District 9 – Welcome back, Science Fiction
The recent success of District 9, the surprise big screen hit movie, is a beautiful thing. To see a science fiction film, and in particular a science fiction film that goes against many of the trappings of the genre, do so well is nothing short of amazing.
Here’s a film with no stars, a modest budget, and a very bleak premise dealing with segregation, bigotry and xenophobia, and it has proven to be one of the biggest hits of recent times. This pleases the fanboy in me.
It is a testament to the filmmakers and the film they created that much of the popularity of District 9 has been through word of mouth/word of internet rather than via masses of advertising. Granted, there has been advertising aplenty for it, but nowhere near the scale of your average blockbuster.
What I am hoping District 9 will lead to is a little more interest in rather more esoteric science fiction. That’s not to say SF shouldn’t have huge set pieces and special effects aplenty, but SF does need to reclaim some ground in terms of respect and the quality of its output.
District 9 is the best pure science fiction film that has been put onto release in years, and it is far from being your average Hollywwood blockbuster. It is intelligent, gritty, dirty and harrowing, while carrying a very clear message at its heart. The unique way it has been put together, i.e. documentary stykle which then becomes an action story later in the film, is also quite innovative and is just another of the many things to be applauded with District 9. More like this please.