What is the movie district 9 about?

Answer 1

The salient points of the movie District Nine (9) are:

• one day in Johannesburg South Africa an alien ship appears over the sky
• on investigation the ship is found to be full of desperate starving aliens
• they are removed from the ship and put in a refugee camp (District 9) for many years where they are viewed as the lowest of the low and a source of community shame
• as the camp is becoming overcrowded the UN ad SA gov't want to relocate them
• the civil servant in charge of the move (after showing how good he is at incinerating baby aliens) accidentally gets a dose of DNA altering serum that starts to turn him into one of the Aliens
• this allows him to fire the aliens powerful weapons
• his gov't wants to dissect him to find out how they too can use the weapons
• he will not test this guns and runs away to find out how can he turn back into his old self
• the alien that made the serum offers help to do this but has to get back to the mother ship
• ---> extended bloody fight scene between the aliens, DNA modified civil servant, gov't, rogue Nigerians <---
• the alien gets to the ship promising to return in 3 years with the "cure"
• civil servant lives on as an alien

The meanings of the movie are many:

• it is a comment on the ghettoization of people who are different
• it is a comment on the motives of governments when they crush people to get what they want
• it is a comment on how the newest immigrants always go to the bottom of the pecking order
• it is a comment on what happens when a member of an abused group gets away and may return with superior forces to seek retribution

Answer 2

An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly finds a kindred spirit in a government agent who is exposed to their biotechnology .