5 Movie Prequels We Want To See

4. The first years of contact with the “prawns,” District 9 (2009)


Alien invasion movies typically have insidious agendas. Tapping into the natural fear of the unknown, science fiction filmmakers constantly regurgitate the same concept over and over again: The extra-terrestrials show up on Earth, blow shit up, and then try to eradicate all of mankind. In 2009, though, first-time writer-director, and South Africa native, Neill Blomkamp used an Apartheid allegory to present a new breed of space invaders, ones that are actually the victims, not the assailants.


District 9, the Academy Award-nominated and low-budget hit, kicked off 28 years after the aliens had landed in Johannesburg, showing how the South African government threw all of the “prawns” into an enclosed camp. Oppressed and mistreated, the aliens eventually lash out against evil soldiers, and Blomkamp’s sure-handed action sequences and vibrant energy give District 9’s violent final act some real punch.

Yet we’re still fascinated with the idea of peaceful aliens suffering at the hands of cruel, unwelcoming humans, and what that’d say about the human condition. A prequel set in 1982 depicting the prawns’ arrival and the first days of corralling them all into the camps could be the anti-alien-invasion movie that Hollywood seems too afraid to make.


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