We live in an era of cut-and-paste, mix-and-match, sample-and-recontextualize pop culture. Just because a movie is blazingly original doesn’t mean that it has to be shy about what it borrows from the past. Quentin Tarantino is the unapologetic king of recombinant pop — the auteur as mix-master. And in District 9, the aliens-as-dispossessed-refugees sci-fi thriller that has already struck a huge chord with audiences, director Neill Blomkamp wears his influences lightly but proudly. What makes the movie mean something is that, like Kill Bill or The Matrix, it doesn’t feel like the sources it recalls; it doesn’t feel like any other movie you’ve seen. That said, when you watch District 9, it’s almost impossible to resist playing Spot the Reference/Influence/Allusion/Homage. I’ve listed half a dozen of the obvious ones. How many more can you find?
Alien Nation. The benign and cultish 1988 sci-fi movie, which was turned into a TV series just a year later, featured a race of extraterrestrial visitors who looked like friendly, wigless department-store mannequins with their brains worn on the outside. A far cry from D9‘s dreadlock-faced Praying Mantisoid thingies, to be sure — but the film highlighted the concept of aliens as entrenched outsiders living as second-class citizens, as the other, within human society.
Independence Day. The best thing in ID4 was always the image of those city-sized alien spaceships just sitting there, hovering, full of threat. Blomkamp picks up that image and re-invents it, indelibly, by shooting it with grainy newsreel video, so that instead of coming off as a wow-the-audience “movie” effect, it looks like something that’s actually happening right in front of your eyes.
Starship Troopers. A lot of people would say that comparing District 9 to Paul Verhoeven’s infamous Beverly Hills 90210-meets-the-spiders-from-Mars thriller is an insult. Not me. (Check out my original, unashamed B+ review.) The thing is, it’s really a comparison of tone: D9 is a far better movie, but its first 45 minutes or so does have that same relentless, alien-splatter, video-game turkey-shoot quality.
The Fly. I don’t want to give too much away, but when something…happens to the clownish bureaucrat Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), he goes on a journey that can’t help but recall that of Jeff Goldblum in the 1986 David Cronenberg bio-shocker. Here, too, our hero finds his humanity the more literally that he (or, at least, his body) strays from it.
RoboCop. If you check out Blomkamp’s previous work (I’ve linked to it just below), you’ll see that RoboCop appears to be more or less his formative text. Now there’s a Paul Verhoeven movie that’s truly worth emulating (to me, it remains his best), and you can see its influence in the scenes where Wikus climbs inside, operates, and all but fuses with that walking killer auto-gun robot. Like Peter Weller’s RoboCop, he becomes a haunting and even poignant man-machine.
Enemy Mine. Though Alien Nation, too, was a human/extraterrestrial buddy movie, I think it’s this one — with Lou Gossett Jr. as a gruff-voiced, scaly-faced alien and Dennis Quaid as the human space traveler who bonds with him — that infuses the final section of D9.
So are there other films you can think of that shadow District 9?
For inspiration, I highly recommend that you check out these fascinating short films and commercials that Neill Blomkamp directed as a run-up to his first feature. They include “Alive in Joburg” (the 6-and-a-half-minute short out of which D9 sprung) and his great Nike Evolution spot.
I thought of not a film, but a videogame- Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysey. It has alien creatures called Sligs that are kinda similar to prawns, looking kinda like a mix of insects and sea creatures and metal. And of course the way Abe was able to blow up the bad guys, almost exactly the same way the prawn weapons made people explode. Felt very similar to me.
More than once felt like I was watching an extended, really expensive episode of “the Outer Limits.” They tended to give you a premise and then flip it in the second half so that up was down, right was wrong and the weak turned out to be predators who lulled the idiotic humans into their trap.
They even had similiar plotlines and themes such as slums, alien vs terran persecution, what is human, metamorphasis, etc.
I subscribe to the mag, and read on line daily. But I have to say, giving an A to District 9 is in poor judgment of rating movies. I consider myself an avid fan of movies, but I thought this movie was horrible. My wife and I were ready to leave within 30-40 mins of start.
You’re not an avid fan of movies if you thought this movie was ‘horrible’, Considering most every other avid movie fan on the planet thought it was AMAZING. I have yet to speak to someone that truly didn’t think it was a well-made film. Either youre one of those people that are trying to be a movie snob or you just don’t know quality film making when you see it. This movie deserves most of the praise it’s getting.
been a big movie fan fo 40 years, love sci-fi. This movie hit every cliche in the book, and was really heavy-handed in its symbolism. I haven’t spoken to anyone who liked it. It was like watching a “very special episode” of a tv series, where you learn a valuable lesson.
I work in the industry as an editor (only TV thus far, but I’ve got to start somewhere). I can safely say that I thought it was an awful movie that was made poorly. You claim a well-made movie, why? ‘Cause everyone else is telling you too? The camera work falls in line with “Quarantine” and “The Blair-Witch Project,” which Jackson did for the mockumentary effect. However, I think this could have definitely been a more high quality film if he had foregone the whole “Running-with-the-camera-technique-to-make-this-look-like-real-news-footage.” Wouldn’t have lost authenticity, but perhaps kept more of an audience.
I get the overall theme – it was obvious – but apart from the take on apartheid, this was not that creative of a movie.
So there you go – I’m an avid movie fan, I love sci-fi, work in the industry, and still hate this film. Sorry Zach.
I see equal parts “Heidi,” “Babe,” “The Color Purple,” “Plan 9 From Outer Space” and “How Green Is My Valley.”
Michael T, what movie were you watching ? You sure you weren’t watching Transformers 2 by accident ?
I also see Aliens (Cameron’s sequal), Black Hawk Down and Cry Freedom
Can we all call for a moratorium on the expression “that said,…”??? Has there ever been a more overused term in the past 25 years? Enough already.
That said, I still liked this movie. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!
The directing style and wailing Arabic soundtrack is all Ridley Scott and ‘Blackhawk Down’.
I loved D9 but didn’t find it orignial at all. I thought it was trying to break ground that had already been broken. Cloverfield, anyone? I’m shocked that that one was left off the list!
I agree. This seemd like a hybrid of alien nation, cloverfield, and aliens 3.
During the first 30 minutes, all I could keep thinking was how much Viker was Michael Scott from The Office. It was really weird.
You hit the nail right on the head! I was waiting to hear him yell “That’s what she said!”
He reminded me of Murray from Flight of the Concords. I kept expecting him to say “Bret! Bret!”
I also think it had a “28 Days Later” vibe based on its documentary-style realism.
I saw some of that as well. The 28 later series is one of my all time favs.. probably one of the reasons D9 stuck with me soo much.
Loved District 9, and I am glad to see Starship Troopers hasn’t been forgotten. RIP Dizzy!
Michael T., I agree that the movie started very slowly, but did you stay past that point? Just because a movie starts slow doesn’t mean it’s not a great film.
Glad you mentioned Enemy Mine. That was the first movie I thought of after watching D9.
The huge alien spaceships in ID4 were obviously influenced by the Visitors ships in V, so I would say that V should definitely be on this list.