It’s pretty clear that Avatar and District 9 are the best science fiction movies of the year.  Star Trek was very good as well, but in terms of visionary content and originality it can’t really keep up with the other two, which are both truly high-water marks in science fiction filmmaking and effects technology.

I gave both movies 5/5 — which is the best of the two?

I’m going to give the nod to District 9, mostly on the basis of its plot and premise, which in my opinion is just more thought-provoking and emotionally impacting than the somewhat more formulaic but more visually impressive Avatar.

How did I arrive at that conclusion?  Let’s compare the movies and see what they have in common.  It’s more than you might think.  Both films include (mild spoilers):

  • The fundamental theme of how humanity reacts to the Other.
  • Corporations with quasi-governmental, quasi-military powers dealing with a “problem” that other governments and corporations refuse to deal with.
  • A secondary theme of transformation into the Other.
  • A secondary theme of self-loathing.
  • A secondary theme of colonialism/race relations.
  • As an antagonist, a badass tough-guy ex-military leader whose reaction is always to shoot first and ask questions later.

Of these, I think it’s very interesting to note the Reese’s peanut butter cup antagonistic power structure that exists in both films.  “You got your corporation in my military!  No, you got your military on my corporation!”  They could have just come straight out and called both organizations Blackwater or Halliburton and their point would have been crystal clear.  On the surface it seems like a garden-variety left-wing commentary on Big Business and the dangers of militarization, but I think in both cases it’s more properly seen as an anti-libertarian message.  In both films, the situation seems to be that the government has abdicated its responsibility for its particular problem with tacit public consent, much like Pontius Pilate washing his hands of responsibility for the fate of Jesus, and turned power and responsibility over to a private, profit-driven organization which is not accountable directly to the public, and which is therefore willing to do those unpleasant (and inhumane) things which must be done to control and exploit the situation.

Also interesting is the common theme of self-loathing.  Jake Sully in Avatar starts out desperately wanting to regain the function in his legs, and this speeds his alienation from humanity and his identification with the Na’vi — through the Avatar program, he regains the use of his legs in his alien body, and so naturally wants to spend all his time in it.  By contrast, Wikus in District 9 is quite happy with his life until his accidental exposure to the prawn biotech fluid.  When he begins to physically transform, he desperately wants nothing more than to reverse it, to the point of trying to cut his own extremities off.  His increasing identification with the prawn is entirely physical, and even at the end he’s still resisting, still holding out hope that he can reverse the transformation.  In Avatar, I got the sense that Jake Sully would be quite happy to never see a human being again.

It’s almost more interesting, I think, to compare how the films differ:

  • Avatar has beautiful aliens that appeal to our romanticized ideals of pre-technological life.  District 9 has aesthetically repellent aliens who wallow in filth and who live in a manner revolting to humans.
  • Avatar‘s protagonists are motivated by a desire to emulate and eventually actually become Na’vi.  The main character of District 9 is willing to go to extreme lengths to avoid his own transformation, as mentioned above.
  • Avatar‘s aliens behave in a comprehensible fashion — a human can readily learn their language and customs.  The aliens of District 9 are almost completely incomprehensible in language and behavior, although a few have learned English.  More to the point, the prawn of District 9 appear to have an intraspecies diversity greater than humans; there are a great many “low-caste” aliens that are either completely ignorant or utterly stupid, and a few that are extremely intelligent and competent that apparently drive their high-tech society.  The tribes of Na’vi in Avatar are egalitarian, organized on tribal lines familiar to any human anthropologist.
  • District 9, interestingly, has an alien “cute kid” that features prominently in terms of screen time and plot importance, whereas there are few if any children on-screen in Avatar.
  • District 9‘s prawns are dependent on humanity for survival (for unspecified reasons) while the Na’vi of Avatar neither want nor need anything from humanity, and would be just as happy to see them all disappear.

In terms of filmmaking itself, District 9 goes for a documentary-style immediacy, while Avatar goes for big-budget blockbuster perfection.  Both have phenomenal visual effects, although I give the nod to Avatar here for the sheer scope of its worldbuilding and the deft, groundbreaking use of 3D technology.  I felt the acting was equivalent in both movies — Giovanni Ribisi and Stephen Lang were standouts in Avatar, but the other roles I thought were just good, not great.  Sharlto Copley in District 9, however, I felt did a fantastic job of portraying the difficult character of Wikus Van De Merwe, and turned in what I felt was the best, most believable and authentic performance of both movies.

When I went over these lists of similarities and differences, the main thing that crystallized for me was that the prawn of District 9 actually came across as believable aliens, for the most part, while the Na’vi ultimately didn’t, at least not the same degree.  And although I could understand the reactions, motivations, and behavior of both Wikus in District 9, and Jake Sully in Avatar, I was much more profoundly moved by Wikus’s plight.  District 9 was simply more real to me, in terms of its story.

I think others felt the same way, and a good illustration of this is seen in how the audience reacted at the end of each movie.  I saw both District 9 and Avatar in packed theaters.  At the end of Avatar, everyone in the theater was excited, animatedly getting up to discuss the movie and talk about their favorite parts.  We couldn’t wait to leave the theater and talk about all the cool stuff we’d seen.  When District 9 was over, the entire theater sat still, shocked into inanition for a minute or so, and then got up and filed out in total silence.  I’ve never experienced that before.  District 9 was that powerful, that moving, and in the end, that much better of a film.