One of the questions science has often asked us to grapple with is this: How would we react to the arrival of extraterrestrial life on our planet? As every science fiction film that has tried to answer that question proves, it is entirely dependent on the type of alien that arrives. District 9 takes a concept that has been done to death to make "humans as underdog" movies, and turns it completely on its head. The Premise: An alien flying saucer has appeared and hovered over Johannesburg, South Africa. While first met with feared reactions, humanity soon discovered that it was populated entirely by weak members of the Alien worker class. Since then, they have been regulated to camps and ghettos on the outskirts of Johannesburg, where they are treated with abuse and scorn from their human neighbors. When it comes to subtle metaphors, you don't get much better than this. Like all great science fiction concepts, District 9 works as a mirror for the audience to see human nature at its worst reflected back at them. In fact, this incredibly smart commentary on Apartheid is the one reason Neil Blomkamp's second directorial effort Elysium didn't make the list. Honestly, this film fulfills more of the dramatic potential inherent in its premise than Elysium could ever hope.
Self-evidently a man who writes for the Internet, Robert also writes films, plays, teleplays, and short stories when he's not working on a movie set somewhere. He lives somewhere behind the Hollywood sign.
