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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

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Neill Blomkamp
Age: 45
Born: 1979
Born: September 17
Animator
Film Director
Screenwriter
Johannesburg
Gauteng
South Africa
Really
Interesting
Separation
World
Idea
Mess
Science
Third
Johannesburg
Also
Thirds
Elysium
Ideas
Interested
Discrepancy
Firsts
Fiction
Discrepancies
First
Wealth
Operates
Made
Question
Metaphor

More quotes by Neill Blomkamp

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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
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If you don't have something that glues the audience to the screen, you're in trouble.
Neill Blomkamp
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I think people are destined for something incredible if we don't wipe ourselves out, but I think we're going to wipe 90 percent of ourselves out.
Neill Blomkamp
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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
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I don't believe in director's cuts and I also don't really believe in deleted scenes because the movie that is in theaters, that's what the director made.
Neill Blomkamp
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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
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Deleted scenes are like in a middle gray zone. It's like, well, they're deleted because they're not good or you lost the battle and you couldn't put them in the movie.
Neill Blomkamp
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If you look at the most meaningful science fiction, it didn't come from watching other films. We seem to be in a place now where filmmakers make films based on other films because that's where the stimuli and influence comes from.
Neill Blomkamp
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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
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This whole notion that the robot has to declare nuclear war is one part of the discussion, but it may not be reality. Reality is, maybe it can empathize to a far greater degree than we can and experience a way wider range of emotions. So, why not have a robot that can do that?
Neill Blomkamp
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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
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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
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I was touching on the idea of the autonomous militaristic or autonomous law enforcement idea, but it wasn't the primary driving force.
Neill Blomkamp
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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
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I actually think Johannesburg represents the future. My version of what I think the world is going to become looks like Johannesburg.
Neill Blomkamp
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'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
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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
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I think naturally I'm a very visual kind of person. If I wasn't in filmmaking, I'd be in something related to visuals. And I used to actually work as a visual-effects artist.
Neill Blomkamp
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If something is as smart as you, do you treat it differently if it isn't a human?
Neill Blomkamp
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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