What makes the thrill of sci-fi movies so thrilling? What makes it possible for us to watch where no man has gone before with fascination? Maybe because the idea that the world is a bigger place than we can ever imagine, and things exist beyond our natural reality that is not in our everyday lives, is a concept that we really want to consider.
This is what makes these types of movies so popular. To imagine extra terrestrial life forms that either want to be our friends or such out all of our life force is fascinating. Watching them on the big screen is also a lot safer than fighting alien forces in real life. After all, we have enough worries just getting to work on time on most days let alone fighting off and alien predator.
It is also cool to think that no matter how far advance other species are our human nature kicks in and our love factor often wins in these movies. It can be our will to survive or to protect the ones we love that prevails and keeps our species going. It is the human struggle that is interesting and not just watching people get slaughtered.
This explains the popularity of District 9. The story is based on one man and learning that by becoming one of the creatures he so desperately tries to control becomes his life and seeing how the creatures live on the other side while his life is forever changed. This is the ultimate putting yourself in someone elses shoes theory and what drives us to watch it.
The technology in a sci-fi movie is also fascinating to us. What we only can dream of with a script can become reality with the right production company. It is amazing that a little tricorder can read every internal organ in our body. Or that people can read others minds just by looking at them.
As our imaginations work faster than our technology the sci-fi movie will remain popular. We can continue to look forward to the ingenious way that someone will concoct another world. But like in the every popular Avatar, no matter what world you are in it is about the heart and the human condition.