Share this:

**Spoilers**

Just got to see Chappie finally, it was good and I never expected that “transhumanism-ish” turn it takes at the end. A lot of religious references like referring to the inventor as the “creator” or when Yolandi says
This is just a shell, who you are is on the inside, when you die you just go to the next place..
and how when Chappie finds out that he’s “broken” and his battery can’t be changed he gets mad and tells “the creator”
I hate you, why would you create me just so I could die..
and he responds to that by just saying
You’re so much more than I ever expected you to be…
So basically we’re all just invented, broken, mistakes, life has no meaning and that’s why everyone’s crazy. Not even “the creator” has the answers.
It has the same creepy undertones as ‘Transcendence’ and ‘Ex Machina’, but a less serious/more fun take on it.
The Die Antwoord parts, as themselves, were cool too and something about Yolandi is always entertaining to me. I did expect a cameo because I saw the trailer and the director (who’s also from South Africa) is a fan, but they were a huge part of the movie. The guy that plays America (which was an odd name for a vato, have fun figuring that out) overacted that part right to the Brink of corniness.
Chappie’s a lovable innocent character until you realize he’s naive and hasn’t been around long enough to learn and distrust. Like when he says
Why are humans like that, why do you lie all the time?
and when he finds out that he’s gona die in a few days he he’s pissed and says
You told me I could be anything never let anyone tell me that I can’t do something…
A.I. is terrifying and if it’s ever invented to the point of walking around freely with posable thumbs and the ability to fix itself, change it’s battery, and create more robots it will be the end of our world as we know it. Even if the a.i. never starts to look at us as a virus, just the simple addition of more “living” things and the loss of countless jobs in an overpopulated world would be devastating.
Like when Chappie is finally able to get online he says
Everything man has ever known is on here, every schematic every blueprint everything…
And then teaches himself to fuckin’ download consciousness and transfer it to other robots, or like in Ex Machina when the guy says
One day our a.i. overlords will look back on us the way we look at cavemen, dumb hairy apes with crude tools just waiting for extinction..
They also show the power hungry war-mongering human side with the mullet headed ex-military character played by Hugh Jackman and his giant human-controlled robot armed to the teeth with carpet bombs, rockets, missiles, a belt-fed (probably .50 cal) machine gun, rocket boosters so it can almost fly, giant (opposite of “jaws of life”) type scissor hand that cuts through people like butter, and infrared/night vision (but no bullet-proof glass over the camera).
In the end, both inventors worked at a weapons/defense company trying to figure out the best and most efficient way to kill.