District 9's trailer promises to prove that ETs are terrible at obediency

A couple of years back, Peter Jackson, filmmaker extraordinaire responsible for the Lord of the Rings franchise, came oh-so-close to cranking out a movie based on the Halo video games that have shattered relationships and turned men of all ages into social-life-deficient hermits. His plan was to produce the film and hire Johannesburg, South Africa, native/visual effects veteran Neill Blomkamp to direct, and I'd imagine it would've been a visual spectacle like none other. An inflated budget and other setbacks came into play, however, and the project was put on hold longer than me when trying to call Cablevision.

As a sort of consolation prize, Jackson stayed true to word of wanting to work with Blomkamp, and the producer/director pair is ready to unleash District 9 this summer, the first trailer materializing today just in time for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Since it'll be playing before Wolvie, expect this trailer to kickstart a whole mess of speculation and feverish buzz all over the Internet. One place, of course, being this here blog. Little is known about District 9, but here's what is available: there's this race of aliens held on Earth under human control and forced to live in "slum-like conditions" while "being exploited as a workforce." Naturally, when you try to keep a bad alien down for too long, the proverbial shit shall hit the fan. All of this is shot in what appears to be a spin on cinema verite (think Cloverfield but less shitty-camcorder quality).

Check it out. No stars, very little set-up until now. Lo-fi, but not really. If you're like me, District 9 is now generating tons of excitement: