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A production still of the motion capture work done to film the Scout Robots in action. Courtesy Distribution Company L.P. and Columbia Pictures
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Blomkamp scale model of the "Moose" robot from Chappie. Courtesy Distribution Company L.P. and Columbia Pictures
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Concept art for the "Moose" (Chappie's bad guy). Courtesy Distribution Company L.P. and Columbia Pictures
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A bit of early artwork for the Tetravaal workshop.Courtesy Distribution Company L.P. and Columbia Pictures
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A piece of concept art for the "Moos Room" control chair. Courtesy Distribution Company L.P. and Columbia Pictures
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Concept art for Tetravaal, the robotics company in Chappie. Courtesy Distribution Company L.P. and Columbia Pictures
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Concept art for the Scout Robot. Courtesy Distribution Company L.P. and Columbia Pictures
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Some concept art for Die Antwoord's vehicle in the film. Courtesy Distribution Company L.P. and Columbia Pictures
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Concept art of Chappie painting. Courtesy Distribution Company L.P. and Columbia Pictures
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Concept art of Deon (later played by Dev Patel) repairing Chappie while Yo-Landi Vi$$er (left) and Ninja (right) look on. Courtesy Distribution Company L.P. and Columbia Pictures
“Wait, was that Die Antwoord?!”
These were our exact words when the first trailer for Chappie dropped. (Well, kinda.) And while it wasn’t totally beyond the realm of possibility that the South African rave-rap group would appear in a film by their countryman Neill Blomkamp, it is a big sci-fi action film, and it is Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er, so, like, WTF? Turns out, Die Antwoord were a huge influence on Blomkamp’s script.
“There was this really weird crossover that happened while I was writing Elysium—and Elysium has a lot of robotics in it—at the same time I was listening to a lot of Die Antwoord’s tracks,” Blomkamp says in the intro to the book Chappie: The Art of the Movie . “All of a sudden I got this idea for this robot—like the Elysium robots, it was a kind of police/security machine—being hijacked by this band that I was listening to. I don’t know where the hell that idea came from, but that was the genesis for Chappie.”
Their influence, of course, transcended music. The members of Die Antwoord play more over-the-top (if that’s possible) versions of themselves and befriend the childlike robot Chappie (Sharlto Copley, hidden beneath CGI). They were so much a part of Blomkamp’s vision that they appear in early concept art for the film, illustrated versions of themselves in various scenes. (Not appearing as a version of himself: Dev Patel, who plays Deon Wilson in the movie, but whose character looks much different in these early images.)
Check out those early drawings of Ninja and Vi$$er, as well as other behind-the-scenes images from Blomkamp’s movie.
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