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.

You can build a brain the size of a room, theoretically. You could also build a silicone based life form and it could be sentient. There's no limit to the height that you can reach in terms of design once we figure out how to design things, theoretically.

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.

News is almost more interesting to me than other people's fiction, if that makes sense. But other people's fiction in terms of design is still incredibly interesting to me.

I was touching on the idea of the autonomous militaristic or autonomous law enforcement idea, but it wasn't the primary driving force.

'Chappie' would be like 'RoboCop,' but hilarious. If you mixed 'Robocop' with 'E.T.' and it was... funny, that's what it is.

If you look at the most meaningful science fiction, it didn't come from watching other films. We seem to be in a place now where filmmakers make films based on other films because that's where the stimuli and influence comes from.