Neill Blomkamp quotes

'Chappie' would be like 'RoboCop,' but hilarious. If you mixed 'Robocop' with 'E.T.' and it was... funny, that's what it is.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Would Be #Robocop

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

#Thinking #Ice #Ideas

I think that people who make films and think they're changing the world are sorely mistaken. If that really is your goal, there are far better ways to do it. I'm making politically observant films for audiences.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Thinking #Goal #People

If you just compare South Africans to the rest of the world, I think that white South Africans, and especially English-speaking white South Africans, are exactly the same as Brits or Australians or New Zealanders or Canadians or Americans.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Thinking #White #World

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

#Meaningful #Looks #Fiction

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

#Half #Kind #Los Angeles

My favourite stuff is visual, and I always want to work with visual artwork. I think it depends on the person, but for me, photographs of an image of something interesting or inspiring is worth a lot more than words to me. I think every concept I've come up with and turned into films or that will be hopefully become a film comes from images first.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Thinking #Interesting #Want

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

#People #Fiction #World

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

#Reality #Views #Class

There has to be the popcorn genre element, or I don't engage the same way. I like action and vehicle design and guns and computer graphics as much as I like allegory. It's a constant balancing game. I want audiences to be on this rollercoaster that fits the Hollywood mould, but I also want them to absorb my observations.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Gun #Games #Design

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

#Ideas #Interesting #Fiction

I think that 'Elysium' the movie is unrealistic, with the space station and everything. I think 'Elysium' the metaphor is completely realistic: it's exactly where we're going.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Thinking #Space #Elysium

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

#Thinking #Artist #Kind

I grew up as an artist. Science fiction allows for design and creatures and guns and all the stuff that I like as well. So I think most of the films I make, I'm sure, will be in that category. But I can also see myself making a film like 'Black Hawk Down,' and I could also totally do horror.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Gun #Thinking #Artist

I actually think Johannesburg represents the future. My version of what I think the world is going to become looks like Johannesburg.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Thinking #Looks #World

I never really think of something in terms of what not to do. It's always what's appealing or what's cool.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Thinking #Term

I think the world of 'District 9' has a lot of race and oppression-based ideas that I would still like to explore in that world.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Thinking #Ideas #Race

If something is as smart as you, do you treat it differently if it isn't a human?
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Smart #Treats #Humans

If you don't have something that glues the audience to the screen, you're in trouble.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Glue #Trouble #Audience

A lot of America is kind of done. People have been making films about it for 100 years. Everything to me feels used up. But Jo-Burg feels unbelievably inspirational to me.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Years #America #People

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

#Tree #House #Important

'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

#World #Firsts #Suits

'District 9', 'Elysium' and 'Chappie' were all born out of some visual concept first. 'Chappie' is the imagery, because I think I'm a visual person first, of this ridiculous robot character. It's much more comedy based and in an unusual setting.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Character #Thinking #Elysium

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

#Powerful #Stories #Actors

When any young director gets hired by a studio to do a $125 million film based on a preexisting piece of intellectual property, they're climbing into the meat grinder. And what you're coming out with on the other side is a generic, heavily studio-controlled pile of garbage that ends up on the side of Burger King wrappers.
-- Neill Blomkamp

#Kings #Climbing #Intellectual