The movie gets most of the theme from the way the that S.A. operated during the apartheid era.

From the time I was a kid my dad got SOF magazine, in the 80's many of their stories were about the bush/border conflicts going on in Southern Africa. 2 friends of mine were SADF during the bush and border conflicts, grew up in SA, etc and gave me the courtesy of explaining what it was like growing up in a place like SA at that time.

Funny, when you talk to many, many people about SA about that time frame, most have ZERO clue what you are talking about. In typical American fashion, many Americans don't know nearly as much about T.R.O.T.W as they think they do.

Much like people can't tall you what the holocaust was, what the Khmer Rouge were, what the Holodomor was.

The movie is simply a depiction of that time in SA's history, just using aliens (the Prawns) to take the place of the segregated African population with the story of the guy turning into a prawn tossed in, etc.

Maybe what he's getting at is that many people can't handle the facts of something that bad happened that recently?