I just saw District 9. I saw it the way I prefer to see all movies, without reading reviews beforehand. And I only saw one or two trailers. In fact, I didn’t have much interest in it because I thought it was just another action film.

The film was really good.
Excellent even.

Here’s a preview:

I have too many thoughts to organize them, thus, a list:
(warning: spoilers)

• Alien-themed movies are often said to be analogies to race-relations. This film is about apartheid. But aliens are a different species, not a different race, ethnicity, or skin color. Alien-themed books and films are just as much or even more representative of speciesism and animal-human interactions as they are about racism.
• The term “non-human” is used in the film rather than “alien” or something else. Animal rights people have been using the term “non-human” to describe animals for quite some time, in an attempt to remind people that humans are animals, too.
• Some scenes are difficult to watch and this film is definitely NOT suitable for children.
• Strong theme in the film: the banality of evil. The bad guys aren’t really bad; things just sort of happen and circumstances lead people in directions where they wind up doing very bad things. And there are even points when their evil-doings seem justified by a utilitarian ethic.
• Moral of the story: greed is the ultimate evil. But it’s not even greed that “caused” the problems in the film, it was simply an assumption that “might makes right.”
• Vivisection (animal experimentation) is evil and always will be. This was demonstrated very clearly in the film to anyone paying attention, though it may not have been intentional. Our hero behaves just like monkeys in undercover lab footage.
• People who defend animal testing often relate it to medicine, but in reality, lots of animal  testing is not done to save lives, it’s done to kill them. Weapons are tested on animals. This was an element of District 9.
• There’s an unlikely hero who exposes the secret labs (doesn’t do any “property damage” or “violence”; rather he merely exposes documents to the press) and as a result he winds up in prison.
• The climax fighting scenes took too much screen time and were too gory. In my opinion, they detracted from the story; they did not enhance the story.
• The film borrows from many well-known stories, including The Metamorphosis, which is about a man who becomes an insect. There is a strong reminder that humans are animals.
• District 9 has a lot of meat-eating going on. It sometimes becomes difficult to distinguish between what kind of meat is getting eaten: goat, pig, cow, human, or alien. Was that intentional? I think so.
• Myths surround the meat-eating. Some believe eating the aliens will cure disease or make them powerful. Same with real life: myths surround the meat-eating and people think it’s healthy.
• The lab scenes are very disturbing. Science and curiosity are combined with violence and greed and in scary, cruel way. I thought this was one of the most powerful parts of the film.
• The aliens were not unique enough. I had to identify them more by clothing (which they never changed) than by character. They were decidedly foreign and thus more difficult to empathize with. If I made the film, I would have done a little more character development on the aliens.
• I liked the ending. It felt right. But I think I might have liked it better if the ending was sadder, like if the kid alien got caught between the gunfire and died. Basically, I wanted a stronger moral.
• I left the film feeling that most of the viewers probably didn’t have the same experience that I had. Clearly my vegan worldview affected how I saw the film. Non-vegans probably didn’t even recognize how the lab scenes weren’t all that fictional.
• The website is intense. Be sure to check out the liberation blog. I found this entry particularly interesting.

Have you seen the film? What did you think?

Sections: Vegan Et Cetera
Topics: district 9, film, movie, nonhuman, speciesism, veg, Vegan