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" I don't want egos and personalities on the set that make it more difficult to make the film. I don't want people who take the focus away from the movie and the ideas behind the movie. "
Neill Blomkamp
Difficult
Want
People
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" I think our problems are inherently unsolvable. We need to change our genetic make-up or create computers that will think us out of it. I don't think humans are able to deal with what we have. "
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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. "
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" 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. "
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" If you don't have something that glues the audience to the screen, you're in trouble. "
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" I never really think of something in terms of what not to do. It's always what's appealing or what's cool. "
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" I don't put any pressure on myself in terms of what people or fans do or don't want. It really just doesn't occur to me. I honestly just want to make the films I want to see as a fan. The film will survive or fail in my mind by how much I like it. Having said that, everyone wants their films to do well and to be well-received. "
Neill Blomkamp
Me
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Pressure
" 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
Artist
Filmmaking
Kind
" 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
Done
Me
America
" I like where we're going with technology and global integration, but the fact that corporations and dollars rule everything in our lives, I don't like it. This isn't the Hollywood I wanted to be part of. "
Neill Blomkamp
Hollywood
Everything
Technology
" If something is as smart as you, do you treat it differently if it isn't a human? "
Neill Blomkamp
Smart
Differently
Human
" 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
Change
Horror
Size
" '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
Think
Person
Comedy
" I just want to make films that have enough of a budget to pull off high-level imagery but also have a budget that is low enough that I can do what I want. "
Neill Blomkamp
Budget
Enough
I Can
" 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
Burger
Garbage
Intellectual
" 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
Down
People
Science
" If you're not observing the world around you, in some sense you're not really an artist because then that means you're just replicating other people's stuff, or, I don't even know what you're doing. "
Neill Blomkamp
You
Artist
Doing
" I'm not particularly interested in working with movie stars. It depends on where you come from, I suppose. Why are you making films? The reason I want make films is because they convey ideas. I think some directors make films because they want to hang out with movie stars and be part of Hollywood. They want to be a star themselves. "
Neill Blomkamp
Ideas
You
Want
" In a lot of the really impoverished areas of Johannesburg you see these packets of cheesy puffs which are like 6 feet long and the width of a basketball, and they're transparent and they have like 10,000 cheesy puffs in them, and you can buy that for like 50 cents. It's kind of a weird treat that you'd see people having in the townships. "
Neill Blomkamp
Long
Basketball
Feet
" 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
Science
Interesting
World
" 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
Space
Everything
Think
" 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
Design
Want
Hollywood
" The only genre of movie that I could see making that doesn't have anything magical or otherworldly about it would be a war film. I'm very interested in history, and a war film could be something that would lure me in. "
Neill Blomkamp
Me
Magical
War
" I think the reason you use an actor is if they are right for the role. Most of the high-profile stars tend to be good actors. That's probably what led to their fame. So if they are right for the movie, you can certainly use them. But I don't want to, not at all. Stardom and Hollywood overpower the ideas and the film. "
Neill Blomkamp
Stars
Fame
Ideas
" I just watch movies I like over and over. It seems to be a lot of sci-fi stuff. My favorites are probably - besides the first two 'Alien' films, I watch '2001', I watch 'Star Wars', the first ones, because those actually had a huge effect on me as well, 'Empire Strikes Back' especially. "
Neill Blomkamp
Movies
Watch
Alien
" I think filmmakers in general are, as the tools become more and more advanced, you're able to tell stories in a way that I think is more realistic. The technology just wasn't there up until pretty recently, and it takes a bit of time for the normal artistic way of approaching something to become a mainstream thing. "
Neill Blomkamp
Tools
Way
You
" I actually think Johannesburg represents the future. My version of what I think the world is going to become looks like Johannesburg. "
Neill Blomkamp
Think
World
Looks
" Satire also allows you to make fun of every different aspect. It allows you to make fun of both sides. It allows you to make fun of everything, really, so you can do it in a harmless way. "
Neill Blomkamp
You
You Can Do It
Way
" I think there's a lot of crazy stuff on the Internet. You read stuff that is wild speculation, and there's an element of it that makes me not trust it because there's this undercurrent of insanity to it sometimes. "
Neill Blomkamp
Crazy
Me
Think
" The first film that I can remember seeing where, like, I just couldn't stop watching it - and it didn't necessarily make me want to be a director because I was so young, but it made me know that that's what I wanted to be doing - was 'Alien.' And I saw that when I was probably just over 10 years old. "
Neill Blomkamp
Seeing
Remember
Alien
" 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
You
New
Rest