Alternate District 9 Trailer With Subtitles and No Face Blur

Posted by on May 7th, 2009   Filed under: Sci-fi, Trailers
Source: Rope of Silicon

d9alttrailer

Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 continues to get more and more intriguing. After the release of the first trailer last week, a lot of people were talking about how the face of the alien in it was blurred out. It created a little bit of mystery, while also supporting the realism of the documentary style.

Well this week they’ve released an alternate version of the trailer through one of the movie’s viral sites, MNU Spreads Lies (MNU stands for Multi-National United, the corporation that is supposedly responsible for the alien oppression). The new version of the trailer removes the blur and also adds subtitles so that you can understand what the alien says. I’m not quite sure why they would do this other than to keep people talking about the movie, but it definitely seems to be working! Check out the alternate version of the trailer below.



  • Neil M

    I think the alien design looks awesome. I thought this might have taken away from the first cut of the trailer, but now I’m even more excited.

  • If they are releasing this to gauge the internet feedback on if they should remove the pixelization of the aliens, here is my vote:

    NO! DON’T WATER DOWN YOUR ARTISTIC VISION OVER A FEW SPINELESS SCI FI FANBOYS.

  • This movie needs to push the medium forward just like 2001, Star Wars, Alien and The Matrix did before it!

  • 1138

    I am intrigued by this movie but I must admit the potential for cheese is there. I hope it’s better than that though.

    I never did get why they blurred the face on the original trailer. I know Docs do that to protect identity, but what are we protecting with an alien? It’s an alien!!! We protect people(Humans) by blurring faces… you can tell it’s an Alien even if you blur it’s face! Didn’t make sense. How do we know what’s a marker for these aliens? Their whole culture and physiology are different from ours.

  • Matt

    I think they blurred it’s face to make the movie seem more real, by making it look like they need to protect the non-human from MNU security retribution for cooperating with the documentary film-makers. I’m pretty imressed with all of the viral marketing sites associated with this movie. Very excited. I, however, cannot view the new traier so I don’t know what else has been changed. Could somebody tell me what the alien says in the subtitles?

  • Phil

    I liked the blurred face; reminds us that the aliens “might look all the same” to us, but they are in fact individuals.

    Now, seeing the design I think they look AMAZING. (all those little plates!)

    this is going to be the sleeper hit of the summer and make “independence day” look so cheezy by comparison

  • Sly

    Wasn’t there already a movie made about an alien who wants to go home? ;)

    District 9 looks promising though.

  • Teo

    As to Matt – heres what it says in the subtitles (together with questions)

    Man:Why did you land here

    Alien: We didnt mean to land here

    M:Why dont you just go home

    A:How can we go anywhere if you have our ship

    M:How do your weapons work

    A:We mean you no harm….We just want to go home

    I think i got it right…

    Im intrigued like hell by this movie. i wonder where they go with it. Interested if it turns out that the aliens are out to get us and the second we realease them they go apeshit on us.

  • Matt

    Wow, that’s indeed very intriguing. Thanks a lot, Teo. I wonder why they showed the trailer first w/o subtitles anyway. Maybe for it too be even more mysterious. Anyway, now I’m even more psyched about this movie than I am about Terminator.

  • Rusty James

    I appreciated the pixilized faces. But I don’t think it’s that important to scene (as far as I saw anyways).

    The subtitles were not welcome however. The point comes across without them and the dialogue is weak enough that it works better if we don’t know what he’s saying.

  • Neil M

    “The subtitles were not welcome however. The point comes across without them and the dialogue is weak enough that it works better if we don’t know what he’s saying.”

    I kind of agree with this, actually. It will be interesting to see if we get subtitles throughout the movie.

  • Bas

    Without the subs most people watching this trailer will kick in their preconceived notion that aliens are creepy and out to kill humans. The blurred face also dehumanizes him, Like Phil said. And I think Matt is right about the reason within the story.

    Did anyone else’s skin crawl when he said “How can we go anywhere if you have our ship”?

  • I liked the subtitled version better, although neither make much sense.

    1st version question: Do the humans speak the alien language?

    2nd version question: Why would they feel the need to censor out the face? Who are ‘filmmakers’ protecting?

    I mean, I get it when they used it for satire in Starship Troopers (with the violence of the cow censored vs. the violence against the humans not censored)…but here, both choices are baffling.

    I guess I think the movie plays better without the pixelated blocking, but I kinda like the point made about it being made to provide the notion of individual in the alien race, part of which, from the trailers, seems to be what the film is about, given that it is a race/segregation allegory…

  • I’m surprised people are not picking up on the pixelated face thing. If you go to the website you see that the earth community has established separate zones for humans and nonhumans. It is a goverment effort and why wouldn’t we take this approach if a alien race came to earth and had “car trouble”? Why does everyone on this tread assume an aggressive approach would be the way the interaction would go – FREE YOUR MINDS PEOPLE! If you think logically about what would happen in this scenario, yes, the first few months we would see the aliens as not having the same rights as us, but after time, and because we have a better nature, the government would pass laws to protect our interstellar neighbors from unauthorized harm from gangs, etc. The pixelated face for released interviews would be part of these laws to protect the alien that is working with us, or various other reasons. The beauty of this idea is it allows the sci fi film to comment on current immigration issues facing every corner of our world.

  • Agreed Rus. Well said.

  • Think of the website as a map of Israel and the interviewed alien as a combatant in the land struggle. (You can choose which race of people the alien represents) Also imagine that the aliens have been here for many years. Then you will understand the environment the trailer depicts.

  • elandrajo

    he looks like Alf