Critique paper From Director Neill Blomkamp, District 9 is a brash and sharp tale of extraterrestrial refugees stuck in contemporary South Africa. For about 20 years the mother ship made contact with the humans and they came peacefully. Instead of them being the superior race and being capable of advancing our society, they were treated as refugees. They were the last of their kind and in order to accommodate the government made District 9 (a trash filled area) their makeshift home. As the humans found themselves became wary of the intruders they called for Multi-National United (MNU) is assigned the task of controlling the aliens. However, MNU is not interested in the welfare of the aliens but instead worried about their weaponry. To do so the advanced weaponry requires alien DNA to be activated. One of their field agents WIkus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is exposed to DNA altering biotechnology. He then became ostracized and isolated just as the aliens in district 9. Wilkus started out as an enemy to the the aliens, however he then became the protagonist. This science fiction movie is different due to making the aliens the underdogs. Unlike usually being the superior, earth threat. When every approached with something the humans do not know it is going to be followed by fear. We as the audience got to see the fear of both sides through Wilkus. As he was trying to contain the aliens, they got treated like second class citizens or even worse by manipulating them with cat food. Unlike space invaders in most science fiction, the six-foot-tall extra-terrestrials named “prawns” where the worker bees of their home. By the end of the movie Wilkus became one of them due to their technology, he became vital to the key of figuring out how their DNA activated weapons worked. The further along he got in his transformation the more empathy gained for the prawns. He helps them escape to their country and they promise to come back for him in three years. The latent content of the movie is the metaphor in District 9 as using the aliens as an apartheid. South Africa is historically know for the apartheid of black and whites living there. Two decades after the end of apartheid millions of South African blacks still live without basic human services. This movie stood out more because using the concept of aliens and making them seem “lesser” but still the protagonist is a great way to get attention. This is the same thing that was happening back when Nelson Mandela was fighting for his people to not be segregated form the rest of their country because of looking different. Even the aliens were able to understand English, but speak in their own indigenous language of grunts and clicks. This can be an example of an extreme comparison just for movie purposes though.