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

You have weak artificial intelligence, which is a robot or a computer system that follows a list of protocols and it's like yes/no answers that can be as complex as you want, and then you have strong A.I., which is basically like a human, like something that can think up a thought that's never been thought up or paint a painting or write a poem.

There has to be the popcorn genre element, or I don't engage the same way. I like action and vehicle design and guns and computer graphics as much as I like allegory. It's a constant balancing game. I want audiences to be on this rollercoaster that fits the Hollywood mould, but I also want them to absorb my observations.

I've learned more, and I understand the process a bit better now. I can try to see how long I want to take in each aspect of the filmmaking process, and then arrive at around the two-year end mark.

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.

The fact that natural selection and evolution crafted essentially carbon and water into a mechanism that can think and be conscious means there's nothing in physics that says you cannot do that to a greater degree.

It's just my maybe naive, optimistic view that whatever knowledge we gain, and if it comes to pass that we can somehow understand what consciousness is, if we can somehow create that, it will ultimately be used for the good.