Everything about District 9 said this would be an Apartheid parable shot in a mockumentary style. The South African location, the original short film it was based on, the trailer, the humans only signs which covered theaters. It all said we are going to have a serious discussion about race relations, but no one will be offended and it will be easier for you to take because we will be using aliens to stand in for black people.
And that's what we got... for about twenty minutes. And then, fuck that shit. Here's shit blowing up for ninety minutes.
This really bothered me for three reasons.
One, I like to get what I pay for. If you told me, "This is a standard sci-fi action movie. Sit back and enjoy." I would have walked out happy. But, you tried to sell me this as a high-concept sci-fi film like the original Star Trek or the latest Battlestar Galactica and promised to discuss important contemporary issues in a less threatening environment.
Two, when Wikus transforms and flees to District 9, it was all set up for a Dances with Wolves style plot. Instead, the movie got lost in explosions and a great premise was wasted. The aliens in District 9 were really unique in the movie world. They didn't want to enslave or slaughter humanity. Nor were they some great cosmic benefactors out to save mankind. The District 9 aliens were the grunts of alien society marooned on our world lacking leadership, purpose, or super advanced knowledge. Truly unique characters are rare and I wish they had been better utilized.
Think about it. Every movie you have ever seen about aliens landing on Earth features aliens which came here for a specific purpose. We don't know why the District 9 aliens came, most likely their ship just broke down and they didn't know how to fix it, so they stopped at our place till the tow truck arrived. Do you think it's ridiculous that first contact with an alien world might come from such a lowly and unplanned reason? Or that a civilization advanced enough to send a ship across the galaxy would have someone on-board that could repair any potential problems? But what if your car's transmission blew out on the interstate? Do you have the technical skills to fix it? If you do, are you carrying the tools and parts? And if you are, you still have to pull over to work on it. It's likely that a civilization where space travel is commonplace could become similarly cavalier about interstellar travel.
This sort of accidental first contact is actually a fairly likely scenario for how aliens might first stumble across our planet. Sci-fi television certainly thinks so. I looked in the Netflix episode descriptions of the "Next-gen" Star Trek series for variants on the phrase "crashed on a planet" and found it in 19 of 498 episodes or 4% of the time. [Note: Actual number of episodes with crashes or unplanned landings is higher.] That is 4 of 168 Next Generation episodes (2%), 6 of 170 Deep Space Nine episodes (3%), and a whopping 9 of 160 Voyager episodes (6%). [Note: Frequent recycling of plots is one of the many reasons Voyager is by far the worst Star Trek series.] If the Federation can't keep a ship in the air, what chance do real aliens have.
Three, I believe a filmmaker must do three things in the opening 15 minutes of a movie. They must begin to establish one of the central conflicts, introduce an important character, and establish the tone of the film. I found it extremely jarring when they suddenly abandoned the mockumentary style and racial overtones after successfully establishing them in the opening scenes.
Ultimately, I feel the filmmakers had a lot in common with their aliens. They flew their big fancy spaceship of a concept until the twenty minute mark of the film and then it broke and we were all stranded with no idea what to do next.
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