148.207

The film opens with a documentary-style series of interviews that explain events that occurred twenty years prior when an alien ship settled above Johannesburg, South Africa. After three months of speculation as to the ship's purpose, humans cut their way in, discovering a large group of sick and malnourished non-humans. These beings were later assessed as being "workers", with their leadership mysteriously missing. A command module later fell to Earth, although it was never found. The creatures, primarily referred to by the derogatory term "prawns", were ultimately housed in a government camp inside Johannesburg called District 9. Overcrowding and militarization eventually turned the area into a slum, and a massive black market was established between the aliens and a group of Nigerians. A private company known as Multinational United (MNU), which specializes in weapons research and security subcontracting, eventually came to be in charge of the situation in District 9.

In the present day, an MNU field operative named Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is assigned the task of relocating the 1.8 million aliens to a new "District 10" camp located 24 km from Johannesburg, with help from private security forces working for MNU. While inspecting a suspicious alien residence, Wikus handles an alien device which sprays a dark liquid into his face. After confiscating the device as evidence, he soon becomes very sick; a doctor at a local hospital discovers his left arm has mutated into an alien appendage. Wikus is then taken into custody by MNU, and a series of tests are performed on him, revealing that his now-alien DNA allows him to operate alien weapons, which are useless to humans due to the weapons' cyborganic reliance on alien biology. The scientists intend to harvest Wikus' DNA so as to replicate it to allow other humans to operate alien technology, but Wikus overpowers his captors and escapes.

Continued after the Jump at Wikipedia, District 9