Chappie (stylized as CHAPPiE) is a 2015 American science fiction film directed by Neill Blomkamp.
~~PLOT~~
In an effort to combat a record high crime rate in the city of Johannesburg, the South African government purchases a squadron of state-of-the-art, armor-plated A.I. attack robots from American weapons manufacturer Tetravaal, developed by British engineer Deon Wilson. A competing project is the remotely controlled MOOSE, developed by Australian soldier-turned-engineer Vincent Moore.
The robots are an instant success, wiping out some of the city’s most powerful drug and organized crime gangs in a matter of months, and before long, Tetravaal move their main headquarters to Johannesburg. Deon receives plenty of recognition for the company’s success, but Vincent grows jealous when the police are unwilling to give his heavy weapons platform equal attention.
At home, Deon creates a prototype artificial intelligence that mimics a human mind to the point of feeling emotions and having opinions, but Tetravaal CEO Michelle Bradley refuses to let him test the A.I. on a police robot.
Undeterred, Deon steals a recently damaged robot before it is destroyed and puts it in his van, along with the “guard key” needed to update the robot’s software.
On his way home, he is kidnapped by a group of gangsters, Ninja, Yolandi, and Amerika, who threaten to kill him unless he reprograms a police robot to fight for them.
Deon installs the new software into the damaged robot, which responds with childlike terror upon powering up. Deon and Yolandi calm the robot, teaching it words and naming it “Chappie“.
Growing up we are told many things,
One being, you can do anything.
But somewhere between child and adult,
Things change and we no longer sing.
Life takes on a whole different meaning,
From what we may have first believed.
We all get so caught up in what life expects,
And forget what we all could achieve.
Whoever told you, you weren’t allow,
To follow all of your dreams?
Was it someone who took away your dream,
Or was it you who was afraid of your schemes.
Whatever the reason, I now must ask,
Why not you, don’t you think
It’s time for you to take control of your life,
So you’ll be happy to look back with no regret.
~~Published on May 19, 2015~~
We all have different “why’s”.
Whether it is for one’s own pleasure or for the deeper purpose it’s not always about finding the answers, sometimes you just need to be asking the right questions.
“It has become extremely plausible, in our culture, that this trip between the maternity ward and the crematorium is what there is to life. And we still have going into our common sense the 19th century myth, which succeeded the ceramic myth in Western history – I call it “The Fully Automatic Model”: Man is a little germ that lives on an unimportant rock ball, that revolves about an insignificant star on the outer edges of one of the smaller galaxies. But on the other hand, if you think about that for a few minutes … I am absolutely amazed to discover myself on this rock ball, rotating around this spherical fire … it’s a very odd situation! And the more I look at things, I cannot get rid of the feeling that existence is quite weird.
You see, a philosopher is sort of intellectual yokel who gawks at things that sensible people take for granted. And sensible people say, existence, it’s nothing at all, just go on and do something. See, this is the current movement in philosophy, “logical analysis”, which says: you mustn’t think about existence, it’s a meaningless concept. Therefore, philosophy has become the discussion of trivia. No good philosopher lies awake nights, worrying about the destiny of Man, and the nature of God, and that sort of thing. Because a philosopher today is a practical fellow who comes to the university with a briefcase at 9:00 and leaves at 5:00. He “does philosophy” during the day, which is discussing whether certain sentences have meaning and if so what, and – as William Earle said in a very funny essay – he would come to work in a white coat if he thought he could get away with it.
The problem is: he’s lost his sense of wonder. Wonder is in modern philosophy something one mustn’t have… it’s like enthusiasm in 18th century England: very bad form. But you see, I don’t know what question to ask when I wonder about the universe. It isn’t a question that I’m wondering about, it’s a feeling that I have. Because I cannot formulate the question that is my wonder. The moment my mouth opens to talk about it I suddenly find I’m talking nonsense.
But that should not prevent wonder from being the foundation of philosophy.”
