by Mandy J Watson

Posted: 1 October 2009 << Previous Page

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Many web sites were launched as part of the online viral-marketing effort to promote District 9. In this showcase we will look at those sites (collectively referred to as "The District 9 Movie Experience"), and more, to see how they related to, and complemented, the real-world marketing campaign. (Plus, for fans, find out about some amazing items and downloads you may have missed on each site.)

Requirements: None
Recommendations: Genius mathematical abilities

I'm not quite sure of what the purpose of this site was. It features a 10-question maths quiz in which I'm not smart enough to score full marks (the first time I scored four and the second time I scored seven but the questions, which are random, were easier the second time around) and by the time it occurred to me to hack through the page's code to try and figure out what was going on it was (possibly) too late.

The site is designed to mimic the kind of home-made web-page design commonly seen in the '90s, complete with horizonal rules, a grainy photo in GIF format, and a claim that the site was last updated on 2 November 1994 (or 11 February 1994 - I'm not sure). Reading between the lines one assumes it's a (semi) secret MNU recruitment programme to find smart individuals whose DNA was being sought for experiments in fusing alien DNA with human DNA to create superbeings with enhanced "natural physical and mental capabilities". Charming.


To find out if you qualify you have to take the multiple-choice maths aptitude test, which is an excrutiating experience that may give you nightmares or high-school flashbacks (or both). At the end you are given your score and if it's less than a perfect score you are told that you are below the baseline standards for the programme.


There was a redirect URL in the page code for an address on the MNU web site: http://www.multinationalunited.com/#/9, so it's possible that if you get a perfect score you are sent to that page. Unfortunately now there's just an error message on the site in both English and the non-human language to say that the Maths From Outer Space programme is no longer active. It could be that it was shut down when a number of the other marketing efforts were stopped or it could be by design - that in the reality of District 9 the programme only ran until sometime in 1994 while MNU was still trying to find ways to take advantage of the arrival of the aliens and figure out ways to get their weaponry to work in early attempts to fuse human and alien DNA, which we know failed. Perhaps this was one of the failures.

Web: http://www.mathsfromouterspace.com/

On The Internet

Official Site: District 9