Quote

Obviously I don't want to make a film that offends people, but the whole world is so politically correct - I'm not going to not do something because it may be politically incorrect. At some point, the metaphors and allegories break down. They disappear, and you just have science fiction.

Neill Blomkamp

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Neill Blomkamp
Age: 45
Born: 1979
Born: September 17
Animator
Film Director
Screenwriter
Johannesburg
Gauteng
South Africa
Whole
Disappear
Allegories
Going
Obviously
Offends
Something
Fiction
Allegory
Make
Break
Incorrect
World
Point
Metaphors
People
Science
Politically
Film
Metaphor
May
Correct

More quotes by Neill Blomkamp

Image
High-level actors can be all about their close-ups and the size of their trailers. I'd heard these horror stories of how a really powerful actor can come in and change your script.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
'District 9' was a singular anti-Apartheid metaphor, and 'Elysium' is a more general metaphor about immigration and how the First World and Third World meet. But the thing that I like the most about the metaphor is that it can be scaled to suit almost any scenario.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
It's just my maybe naive, optimistic view that whatever knowledge we gain, and if it comes to pass that we can somehow understand what consciousness is, if we can somehow create that, it will ultimately be used for the good.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
There's no question that how Johannesburg operates is what made me interested in the idea of wealth discrepancy. 'Elysium' could be a metaphor for just Jo'burg, but it's also a metaphor for the Third World and the First World. And in science fiction, separation of wealth is a really interesting idea to mess with.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
Johannesburg is weird, because half of it is like Los Angeles. It feels like just wealthy parts of L.A. But half of it is severe slummy, something like Rio De Janiero or something. So it's kind of weird, because it's both happening at the same time.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
There's a lot of evidence in evolutionary sciences that show that altruism and acting in ways that are empathetic to others are actually beneficial on an evolutionary basis.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
My point of view actually on artificial intelligence, which ties into the nature for humans constantly looking into the reasons for why we exist and why consciousness exists changed during the making of Chappie. And I'm not actually completely sure that humans are going to be capable of giving birth to A.I. in the way that films fictionalize it.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I actually think Johannesburg represents the future. My version of what I think the world is going to become looks like Johannesburg.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I don't want to make a film that offends people, but the whole world is so politically correct - I'm not going to not do something because it may be politically incorrect. At some point, the metaphors and allegories break down. They disappear, and you just have science fiction.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
There are loads of sociopolitical, racial, class and future-planet situations that really interest me, but I'm not really interested in making a film about them in a film that feels like reality because people view that in a different way. I like using science fiction to talk about subjects through the veneer of science fiction.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I think that in the realm of commercial, popcorn cinema, the amount of message or smuggling of ideas you can get in there is quite limited. Like, if you think you're going to make a difference or change anything, you're on pretty dangerous thin ice.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I had artists that refused to work on Chappie if they were working on a design that actually said Denel on the side of the thing. But anyway, it's the blurring of fiction and reality that was appealing and I certainly did not want them to be in the movie and not be themselves.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I love the idea of people being themselves in films.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
If you don't have something that glues the audience to the screen, you're in trouble.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
A lot of parts of L.A. are interchangeable with suburbs in Joburg. Very big, ostentatious houses with palm trees and lawns. Lawns are very important. Never underestimate lawns.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
The fact that natural selection and evolution crafted essentially carbon and water into a mechanism that can think and be conscious means there's nothing in physics that says you cannot do that to a greater degree.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I never think of things rationally or intellectually. I swear, every single decision I make is just instinct and my instincts tend to be accurate.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I am a firm believer that the pull for human beings is towards the good, generally outweighing the bad.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I do think that it's always okay to show too little. People will still be interested. So why show too much?
Neill Blomkamp
Image
You can build a brain the size of a room, theoretically. You could also build a silicone based life form and it could be sentient. There's no limit to the height that you can reach in terms of design once we figure out how to design things, theoretically.
Neill Blomkamp