District 9 began as a project for Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp as an adaptation of the Halo video game franchise. During pre-production in New Zealand, the movie was suddenly stopped, and they began working on a different alien movie instead. District 9 was based off a short film Blomkamp had done before, called Alive in Jo’Burg, which was about aliens being treated as poorly as illegal immigrants (Hart). The premise of District 9 is aliens that were bred for slave labor are living in shantytowns, the one in focus being District 9, and the government wanting them to be eradicated (Barsanti). The movie was shot in a documentary-esque fashion to make it more believable, however, in order to create a believable story, Blomkamp had to create believable aliens.
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However, the designs were often scrapped after they were tested because Blomkamp did not believe the aliens created were imposing, threatening, or dangerous enough (Wallace). Shells and tentacles were added to the aliens to help create more recognizable expressions, with the eyes being the main point for emotions and the shells acting like human muscles do. However, to keep them from being too human-like, they were made to be extremely tall, as well as have an unreasonably small waist line, skeletal frame, dog’s legs, and twitchy, edgy, and razor-sharp movements. However, due to these characteristics, they often had to simply convey where the aliens would be and how they were moving instead of using a reference. Not only were the aliens as a whole given unique characteristics, such as their eyes dilating when they blink, but each alien created was given their own nuances. They each had their own unique body markings, clothing, faces, trinkets, and gaits
However, the designs were often scrapped after they were tested because Blomkamp did not believe the aliens created were imposing, threatening, or dangerous enough (Wallace). Shells and tentacles were added to the aliens to help create more recognizable expressions, with the eyes being the main point for emotions and the shells acting like human muscles do. However, to keep them from being too human-like, they were made to be extremely tall, as well as have an unreasonably small waist line, skeletal frame, dog’s legs, and twitchy, edgy, and razor-sharp movements. However, due to these characteristics, they often had to simply convey where the aliens would be and how they were moving instead of using a reference. Not only were the aliens as a whole given unique characteristics, such as their eyes dilating when they blink, but each alien created was given their own nuances. They each had their own unique body markings, clothing, faces, trinkets, and gaits