District 9/Fridge

Fridge Horror

• According to his blog, Christopher had two children. We saw Oliver, but what happened to Sherry?
  • According to her Facebook profile, she was on some kind of MNU ship during the movie's events. She's apparently in the company of a number of other aliens and a few sympathetic humans.
    • Could I get a link to this profile?
• The super awesome weapons we see the Prawns using? Those are being tossed together from trash by what are at best blue-collar-level members of their society. They're the prawn equivalent of MacGyvered prison shivs. Now, imagine what their actual military has.
  • Worse still, remember that the prawns on the mothership were apparently refugees. That implies that for all their devastating weapons and technology, they're running away from something even worse. Holy shit.
• MNU may have spent a lot of time on the alien weapons, but that's not the only tech they brought with them. There's also the ship itself. So it stands to reason that MNU probably had scientists on the mothership when Christopher Johnson left in it. Which means that several humans have been effectively kidnapped. The only real consolation is that based on what we've seen so far of the MNU, the scientists on the ship were probably bastards who deserved whatever fate awaited them on the alien homeworld.

Fridge Logic

• At the beginning, it's assumed Christopher has just collected enough fuel to do what he needs to. Then during the course of the movie, a (not insignificant) amount gets sprayed on Wikus' face, and some may have been removed while MNU had the canister; yet there's still enough to power the dropship. Why did he wait and collect more than exactly what he needed?
  • Fridge Brilliance: Christopher knew he would probably need a bit of firepower and shielding to keep MNU at bay while he went up to the mothership. The amount of fuel sprayed on Wikus' face were the last drops that Christopher collected specifically for those extra bits of safety, which is why Wikus and Little C.J. were shot down so easily.
    • They were planning to evacuate every prawn. All the gang signs were mentioned as rising by Wikkus. They were signs of resistance members hoarding weaponry to prevent MNU from preventing the ship and prawns from leaving. Christopher must have needed that much fuel for life support at the least.
  • It's also possible that the "Fluid" is what makes the technology recognize only Prawn DNA. Christopher needed it to make, not only the shuttle, but also the mothership work. What better way to keep your tech from being used against you then needing A) your species' DNA and B) the thing that makes A) necessary to work?
• The dropship is fridge logic in itself. It's the size of a semi with trailer, more or less, so it's not exactly easy to disguise. Furthermore, the mothership is not positioned over District 9, where the ship is buried. How'd it get there? Moreover, how the hell did Christopher manage to so convincingly bury it and position his shack directly on top of it?
  • The mother ship was moving when it first arrived. It's not a stretch to assume that it passed over the area that would become District 9 and released the drop ship there by coincidence. And if not, remember that CJ was able to fly the ship without goo, meaning it still had power. He could have moved it; he's certainly smart enough to do it right under MNU noses.
  • Cloaking? They're damn advanced. It was mentioned that MNU didn't know whether it was programmed to fall or not.
• When preparing to amputate/cut up Wikus, apparently no one thought to restrain him firmly
  • The first hand he escaped with was the mutated one. The restraint probably wasn't designed for that.
• Wouldn't their be researchers on the mothership when Christopher took off? Possibly a whole lab set up the figure out the technology.

Fridge Brilliance

• It took me a bit to really appreciate the ending of District9. It just shows Wikus rooting through some trash looking for material so he can send some trinkets home to his wife, and at first glance seemed incredibly pathetic and depressing. Until I realized that, for the first time in nearly the entire movie, he was living in relative peace, and could finally focus on the things that really mattered to him.
• Watch District 9. Brilliant movie, right? Now think of the alien cylinder as a hypodermic needle (or a container of blood, or whatever) and the Poleepkwa as HIV victims. Now wet your pants at the meta-brilliance of this film. -User:J Morgan
  • Another underlying theme was racism and genocide—when Wikus 'pulls the plug' on the baby Prawns he is effectively comitting genocide, much like what is going on in present-day Africa against -real- people. By giving the prawns such an inhuman appearance, and described as sub-human in intelligence—the film forces us to see these people the way a racist or racial supremacist may see others. This goes even further with the "For Humans Only" signs present in the advertising for the movie, as well as the fact that the government freely experiments on the Poleepkwa--much like the Tuskeegee Syphilis experiment--because they're seen as sub-human. Similarly, the only thing they're interested in is the technology of the Poleepkwa--like the 'special athleticism' of African-Americans or the oil/natural resources of certain ethnic groups. They're also moving them to 'District 10', which Wikus outright says is a concentration camp--like the Japanese in WW 2, and like the 'special' low-income housing that they sell to African-Americans while they're denied other places to live reserved for whites. The film in general excels at making us see through the eyes of the people we would otherwise hate—and it shows us how such people think. Just another one of the reasons this movie is amazing and mind-breaking.
• At first, it didn't make any sense to me that the black goo fuel that CJ was trying to find would also have transmutative properties on humans. The Prawns seem to have insectoid physiology, so even if the goo could do that it wouldn't work on humans, surely. But then I thought about how the weapons only work for the Prawns, and it all made sense. Prawn technology is partially based on DNA recognition, meaning the Prawns use organic tech, thus it isn't a stretch to assume that the goo is some form of organic component. This goes a long way in explaining it's effect on Wikus.
  • Word of God states that the goo is a nanite repair system, and it contains Prawn genetic information. Prawn technology uses protein or DNA based biometric user authentication. It is reasonable assume that it isn't designed for the entire Prawn species but a subset (likely every member of the crew) - otherwise, why would they use a genetic lock in the first place if everyone has the key? Thus, to provide someone authentication, it provides the specific form of Prawn proteome or genome that authorizes a user. In the case of Wikus, it has unintended consequences.