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[Ampersand]

From the way it seemed to be explained, it seemed most of the Prawn technology was based on genetic interaction. I think the reason NightWatchman is on to something with the nanomachines in the fuel idea.

Also, the reason they couldn't leave as I saw it was simply that most of the Prawns aboard the ship were unskilled laborers. Think of a fortress full of Cheese and Soap makers after all the miners and metal smiths died.

Just because it's alien technology doesn't mean aliens know how to use it. Humans built the SR-71 Blackbird. I cannot pilot an SR-71 Blackbird.

I think the primary reason, though, that they were put in the position they were in is because of the profit motive in retro engineering their technology.

[Zironic]

You could tell that Christopher was one of the scientists, and the rest of prawns were mores animalistic and followed orders. Noticed how he told the other prawn to be friendly - not give any reason to cause problems at the start? It's a semi-hivemind state. The normal prawns go about doing nothing complicated while Chris is an extremely intelligent one - he chooses to appear dumb.

[deadlycairn]

They did mention that most -or all- of the leadership appeared to be dead. Chris may have been a particularly intelligent worker, or a leader pretending to be dumb. But either way, most of the prawns didn't seem particularly intelligent.

[Zironic]

Yeah. The most notable reason for this theory, is he left the mothership in a ship designed to fit it in. He was separated from the start. He purposely collected technology. And he didn't eat rubber tires.

[umiman]

Then you would posit the simple question. Why didn't he just leave earlier?

The mothership hovered for months over the city. In the movie, we learn that he needs technology of his species to collect fuel to power that craft to power the mothership.  Why didn't he just, you know... stay inside the ship to collect the parts and power the shuttle and leave?

I would assume he didn't leave because he expected humans to "save" his race from starvation, but it still doesn't explain why he couldn't collect the fuel in a fuel rich environment (aka: the mothership) in the first place.

[Zironic]

The mothership isn't the one low on fuel as much as his ship. It was damaged by the fall, and he spent years collecting enough energy to run it long enough to have the mothership tractor beam it. I might be off. He could have a deeper reason. It might involve his son. The way he looked at the corpse on level 4. It was like he knew the prawn there...

[umiman]

It was the prawn that was with him in the beginning.

I'm not going to bother questioning the film's logic. 1. They're aliens. 2. The film doesn't give us enough to base anything on.

For all we know, this could be some form of alien rite of initiation which all aliens must undergo past a certain age. Those that make it back home after a certain amount of time get to live. Or they might have needed to find a place to offload all the feces and urine that has collected over the years of travel and accidentally hit a forget-o-ray of cosmic energy which turned them into dullards. Who knows?

[Zironic]

Maybe, they are actually travelling in a giant cat bowl that - after being infect by parasites evolved into a society. Somewhere, a huge space cat is looking for his dish.

[Labs]

I'm sure that's what happened. But anyway, the guy that gets off on shooting prawns, I think I saw him in another movie.

[Croquantes]

People forget that the movie is satire. I don't think the behaviour of the common Prawns is because they're regressing into a more animalistic species, but that the harsh environment (aka nasty slum) they live in brings out their animalistic tendencies. The same thing happens to humans living in the exact same environment.

Slum dwellers in third world countries aren't reverting to a more savage form of human, and the native tribes of the amazon aren't "savages" or "barbarians". The culture that these people live in, shape their lives and their behaviour. The Prawns were put in District 9, a place without education or proper infrastructure akin to the jewish ghettoes of nazi germany. Of course they're gonna run amok.

That being said, I think the Prawns are a satire of human behaviour during times of extreme hardship.

[Phantom]

Well, its fine, in fact its made by South Africans, time for those superpowers to be shone a lesson.

[Ampersand]

I don't think so. It's shown that even while aboard the mothership, most of them were too stupid to clean up their own poo, and the like. The vast majority of the occupants of the ship seemed to be the support crew. Just because they're aliens doesn't mean they all know how the mothership works, how to pilot it, how to make fuel, or anything.

I am a human. Airplanes are human technology. I fly in them all the time. I cannot however build one, pilot one, create the fuel for one, repair one, or anything. Keep in mind that when it comes to interstellar travel, it is likely that the original crew is long gone by the time it arrives at it's destination, and has been populated by their children, who may have failed to receive the proper education.

[Labs]

Actually on the children part,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 
 Chris said that he would be back in 3 years with "Reinforcements".

So that eliminates the long travel time idea.

[Zironic]

Ironically I think the directors and actors could pull off a sequal. Also, The goo turned Wikus into an intelligent prawn sort of like Chris. Maybe the leaders of prawn society weren't prawns originally.

[Phantom]

At the end he did turn into one, look carefully