Chappie isn't even out, and I'm already disappointed

[Zontar]

So Chappie was a movie that caught my attention with its initial trailers. They seemed to be of a robot with a childish mind that was in a world not too dissimilar to our own, with the story revolving around an A.I. learning what it means to be alive and the antagonists being people who feared what he was, and what he represented. It seemed like an interesting science fiction movie that actually gave logical, understandable and even relatable motivations with the fear of the unknown.

Then the more recent trailers have started to show up where the villains are working for the government, and that Chappie was created to fight the big evil government, and I just feel as though they took a more interesting movie and turned it into a generic one right before my eyes. I know have no interest in the movie and have no intent in watching it.

Am I the only one who feels this way? I really wanted to see the movie of the first few trailers I saw, not the boring looking generic movie that's being advertised now.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

I did notice the advertising on Chappie seemed to shift suddenly. The first couple trailers were presented like some kind of family friendly, tear jerking strange friend movie, like ET but with an AI robot. The most recent ones look like an action movie with robots and guns and action! and government conspiracies and more action!

It left me wondering what kind of movie this will actually be.
The marketing reminds me of Frozen, where the movie was presented like this horrible generic B-rated cheesy animation with an annoying talking snowman sidekick meant to capitalize on the winter season.[footnote]if you want to take a jab at Frozen, now is the time.[/footnote], and the movie did have some of those things, but not to the annoying extent the trailers implied.

 

[Jack Action]

My guess is that the whole "AI turning against its government masters" thing is going to be some sort of anti-militarism message being thrown into the mix.

It left me wondering what kind of movie this will actually be.

Its being made by the guy who also did District 9, so if you've seen that, you can probably guess - tons of various political messages alongside a movie with sudden but competent genre shifts.

Isn't that guy the commie lunatic who also made Elysium, aka "everything rich people have should be public property because fuck rich people who aren't me"?

 

[Erttheking]

It is getting pretty confusing as to what this movie is supposed to be. I mean it's news to me that there's an oppressive robot police force. Also it's kind of fucked up if they're really taking this childlike robot and turning him into a soldier.

 

[deathbydeath]

imo the recent jarring tonal shifts in the trailers make me think Chappie is going to be about police violence. iirc there was something about The Government using peacekeeping robots and somehow Chappie is kidnapped by those kids.

I'd loooove to see Blompkamp's take on police violence. D9 and Elysium were so much fun because they took a complex topic and made it absurdly black & white, almost to the point of satire but the films always felt earnest and honest.

I'm assuming his heartstring-tugging skills he displayed in D9 are still intact, so I don't think the relationship Chappie has with the kids will be a waste of time, though.

 

[Jack Action]

I hadn't seen Elysium, so I imdb'd it, and yes, he did do Elysium. I don't know about any of the politics of that, however, only District 9, which dealt more heavily in Apartheid and immigration than economy.

Hm. Well, politics aside, his movies are generally entertaining. Good action flicks if you turn your brain off. So Chappie might end up being good, barring the hamfisted attempts at social criticism.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

From what I can tell, Chappie is actually a police robot that was stolen and then modified by some anti authoritarian types to try and give a machine emotions.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I mean Chappie is just King Kong with robots, right? Its an innocent creature with a childish mind who falls in love with some chick, a dude wants to show it off to the world, military guys think its a threat, the dude now regrets showing Chappie Kong off, the military kill Chappie, claiming it 'has no soul' or 'isn't human' and in Chappie's dying moments, it says something utterly profound and meaningful like "I feel..."

Chappie dies and we, the teary eyed viewers are left wondering who the real monster in the story is.

Spoiler

It turns out its man!

~Credits

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Am I the only one who feels this way? I really wanted to see the movie of the first few trailers I saw, not the boring looking generic movie that's being advertised now.

You are not. While Chappie never caught my interest to the point where I wanted to see it, I did understand what they were trying to do and figured there would be tons of people that would enjoy it.
Then those new trailers started hitting and I too went, "Wait, is this the same movie? What happened?" I fear this might be becoming a trend, because it seemed (to me at least) that Kingsman did the same thing. The earlier trailers painted it as kind of a fun, teenager movie. Humor, violence, just a nice little romp. And then, as the air date drew closer, the trailers suddenly shifted to a darker tone, and the movie was rated R, whereas earlier trailers would have been PG-13 at best.

 

[Fox12]

My guess is that the whole "AI turning against its government masters" thing is going to be some sort of anti-militarism message being thrown into the mix.

It left me wondering what kind of movie this will actually be.

Its being made by the guy who also did District 9, so if you've seen that, you can probably guess - tons of various political messages alongside a movie with sudden but competent genre shifts.

Isn't that guy the commie lunatic who also made Elysium, aka "everything rich people have should be public property because fuck rich people who aren't me"?

Yerp, that would be him. Honestly, I thought this looked pretty generic. The whole "a robot learns what it means to be human" thing has been done to death, and I've never seen it done well. It's an interesting concept that can't get past the whole "emotions are illogical" bit. I don't know, it looked boring when I first saw it. Then I realized it was made by the Elyseum guy, and that killed it.

It's okay though, I can ignore his films in peace. It's not like he recently got his slimy hands on a major sci-fi franchise. I mean, can you imagine if he was in charge of making a direct sequel to Aliens? That would be a disaster. Thank goodness we don't have to live in that world.

 

[faefrost]

I mean Chappie is just King Kong with robots, right? Its an innocent creature with a childish mind who falls in love with some chick, a dude wants to show it off to the world, military guys think its a threat, the dude now regrets showing Chappie Kong off, the military kill Chappie, claiming it 'has no soul' or 'isn't human' and in Chappie's dying moments, it says something utterly profound and meaningful like "I feel..."

Chappie dies and we, the teary eyed viewers are left wondering who the real monster in the story is.

Spoiler

It turns out its man!

~Credits

No no. Chappy = the gritty harsh violent and Ultrarealistiv reboot of Johnny Five. "I am alive!!!" Seriously the trailer looks like they took the script for Short Circuit and gave it a script doctor to "Frank Miller" it. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

 

[laggyteabag]

I lost interest the second I saw that Prince Zuko from that godawful Last Airbender Movie was in it.

Seriously though, I never really understood why everybody was super excited for it. I don't know what it is, but it just looked boring to me. Sure, it could turn out to be the best movie in the history of movies, but honestly, I think that it will just get a "meh" and everyone will move on with their lives.

 

[Jack Action]

Yerp, that would be him. Honestly, I thought this looked pretty generic. The whole "a robot learns what it means to be human" thing has been done to death, and I've never seen it done well. It's an interesting concept that can't get past the whole "emotions are illogical" bit. I don't know, it looked boring when I first saw it. Then I realized it was made by the Elyseum guy, and that killed it.

It's okay though, I can ignore his films in peace. It's not like he recently got his slimy hands on a major sci-fi franchise. I mean, can you imagine if he was in charge of making a direct sequel to Aliens? That would be a disaster. Thank goodness we don't have to live in that world.

I find it even more strange that besides some awkwardness and misunderstanding, the machines always take to emotions so well. The fact that they should understand the reason why we have them aside, they're always so happy and eager to have emotions (and they are always perfectly human emotions, if slightly stunted). Which would require having emotions in the first place.

For example, Data wanting to be human is emotional, is my point. He's already there, no matter how much he rationalizes it.
[small]Okay, Data's a bad example, because he was made to want to be human, but you get the point.[/small]

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Isn't that guy the commie lunatic who also made Elysium, aka "everything rich people have should be public property because fuck rich people who aren't me"?

I think my favorite description of how completely nonsensical 'Elysium' was is: 'So the earth has been destroyed by overpopulation, and your solution is to give everyone magical machines that makes them practically immortal, and that's going to solve the overpopulation problem?"

Anyway, I'm willing to give "Chappie" a shot, I loved 'District 9' and absolutely hated 'Elysium', so I'd really like to see if Blonkamp can redeem himself here.

 

[Fox12]

Yerp, that would be him. Honestly, I thought this looked pretty generic. The whole "a robot learns what it means to be human" thing has been done to death, and I've never seen it done well. It's an interesting concept that can't get past the whole "emotions are illogical" bit. I don't know, it looked boring when I first saw it. Then I realized it was made by the Elyseum guy, and that killed it.

It's okay though, I can ignore his films in peace. It's not like he recently got his slimy hands on a major sci-fi franchise. I mean, can you imagine if he was in charge of making a direct sequel to Aliens? That would be a disaster. Thank goodness we don't have to live in that world.

I find it even more strange that besides some awkwardness and misunderstanding, the machines always take to emotions so well. The fact that they should understand the reason why we have them aside, they're always so happy and eager to have emotions (and they are always perfectly human emotions, if slightly stunted). Which would require having emotions in the first place.

For example, Data wanting to be human is emotional, is my point. He's already there, no matter how much he rationalizes it.
[small]Okay, Data's a bad example, because he was made to want to be human, but you get the point.[/small]

I have to agree. You have emotions or you don't. The worst offenders are things like Aigis in Persona 3, or Tima from the (anime) film Metropolis. They speak in monotones and barely have a personality. These types of characters usually don't develop well either. It's unfortunate, since there's potential. How would a robot with human emotions react in real life? It would probably have to be asexual, since it can't reproduce, and it doesn't really need food, water, or shelter. You therefore have a human being who doesn't have any of the needs that other human beings have. Sex and survival are hard wired into our brain, just look at Freud. If you remove those then you're rewriting aspects of human nature. Also, even if it can feel love, it wouldn't be the romantic love we all think of. At best it could possibly feel something akin to friendship, assuming that a robotocist could find a way to replicate these emotions in a mind. The machins would be a sort of impartial observer of human emotions, since it wouldn't have the same hangups as the rest of us, even if it did have emotions. It would also have to deal with terrible isolation. There's really potential for an interesting, deep story if well done.

Besides, emotions aren't illogical. We evolved them for a reason, they factor into logic. I'm so tired of people acting like love and logic don't go together

Also, commy director is a commy. I'll be avoiding his films from now on regardless.

 

[Vault101]

well it IS just a trailer....trailers are misleading

it looks generic in terms of [b/]theme[/b] but I'm still interested, at least a robot is on our side rather than some depressing re-hash of "rise of the planet of the apes"

[snip.

I think youre being too hard on BlomKamp" (is that his name) he made one bad film...that's not Shamalan/Wachoski levels [I/]plus[/I] even if you didn't like District 9 [footnote/]interestingly I'm sure the morals in chappie will be as..obvious..but that's not a bad thing, I'm all for optimism[/footnote] it was a cool piece of "original" sci fi which aside from the awsomness of Jupiter acending and Channing Wolf Tatum we haven't seen a lot of lately

 

[Fox12]

well it IS just a trailer....trailers are misleading

it looks generic in terms of [b/]theme[/b] but I'm still interested, at least a robot is on our side rather than some depressing re-hash of "rise of the planet of the apes"

[snip.

I think youre being too hard on BlomKamp" (is that his name) he made one bad film...that's not Shamalan/Wachoski levels [I/]plus[/I] even if you didn't like District 9 [footnote/]interestingly I'm sure the morals in chappie will be as..obvious..but that's not a bad thing, I'm all for optimism[/footnote] it was a cool piece of "original" sci fi which aside from the awsomness of Jupiter acending and Channing Wolf Tatum we haven't seen a lot of lately

Maybe. I'll concede that District 9 was unique, if nothing else. I guess I just don't like thinly veiled political drama, even if I agree with it. If he fixes Alien, though, then all will be forgiven.