Is the artificial intelligence of Super Chapai a Pandora's box or the cornerstone of immortality? What is the intention of looking for "Uncle Wolf" Hugh Jackman to play the villain? Is the ending it wrote for humanity cruel or bright? Time.com exclusive interview with director Neil Blomkamp to unlock the film's correct way to open.
<b>On</b> Friday, the science fiction movie "Super Chapai" was fully released in the mainland in 2D/Chinese giant screen format. "District 9" director Neil Blomkamp used this new work to tell the audience an alternative science fiction fairy tale that subverts artificial intelligence.
"Super Chapai", which has been brewing for many years, presents Blomkamp's strong personal painting style. South Africa under the director's lens is still eye-catching "dirty and messy"; the film depicts the future of mankind with artificial intelligence, making the audience full of expectations but extremely afraid; and its means of expressing innocence and good deeds are even more surprising. Yesterday, the reporter of the time network with the unfinished interest and doubts about "Super Chapai", exclusively interviewed the film director Neil Blomkamp.
Two days later, the aggressive commercial blockbuster "Avengers: Age of Ultron" will inevitably stir up the mainland film market. Although Super Chapai and Avengers 2 explore similar AI themes, their expressions are very different from the cores they transmit. Is the artificial intelligence in Super Chapai a Pandora's treasure box or the cornerstone of eternal life? What is the relationship between the film and Elysium? Is the ending it wrote for humanity cruel or bright? Why bother to find "Uncle Wolf" Hugh Jackman to play the villain? Next, let director Blomkamp personally tell you the correct way to understand "Super Chapai". This movie may not be like the imaginary "cute", but it has a pure "human heart".
<b>(Note: The following contains mild spoilers, so please read with caution.) ）</b>
▌ <b>Elysium Space is the cradle of Super Chapai</b>
Mtime: What inspired you to make a movie like Super Chapai?
<b>"Super Chapai" is a movie that guesses the beginning but can't guess the ending</b>
Neil: Inspiration comes on two main levels. One is that I've always wanted to make movies about robots having the ability to perceive, and the other is that I've always wanted to make a movie for Die Antwoord. I'd love to work with them, but I'm not sure which work is right for them.
One day I was sitting at my desk writing the script for Elysium Space, when I suddenly had the idea of letting the Answering Band play this movie in which robots learn to perceive the world, so I followed the line of thought and created "Super Chapai".
Mtime: There is a machine policeman in Elysium who looks very much like Chapai, can it be understood as the prototype of Chapai?
Neil: Yes, <b>Chapai was definitely born out of Elysium,</b> and a lot of the concepts about Chapai are closely related to Elysium.
Mtime: Chapai has the appearance of a robotic policeman, but after gaining perceptual awareness, he is trained to be a gangster who is good at smashing and robbing. Is this ironic reversal deliberately set up in the plot?
Neil: Well, it's not all that way. This film is mainly about cognitive ability, which is to explore the question of what consciousness is, and at the same time there is the big proposition of nature vs. upbringing. If we have a child, his future depends entirely on the environment in which he grew up, or whether there are factors at play that are more important than the environment. This question is the focus of Super Chapai, and the original identity of the robo-cop is not the core force that drives the story.
<b>▌</b> <b>The correct way to open the ending:</b> <b>Chapai achieves human immortality</b>
Mtime: The ending of "Super Chapai" seems a bit pessimistic to humans. It looks like AI is brighter than the future of humanity. Do you think this is the inevitable end of human development against artificial intelligence?
<b>Chapai's emotional bond with Yulandi permeates the film throughout</b>
Neil: Yeah. However, <b>the original intention of the ending is also to give mankind a bright future. </b>Whatever actions AI will take, whatever they will turn the planet into, will be good for humanity in my opinion. In the world of Chapai, everything Chapai does has positive results for humanity.
Mtime: So you think it's memory and consciousness that determine human existence, not body and body, right?
Neil: Yes, that's right, that's it. <b>The body and the body are nothing more than containers for consciousness and experience, and that's the theme of The Super Chapai, the</b> core idea it really wants to convey. My purpose in making "Super Cha Pai" is to make everyone realize this. <b>If the audience can realize this after watching it, then they will understand the heart of "Super Cha Pai". </b>
Mtime: Chapai at the end of the film is a bit of a creator, and he decides to save his inventor, and his "mother" Yulandi. Do you think there is a unified principle for chapai to save people? How would he decide who deserved to be saved?
Neil: You see, in the movie, the person Chapai cares about the most is probably Yulandi, his mother. So saving her must have been Chapai's purpose at that time. If Chapai can, he will eventually try to save everyone, but the first stage of the rescue operation, transforming Yulandi into a robot, so that she can survive, is naturally Chapai's primary goal, and the audience may not realize this until the end of the movie.
<b>The Super Chapai also explores the proposition of nature vs. upbringing</b>
Judging from the concept of the film itself, Chapai is good all along, and there is no evil in him. It is <b>precisely because of Cha Pai's pure heart that he will eventually save everyone, and</b> in his heart there is no such question as who deserves to be saved and who is not worth living. He will keep everyone alive.
Mtiime: So in the world of Chapai, everyone will end up being saved?
Neil: Exactly.
Mtime: Following this direction, Earth will soon become a planet of robots...
Neal: Exactly. According to the film's philosophy, <b>Chapai will eventually help humanity and humanity achieve immortality. </b>As humans are uploaded into bodies that are indestructible or can be constantly repaired, <b>eternal life becomes a great gift from artificial intelligence to humanity. This is the future of humanity that I want to hint at in the movie. </b>
Mtime: Could "Super Cha Pai" have ended with this?
Neil: Well, that's the way it ended, but this future didn't happen directly, but if the ending of the movie can be extended, the picture of the future of chapai's world is just like what we just said.
<b>▌ "Uncle Wolf" playing the villain is actually the director's "heart machine"</b>
Mtime: The cass combination in this film is very interesting. In addition to answering the band's ninjas and Yulandi, you also got Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver. One of them has played the indestructible "Wolverine", and the other is the tough "Alien Queen". They both have iconic heroic images on the screen, but their characters in "Super Chapai" are cowardly and finally destroyed by Chapai. This setting is interesting, did you arrange it on purpose?
<b>The villain positioning of "Uncle Wolf" is surprising</b>
Neil: Yeah, that clever contrast was exactly what I meant. <b>I wanted the actors to have a strong gap between their performances in the film and the audience's consistent expectations of them. </b>Of course, whether Chinese audiences will feel the same contrast will have to wait until everyone finishes watching it. I hope this setting makes everyone feel interesting.
Mtime: Do you think the technology in the film that transfers human consciousness and senses to machines and devices is possible in the future?
Neil: Interestingly, in the process of making Super Chapai, my understanding of this issue has changed fundamentally. At the beginning of the creation of "Super Chapai", I believed that artificial intelligence would definitely be realized in the future. At that time, I felt that artificial intelligence was a natural result of technological development. However, as I became more and more involved in Super Chapai, I began to feel that this was not the case. I came across as to believe that there was a force beyond technology, a force far greater than the current science of mankind, that would prevent computers from creating living beings through binary algorithms and programming, giving birth to sensory consciousness and artificial intelligence.
The filming of "Super Chapai" also matured my way of thinking about artificial intelligence, and also led to a reversal of my position on this issue. My understanding of the possibility of uploading consciousness into a machine has also undergone a shift from identity to denial. I think that this kind of thing cannot be transformed into solid data, nor can it be explained clearly by science. My personal opinion is that this is not going to happen for a long, long time, not even in hundreds of years. Amazingly, before Super Chapai, I really believed in artificial intelligence.
<b>▌ The new Alien strives to restore the original Alien Universe</b>
Mtime: Is your next movie the new Alien? How do you plan to write your own chapter in the existing Alien Universe?
<b>Alien concept map by Blomkamp</b>
Neal: Yes, the new Alien movie is my next work, if nothing else. The existing Alien Universe is already perfect, and I don't think there is any room I can rewrite. <b>My goal is to bring the world in the new Alien as close as possible to the feeling it was in the first two Alien films. </b>I hope that after watching it, the audience will not feel that it is not the alien universe they first entered. That's my ultimate goal.