DISTRICT 9

The main thing I want to say here is -- WOW!

This 2009 release, directed by Neill Blomkamp and starring Sharlto Copley, was originally described to me as a story about alien ROBOTS being kept in slum conditions on Earth.  LITTLE DID I REALIZE that the ghettoized captives were not only biological creatures of alien origin, but that the humans who captured them call them...PRAWNS.  The story revolves around the exploits of a human working for Multi National United (united against the Prawns, that is), who has just been promoted so he can head up the expulsion of the captives from their ghetto.  The idea is to remove them to what the human lead character describes as a CONCENTRATION CAMP.  Things do not work out as expected, for anyone concerned.

>> The first startling thing about this story is how accurately it captures HUMAN NATURE.  If a group of our operatives -- be they Prawns, Squid, or Electric Eels -- set down in a spaceship, or washed ashore in a rowboat, THIS IS ABOUT WHAT YOU COULD EXPECT OF THE NAKED APE WELCOMING COMMITTEE.

>> I marvelled as I watched at the hideousness of the sets they used to film the ghetto scenes.  Then, when I watched the documentary footage on the disc, I marvelled even more.  THAT WAS NO MOVIE SET.  THAT WAS SOWETO.  This is just the sort of thing you and I are working to eliminate.  Once all the humans have been turned into fish and returned to the sea, THEY WILL DWELL WITH DAGON IN WONDER AND GLORY FOREVER.   There are no ghettoes -- or as they call them in South Africa, "townships" -- under the surface of the ocean.

>> Wikus Van De Merwe, the lead character and QUINTESSENTIAL BELIEVER IN THE SYSTEM (always a big mistake in a movie of this sort), finds himself synpathizing more and more with the Prawns as the film goes on, for reasons that become ABUNDANTLY CLEAR as you watch.  This is exactly the change process EVERY ONE OF OUR RECRUITS undergoes before joining us in the sea forever.  And when I say he changes, I mean he changes just the way I did, from a travel agent (I guess Wikus is one too, heh heh heh) to North American Continental Conspiracy Zone leader. 

>> This movie is a really fine illustration of WHY WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO PASS AS HUMANS.  You don't want to end up like Wikus.

Watch this one!