Lizzie Kamp: District 9

For this assignment, I chose to watch the movie District 9. It was a very interesting movie that I enjoyed. This movie takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa. A mother ship full of aliens lands over the town, the place where the aliens (also called prawns) all live is called District 9. They start to overpopulate the area, and the humans decide to force them out of their homes into a new camp. Another twist is that the military and the MNU (Multi-National United) want the body parts of the aliens so they can use certain powerful weapons.

This movie tells many stories about human purpose. In most of these cases, the humans are not fulfilling the purpose that God intended for us as humans. God appointed us as humans to be steward of the earth, and He instructs us to care for the earth. The humans in this movie are evicting the prawns forcefully. They are evil to the prawns and are not accepting of them. Our human purpose is to take care of the earth and accept others. The humans, especially the military and the MNU are not fulfilling this purpose.

This movie also shows part of the nature of evil and redemption. There is a lot of evil throughout the movie. The humans are evil when they discriminate against the aliens. Even the children prawns are treated horribly. Prawns are killed for research, which is very evil. However, there is some redemption at the end of the movie. One of the prawns and his son escape and go to the mother ship at the end of the movie. They plan to come back and save their people, so this is redemption in the movie.

We discussed the difference between the empire and the kingdom of God in class. One thing we specifically talked about the difference in power. In the Empire, the powerful rule through the military, violence, and force. However, in the kingdom of God, the Israelites (non-people) rule. Power is shown through creativity and time. The military and MNU demonstrate violence when they evict the prawns and kill them for experiments. However, Wikus (the main character who is nice to the prawns) demonstrates the kingdom of God by trying to sympathize with the prawns.

Discussion Questions:

1. How does this movie show the empire and how humans just go along with the "norm," even if it's wrong and evil?

2. How can we relate to Wikus when we try to make a difference in the world to better God's Kingdom?