Neill Blomkamp: If you're a theater director, you're not going to be p...

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

Neill Blomkamp

treats smart humans

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

Neill Blomkamp

looks world thinking

'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

elysium immigration world

When I was in my early 20s, I was quite into Japanese animation. It's like the same thing that I end up always saying which is, imagery based stuff is the thing that really gets me.

Neill Blomkamp

animation ends stuff

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

Neill Blomkamp

glue audience trouble

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

elysium space thinking

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

race ideas thinking

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

cutting believe directors

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

goal people thinking

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

ice ideas thinking

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 artist thinking

If you didn't get it right and then you have to release a director's cut to undo what the studio made you release, I don't know, either it's some marketing thing for them to get more money or the director didn't do his job.

Neill Blomkamp

marketing cutting jobs

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

kind artist thinking

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

elysium ideas interesting

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

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

instinct decision thinking

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

want interesting thinking

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

los-angeles kind half

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

views class reality

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

touching law ideas

If you're a theater director, you're not going to be prepared for the technical side. And if you're a technical director, you're not going to be prepared for the acting side. The only thing you can do is go through the meat grinder of your first film.