So here's the story: An alien vessel appears above Johannesburg. It's motionless, frozen in the air, just hovering above the city. The South African government contemplates, ponders and debates about what to do for three months, until finally deciding to enter the spacecraft. They force themselves into the ship and find around a million aliens, vulnerable and suffering from malnutrition, that look like strange insect prawns.
The government then decides to transport the aliens to earth and create a bordered area for the aliens, where they can live, segregated from human society. It becomes a ghetto, replete with Nigerian gangs, drugs (cat food is like catnip to the aliens and traded for alien weaponry that only aliens can use, which is normally confiscated by a private paramilitary task force, along with anything else that seems remotely threatening), inter-species prostitution, poverty, discrimination and despair.
And then the story really breaks loose.
I went to see District 9 tonight and it was amazing. The writing, story, characters, acting, dark humor, and a sense of realism were all excellently crafted and delivered. I started to deconstruct the narrative because I wanted to attempt to recreate the creative process the scriptwriters might have gone through. I only detailed the opening scenario, the story really takes off from there.
It's interesting to see how wacky and off-the-wall it all sounds; it's a reminder of how the bizarre and strange should never put you off, the weirder, the better. We tend to self-censor, self-critique and edit ideas, so that the best ones may be brushed off as too nutty or not good enough or something to that effect.
Deconstructing movies, concepts, the sell, reminds me to let it all go, and just go for a wander in the corridors of the unbelievable and unexpected.
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