District 17: Half-Life Nostalgia Jogged by District 9

District 9 was a sci-fi film that featured the debut of director Neil Blomkamp produced by Peter Jackson. They dropped production of the upcoming Halo movie and worked together to churn out District 9. Half-Life 2, like District 9, is both technically brilliant, emotionally wrenching, and is an action packed adventure that leaves your jaw on the floor when after all is done. This piece is in no way intending that Neil Blomkamp blatantly copied Half-Life 2 for in the creation of District 9. This is just merely for fun.

SPOILER ALERT: If you did not watch the movie, then do not bother reading on.

So you decided to read on. Congratulations, your a gamer.

To the left, a Vortigaunt from HL2. On the right is a District 9 prawn. The prawn on the right aids the main Wilkus just as the Vortigaunts would help the hero of Half-Life 2, Gordon Freeman. Their similar appearances are striking with joints, stance, and intelligent mindsets.

Vortigaunts in Half-Life were slaves to Nihilanth, a large creature on Xen, who is a slave to unknown superiors… Gordon Freeman kills Nihilanth and frees the Vortigaunts from slavery; Sound familiar? The main character of District 9 is Wikus. He also frees the prawns from their oppressed state by allowing Christopher Johnson (alien friend?) to return to their home world via giant spaceship.

District 9 has guns. BFGs if you will. Half-Life 2 is no slouch either in that department. Wikus in District 9 wields an awesome lightning gun. In Half-life, Gordon Freeman picks up an array of weapons those of which include the gluon gun pictured to the left. The gluon gun, nicknamed, the egon, is a reference to the similarities between the gun and those used by the protagonists of the Ghostbusters, which were designed by a scientist named Egon Spengler. The gluon emits a bright-purple helix with another, straight beam passing through hits center, usually blasting enemies to pieces.

In District 9, Wikus’ gun emits a massive amount of energy focused in a nice blue stream of lightning, leaving the target to pieces in a fraction of a second much like the gluon gun. In the future I would like to see more movies like District 9 feed gamers the action they want wrapped up in a polished movie.