District 9: the Sci-Fi movie of the last decade.
The title of this post is quite the statement I am sure you will all agree. Even in the opinionated and divided world of Sci-Fi fandom, I haven’t met too many people who would disagree with me on this one. Let’s look at some of the Science Fiction movies to have graced us over the last ten years.
After the disappointment of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, we then had to endure the tragically bad Attack of the Clones before finally getting a half decent movie in Revenge of the Sith. I am not sure why George Lucas chose to virtually destroy his Star Wars franchise this decade but he nearly succeeded. If it wasn’t for that third instalment then I am sure Science Fiction fans all over the world would have been in uproar.
There have also been some very good Science Fiction movies in the last ten years, don’t get me wrong. We have had Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise and War of the Worlds starring…Tom Cruise again. Both of these movies were good (minus Dakota Fanning’s relentless screaming in War of the Worlds) and are right up there with the best the decade has had to offer.
Moving on, we also had The Matrix sequels (both nowhere near as good as the original from 1999). We have also had Terminator 3 and Terminator Salvation, along with Transformers 1 and 2 (which seriously may as well have been about O2 & O2 XDA Phones for Sale). But let us be honest, none of these movies were particularly good and certainly wouldn’t rank alongside even Minority Report.
In 2009, we were gifted with two fantastic Science Fiction movies and one that was wildly over hyped (I am, of course, talking about Avatar). Star Trek and District 9 fought it out to be my favourite sci-fi movie of the last decade and it was the brilliance of the story, its themes and the way it was shot that won it for District 9.
On such a low budget in comparison to the other blockbusters and with a cast of nobodies, this movie was everything sci-fi is supposed to be and it was a welcome change from the cliched stories we are used to.
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