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District 9 Rises From the Ashes of Halo
JohnSmedley sent in a story about what might be the last SciFi film worth caring about this summer. He writes "Wired has an interesting piece up on the upcoming District 9 release. District 9 rose from the ashes of a failed Halo movie and expands on 'Alive in Jo'Burg' which is a South African short film by Blomkamp. Both the short and full feature films expand and explore a premise in which aliens in space are treated as badly as illegal immigrants and the underclass. The story begins as a damaged alien craft lands in Africa. The foreign race is quarantined in a remote area called District 9, and from there are subjected to xenophobia, and the desire of a multi-national conglomerate to steal their technology. The film is an exploration of what would happen in terms of segregation between an alien race and humans, subjecting the stranded visitors to the very human condition of greed, fear, and exploitation. District 9 will be in theatres on August 14'th, and you can view the trailers from the viewpoint of Multi-National United."
I remember a time when aliens in fiction were used as a mean to explore the intricacies of our own evolution as a species, or to reflect on our own tendencies toward self-destruction, the H-Bomb, the cold war, that sort of stuff.
When Stanislas Lem wrote Fiasco, aliens were a way to reflect on the nature of communication and its philosophical conundrums. Good stuff.
Saddening to see political correctness take over that too, and turn a potentially mind-boddling discovery into a mere pretext for bigoted post-cultural and post-racial propaganda.
They surely won't get my money for that one.