A massive UFO has taken residence above the skyline of Johannesburg, South Africa, and the world is shocked to find a ship full of dying aliens. The aliens, later nicknamed “prawns”, have come to earth seeking refuge-Why? We don’t know. Nonetheless, humans allow the inhabitants to live on earth in an encampment called District 9. However, the living conditions of District 9 make clear the fact that they are tolerated, not welcomed. . Over the course of two decades, fear turns into hatred for the prawns and people demand they be relocated further from the city. Here enters our oblivious, selfish main character, Wikus van der Merwe. Long story short-van der Merwe grows an alien arm, befriends a prawn named Christopher Johnson, is captured by the government, freed by Christopher, and eventually helps Christopher escape to the mothership to return to his home planet. Symbolically, Wikus van der Merwe continues to transform into a prawn until finally he becomes one himself.
The cyberpunk aesthetic of “high tech, low life” is prominent even in the film’s setting of South Africa, 1982. The prawns live in slums made of human garbage, but possess unearthly technology including weapons, exosuits, and of course, the mothership. The contrast of these elements create an aesthetic that is futuristic, yet disturbingly similar to the world we live in. In addition to the humanoid dwellings of district 9, another aspect of the film that is comparable to our reality is the human behavior displayed by both the protagonists and antagonists of the film. The similarities between the society we live in and the one depicted in the film indicates the plague of xenophobia and greed that prevents our advancement both as philanthropists and technologically. Human intolerance and bigotry was the cause of the suffering in District 9, and is the cause of much suffering in our world as well. In the film, scientists, fueled by greed, do whatever they can to possess the prawns’ technology. They abuse prawns until finally Christopher, a very intelligent prawn, escapes-taking any chance of advancement with him. This is a grim metaphor for our current global situation: If we continue to abuse and disrespect our planet, any chance of salvation, let alone advancement, will be out of reach forever.
Thankfully, the spectacular technology the prawns possess allow viewers to separate the film from our reality. Kitbashing and greebling are two techniques used when creating other-worldly objects, and both are utilized to create both the prawns and their possessions. Kitbashing, or model bashing, is a method of borrowing “parts” from a kit or kits and combining and transforming them to create a new scale model. This technique can be seen clearly in the exosuit. It looks as though the suit is made out of many different machine parts, making the suit look more alien than human. Greebling is the process of adding detailing to a larger object to give it a more complex appearance. This too makes the prawns’ technology look super high-tech and futuristic. These methods combined provoke the audience to wonder what kind of planet the prawns could have come from, drawing them further into the film.
District 9 may serve as an example of a cyberpunk aesthetic, and also a warning to people to respect each other, the planet, and themselves.
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