District 9 is an uncommonly smart sci-fi hit, and it’s got a heck of a lot going on, especially
in the final act.
Did you come away wondering what really happened, or musing on what could happen next?
Not to worry, this is the ending of District 9 explained.
When most films end, audiences are treated to powerful, soft-light shots of the hero
kissing their love interest, hugging their relatives or celebrating their great victory
over the antagonists.
But District 9 has no clear-cut heroic ending.
In fact, given how much of the story revolves around Wikus van de Merwe slowly succumbing
to a horrible disease, if you're not paying close attention to the ending you may end
up wondering: is Wikus even alive?
Is he lying in a ditch somewhere?
Did the Nigerian mercenaries finally eat his body for magical powers?
Well, don't worry.
Wikus is very much alive at the conclusion of the film.
Unfortunately, he's also very much an alien.
We know this because Wikus' wife finds a metal flower made out of trash left on her front
doorstep, which she believes may have come from him.
The very next shot is an alien making another flower, so either Wikus' wife has a secret
admirer amongst the Prawn community, or Wikus himself is leaving her small tokens to let
her know he's okay.
Common sense would suggest it’s probably the latter.
It's pretty clear that Wikus becomes a full-on alien by the end of District 9, and you’d
be forgiven for wondering if there's any scrap of humanity left in him at all.
Throughout the film, Wikus slowly loses control of himself and acts in increasingly strange,
alien ways.
That said, the flower Wikus leaves his wife is as good an indication as any that Wikus
still clings to at least some of his humanity.
Earlier in the film, Wikus' wife explains that he loves making her fun craft projects.
It seems that alien Wikus still feels an urge to let his wife know he's generally doing
okay and hasn't fully lost his personality, even if he's a little slimier than the last
time she saw him.
If you look closely at Wikus post-transformation, it's also clear that one of his eyes retains
its blue, human color, while the other is green like those of the other Prawns.
This would indicate that there’s still a small portion of Wikus which remains human
and retains at least some of his previous memories.
He's certainly more Prawn than man, but that doesn’t mean he’s lost all of his humanity.
At the end of District 9, the Prawn named Christopher, who fights alongside Wikus throughout
the film, ultimately escapes the planet.
Thanks to Wikus' sacrifice and assistance, Christopher is able to get his damaged command
module working and fly himself and his son up to the recently activated mothership.
Of course, one question remains: how long will it be before Christopher is able to return
to Earth?
He promised to cure Wikus of his illness, after all.
How long will Wikus be forced to wait?
Earlier in the film, Christopher convinces Wikus to help him by assuring him he can reverse
Wikus' slowly-worsening disease.
But after learning about the government's experimentation on his people, Christopher
tells Wikus he needs to alert his people to what's happening before he can dedicate the
necessary time and alien fuel needed to heal Wikus.
Christopher estimates it'll take him three years to make the trip to and from his home
planet back to Earth.
So Christopher will return, but it's more than likely that Wikus will be forced to live
as a Prawn for at least three years until then.
Speaking of those human-on-Prawn experiments, just how excited do we think alien high command
will be about Christopher's story?
Even without all the brutal torture and experimentation, aliens have been treated as second-class citizens,
abused and manipulated by citizens of Earth for nearly three decades.
We don't know much about alien culture, but we do know they have some hugely impressive
technology, including powerful guns and exoskeleton power suits.
It's hard to imagine they don’t have a military of some sort, and who knows what other crazy
weapons or bombs they might have on their home planet?
Wikus may have slightly softened Christopher's opinion of humans, but Christopher is still
clearly upset about what's happened to his people.
Either way, there's surely no way to explain what's going on in District 9 that won’t
antagonize the Prawn leadership.
And if the aliens return with any sort of retribution on their mind, humanity is probably
completely screwed.
One of the largest unanswered questions in District 9 is just why the alien fuel actually
turns humans into Prawns.
It's clear Wikus' transformation starts when the fluid is sprayed into his face, but nobody
ever figures out exactly why things go the way they do.
Even weirder, Christopher doesn't seem at all confused when Wikus transforms.
He immediately knows the fluid would do that and seems highly confident that the medical
machines on the mothership could heal Wikus.
"Are you you saying that you could turn this Prawn hand into a human hand?
I mean, you can make me human again?"
Interestingly, it also appears that alien fuel plays some role in healing humans, because
Christopher says he needs all the available fuel to travel quickly, which is why it'll
take awhile to heal Wikus.
The fuel brings up all kinds of possible implications for the future of the District 9 universe.
For example, could other humans accidentally become Prawns?
Is there more alien technology containing the fluid out there amongst the trash heaps?
Is it possible the Prawns themselves could weaponize the fluid in such a way as to transform
all of humanity?
Lots of future scenarios could play out on Earth thanks to that fluid, and most of them
don't exactly bode well for humanity.
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