even moved by the ending. It's just that...
It would have taken so little to make it a much better movie!
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8 comments:
What would you say the greatest sf flick of all time is, Nancy? SPACE ODYSSEY is a lock, but how about the second?
This seven-year old kid was entranced by THE MYSTERIANS.
Haven't seen the flick yet, but jeez...
First Contact with folks with a stardrive, and we put them in a slum... Yeah. Right. That's =just= the way it would happen.
And let's not forget the Evil All-Powerful Corporation. Which didn't have the power to keep the Nigerians out of D9. But can control the media. But doesn't keep D9 clean or patrolled. But has elite death squads.
The first 20 minutes were what I was hoping for: an expansion of Neill Blomkamp's "Alive in Joburg." But then that POV shift happened, and it took me right out. Maybe "District 10" will be better.
And what's unfortunate, Adam, is 'danes might see the flick and think, "Logic problems all over the place. This is "sci-fi"? It sucks!"
Yeah, the prawns probably wouldn't be put in slums, they'd probably just be slaughtered outright. Especially after one of them killed a human, any human.
Reading about the movie's premise, it struck me: to a superior alien civilization -- even a poor one -- our civilization must come across as the equivalent of the Third World.
But such an impression would be rather difficult to depict in a movie: how poor and desperate WE seem (even when using iPhones, the Internet and spacecraft!)...
D9 is still an improvement over the typical CGI cartoons that 'danes feel is sf. So I must give Peter Jackson cred for at least tackling this project. I give it 2 tentacles up just because of this.
Gee maybe if we all write nice letters to him & the studio they'll do better next time....
Yeah, sure. Well, it can't hurt though, can it?
Nancy, I enjoy your fiction (and your blog!); so, I'm not trolling -- just disagreeing! =) Maybe I'm missing something, and maybe I'm being hyperbolic since I just left the movie theater, but I absolutely loved DISTRICT 9. For me, it's right up there with NETWORK and DR. STRANGELOVE (!).
Where Nancy sees worldbuilding "flaws," I see downright mimetic art. Ok, maybe not mimetic art, maybe I'm relying a bit on the movie's parable-like vibe; watching the movie, I did wonder briefly where the xenobiologists were, where the USA was, &tc. But I figured MNU -- the movie's bad-guy corporation -- had enough clout to cause District 9 to be administrated as they saw fit: that is to say, couldn't MNU have kept the good-guys out of District 9? Besides, maybe the USA citizenry (or whoever) just didn't care about District 9 sufficiently. Does the USA citizenry, by and large, care about Mott Haven or other ghettos? We as a society can't parse straightforward political issues -- what makes anyone think we'd be picking up trash in District 9 out of cheery goodwill? Heck, maybe in the alternate universe of the movie, the USA citizenry simply decided the aliens were visually gross and turned away.
Adam Rakunus mentioned (apparently disparagingly) the way the movie used an "Evil All-Powerful Corporation." I wonder if his complaint stems from the aesthetic that all fiction (including movies) should push the viewpoint that "everyone's mixed ethically, everyone's good and bad, let's show every villain's good side, too, let's be fair and balanced." That's generally a good aesthetic, but sometimes artists have to call a spade a spade. Because there are indeed Evil Corporations getting closer and closer to all-powerful status. Monsanto, anyone?
Looking forward to your next post, Nancy, as always. I do enjoy these movie reviews! And DISTRICT 9. =p
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