In August 2010, Wikus Van De Merwe’s life changes forever. He is chosen to head up the effort by MNU to relocate a population of aliens to a new settlement. Since their ship appeared in 1982 in the sky over Johannesburg, South Africa, the aliens – generally known by the racial slur “prawn” – have been corraled into an inner city ghetto known as District 9. Johannesburg’s human residents have finally railed against the aliens enough that a very expensive and very risky resettlement has been undertaken. During the search of one alien residence in District 9, Wikus is exposed to some sort of seemingly makeshift biological weapon. Initially it only makes him nauseous, but within 36 hours of his exposure, he’s no longer entirely human. This is of particular interest to MNU, which is also one of the world’s largest arms dealers, and has long been frustrated by the inability of any human to use the aliens’ advanced weaponry. Wikus demonstrates – under duress – that he is the first human who can activate the aliens’ weapons. This makes him a hot property at MNU – though his employers now want to dissect him so they can corner the market on alien weapons, even if it means genetically re-engineering those who will wield them. Wikus is left with no choice but to escape, and now the only place where he has any hope of hiding is District 9 itself…but neither fully human nor fully alien, friends and allies will be hard to come by.
Review: District 9 is truly a movie of the moment – very much a product of its time. It cuts relentlessly fast between various fictitious footage of the movie’s protagonist (if, indeed, it can be said to have any one single clear-cut hero) before the events of the movie unfold, “news footage” which cleverly lays out the backstory of the alien presence before it slyly starts to slip in some foreshadowing that something has happened to the main character we’ll be following. Throughout the movie, the perspective shifts with little or no warning between handheld documentary cameras – probably there to document events in case MNU needs to pull a CYA maneuver – and fixed “security cameras”. We’re well into the movie before we see any “God’s eye view” that doesn’t directly address the fourth wall, and eventually the bulk of the movie switches to that omniscient, omnipresent camera out of necessity. But at all times, District 9 is gutsy and visceral – there isn’t much in the movie that’s pleasant to see. (more…)
At a U.S. military desert base in Qatar, a helicopter reported shot down in Afghanistan mysteriously appears. Ordered to land, the chopper suddenly morphs into a gigantic robot and proceeds to hack into the military network, which is quickly cut off by the soldiers. Enraged, the ‘bot destroys the rest of the base and deploys a giant robotic scorpion to kill a small group of surviving solders, led by Capt. Lennox.
A seemingly typical Thursday throws Englishman Arthur Dent for a loop as he witnesses the destruction, in rapid succession, of his house and then the entire world. That he witnesses the latter event instead of being caught up in it is solely thanks to the intervention of his quirky friend Ford Prefect, who turns out to be an alien in disguise, researching Earth for a publication known as the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. After escaping Earth’s demise, Ford and a dazed Arthur wind up aboard the stolen starship Heart Of Gold, whose captain, Zaphod Beeblebrox, is out of both of his minds. But Arthur is also reunited with Tricia McMillan, the only other surviving human being, and reminds her that she once turned down his advances in favor of an incognito Zaphod at a party on Earth. Soon, the Heart Of Gold is being pursued not only by a Vogon fleet trying to recover both the ship and Zaphod, but also by Humma Kavula, the candidate who Zaphod beat out for the presidency of the galaxy. Tricia is captured by the Vogons on a planet to which Kavula diverts the Heart Of Gold, and Arthur sets out to rescue her, even if he can’t necessarily win her heart in the attempt.
In the 23rd century, mankind lives in gigantic domed cities, protected by the elements and never allowed to venture outside. Pleasure is the only pursuit, but while there’s plenty of hedonism, there isn’t much longevity: everyone is expected to do their part to prevent overpopulation by laying down their life at the age of 30 in a spectacular ritual called Carousel, after which doctrine tells them that they will be reborn as infants. Implanted in the palm of every citizen’s hand is a glowing crystal that begins to flash red as their time draws near, and anyone who tries to defy the law and live past 30 is declared a Runner, and becomes the target of Sandmen – trained killers who, on the behalf of the city, put Runners to “sleep.”
A U.S. Navy nuclear sub, following an unusual sonar echo deep in the Atlantic, suffers an unexplained power loss that leaves it powerless to avoid a collision with the wall of a sub-oceanic trench. The sub plummets into depths it was never meant to descend, takes on water, and the crew is killed. The Navy commandeers a deep-ocean oil exploration rig operated by Benthic Oil, trying to beat a hurricane to the coordinates of the downed sub. Ed “Bud” Brigman, in charge of the Deep Core underwater platform, is less than thrilled when he learns that he and his crew will be taking orders from the Navy for a rescue operation, but he’s even less pleased when his ex-wife Lindsey joins the Navy SEALs who are paying a visit to Deep Core. The cocksure leader of the SEALs, Lt. Coffey, suffers from high-pressure nervousness syndrome as a result of the dive to reach Deep Core, and slowly loses control, growing violent and paranoid. Upon reaching the submarine, Coffey finally reveals that the vessel was carrying hundreds of megatons of nuclear weapons, giving Deep Core’s divers cause for concern – especially when they find that something other than the dead crew inhabits this part of the ocean. Another power loss occurs, and one of Bud’s crew sees something so startling that it renders him comatose. Lindsey also sees something, but she is unable to describe or explain it.
Dr. Heywood Floyd, the mission director of the Discovery mission, resigned after the ambiguous conclusion of that flight, a scapegoat for the U.S. government and the press to blame for the disastrous outcome. The Soviet Union offers Floyd a berth on a Jupiter-bound Soviet mission which will get to the derelict Discovery long before an American follow-up mission can be launched. Despite a precarious political standoff taking place between the two superpowers, Floyd talks the U.S. government into allowing him to go on the Soviet flight along with two other Americans – Walter Curnow, the Discovery’s original designer, and Dr. Chandra, the eccentric computer genius who created the HAL 9000 computer.