Paul VerhoevensStarship Trooperswas bafflingly accused of promoting fascism.
For director and co-writer Neill Blomkamp, though, the reaction toChappiestill smarts.
If you havent seenChappieyet, wed urge you to track down a copy.
If youre already a fan, Blomkamps thoughts on the films meaning and its legacy make for poignant reading.
What are your thoughts on the making ofChappie, now that its been two years?
Chappiewas unbelievably painful for me.
That was difficult on several levels.
That puts you in an incredibly interesting space.
Im not judging the film based on box office merits or pure Rotten Tomatoes scores.
Does that mean it holds no value?
Because it still holds value to me.
So it put me in a very strange place for a while.
And that could actually lead to me living in the gutter.
I mean it could literally lead to complete and utter collapse.
So I think overall the result ofChappiecrystallised or congealed ideas in my head in a good way.
But Im still upset the fact that it didnt work.
I wish that it did, but it just didnt, and I still love it.
I dont know what else to say, but the audience didnt get what I was going for.
But historys full of films that came along at the wrong time.
I think ofThe Thing,I think ofBlade Runner,there are dozens of them.
I thought all that was incredibly powerful.
There are millions of things that were missed.
For whatever reason, there were many elements that critics in general didnt pick up on them.
One of them is that its an artificial intelligence film, and it isnt.
That doesnt mean AI, that means sentient at all.
If you are sentient, if you are conscious, first of all, what does that mean?
Because youre watching the birth of consciousness withChappie.
And the idea of experience is a huge, huge part of it.
To me, the answer is an obvious no.
Like, everything that is aware is as valuable as any other thing.
So on one hand, missing that its not about AI is a big deal.
The fact that those two things exist in the same film is what the film is about.
Because thats what the experience of life is about.
Its an unknowable question, and no ones going to answer it for you.
So its almost a grand joke, in a sense.
That was the main thing.
People confuse that by saying the film was tonally all over the map.
And that was the point.
Because thats how I view life in general.
We could go on for hours about Chappie and where it sits.
But it definitely hurt several parts of my career, I think.
Those are all secondary to just the repositioning myself as an artist and just thinking about that.
I mean,Elysium, I didnt feel that way.
I feel likeElysiumwasnt actually that good.
I like them both.
ButChappiewas wonderful for reasons that you said.
It reminds me a bit of the reaction toStarship Troopers,actually.
I was 17 whenStarship Trooperscame out, and I totally loved it.
I love Verhoeven, and I like Robert Heinlein too, and I like Verhoevens take on it.
Seventeens too young, I think.
It came out and critics accused it of being a pro-fascist film.
That it was actively promoting fascism.
Im a big fan of that.
[Laughs]
I was like, What?
Youre putting yourself forward as an actor?
And he was like, Yeah.
And he totally destroyed that role.
Hes awesome in it.
So there are a few shorts that we have where Alec Gillis plays a main character.
[Laughs]
Neill Blomkamp, thank you very much.
you’ve got the option to read ourinterview with Neill Blomkamp about OatsStudioshere.
