Summer of 2009: District 9 is a classic, the other scifi blockbusters are eye-candy.
DISTRICT 9 - Instant SciFi Classic!
Question: I enjoyed the movie GI Joe a couple of hours ago, but I can’t remember the plot.The same thing happened with Star Trek, Terminator, Transformers and Knowing.
Am I crazy? Just turned 22…Alzheimer’s?
Greg: You may be crazy (not my area of expertize), but you are also right.
The CGI (computer generated images) in this summer’s big blockbuster SciFi flicks are amazing,
but the stories suck. Like cotton candy:
Looks pretty and tastes so sweet, but when done you feel sticky, nauseous, and yet…empty inside.
BELOW: KNOWING- The End of the world…after we have suffered a thousand concerned closeups of Coppola’s nephew. 2012- End of the World…with the exception of a few hundred who don’t care if seven billion people just died. STAR TREK- End of, not one but two, planets…
BELOW: TERMINATOR - Evil robots try to exterminate all humans. TRANSFORMERS - Evil robots try to destroy the sun and exterminate all humans…Toy-based.
GI JOE - Toy-based…Propaganda tool to recruit naive kids to die for American Afghanistan occupation…just like Green Berets for Vietnam and Stealth for Iraq occupations.
NOTE: There will never ever, ever, ever be a great SciFi Flick based on a freaking toy!
.This summer the big movie theme is Armageddon…based on the wacky New Age belief that the world matches the last date on the Mayan Calender: 12/21/12. My calender ends on 12/31/09.
Has anyone bothered to translate the symbols at the bottom of the Mayan relic which clearly state:
“Continued on next stone”?
.On the plus side…The best SciFi flick of 2009 just opened:
.“District 9” is very smart sci-fi, but that’s just the beginning; it’s also a scathing social satire hidden inside a terrific action thriller teeming with gross aliens and regrettable inter-species conflict. And it’s a blast… . Great review from Betsy Sharkey of the LA Times
Why is District 9 a classic while the other 6 are eye-candy trash?
1) As in most great SciFi there is an underlining theme dealing with social injustice.In D9 a monstrous spaceship loses power over Johannesburg, South Africa (no coincidence) and sits still, suspended over the city like a giant metal thundercloud.
A million aliens are transported to a refugee camp…one of those “separate but equal” shantytowns reeking of garbage and growing dissatisfaction among the Prawns, which is as good a slur as any for a race of creatures who look like tall, two-legged cockroach/lobsters on steroids.
Whites and Blacks alike hate and mistreat their guests.
The illegal aliens just want to go home…but, aren’t cute like ET and thus not allowed one phone call.
2) In all great storytelling for the past several thousand years
THE MAIN CHARACTER ALWAYS EXPERIENCES AN EPIPHANY.
Only small children and Americans demand fables where the hero is 100% good and the villain 100% evil.
The most interesting stories begin with a meek, timid little human who is forced into heroism by a weird turn of fate: i.e. Hamlet. Some of my favs: 1984, Brazil, Brave New World, Hobbits (Bilbo), Hitchhikers Guide, Fahrenheit 451 and Walter Mitty.
Wikus Van De Merwe in D9 fits in perfectly…Low level bureaucrat, married to the boss’s daughter.
Villains must also experience an cataclysmic epiphany.
Am I the last American to have read Faust and watched Orson Welles’ MacBeth and Forbidden Planet?
3) The theme of Classic SciFi is often Man wins against Technology/Machines, Mother Nature and Big Brother.
In the classics the human spirit always rises up to defeat these enemies. But this summer mankind is defeated by Mother Nature in Knowing and 2012, Robots are much superior in Terminator and Transformers and humans survive by dumb luck. Remember when Dave unplugged HAL?
The Prawns in D9 have advanced weapons but refuse to use or rerveal their secrets to Earthlings:
“We have seen what humans do with great weapons.” Remind you of The Day the Earth Stood Still?
Star Trek used the cheesiest gimmick possible to cover up holes in their story:
The Wayback Machine.4) Optional, but very effective throughout written history: The hero must descend into hell and fight Satan on his home court. (You jocks know what I’m talking about…so much more harder and exciting to win a championship on the road.)
3 thousand years ago Greeks loved the story of Orpheus as he marched into Hades to rescue his lover. They also dug that Trojan Horse fable, where again, the underdog enters hell and saves the girl.
In movies Akira Kurosawa showed us a bunch of ragtag samurais defeat the mighty Hidden Fortress, only to be ripped off 20 years later by George Lucas as Luke Skywalker attacks the Death Star.
D9 has a nice twist on this theme: Wikus is exposed and begins to morph into one of THEM! Thus he is labeled an outcast/rebel/illegal alien and is forced to abandon his comfortable WASP life and hide in the bowels of hell (District 9). But Wikus soon realizes that the Prawns are not the enemy and becomes ready and willing to die for their right to live in peace and return to their world.
Constructive Anarchy? You Betya!
There will be a short pop quiz: “What are the 4 ingredients of a good story?” the next time you try to enter my site. Hope to see you again. If you fail I will miss you…but, thanks for the fish!
Published by Nick at 08:19 AM on August 20, 2004