CHAPPiE is a movie about a police robot with advanced artificial intelligence who gets kidnapped by gangsters. However, the true story of the movie is told through allegory and symbols: CHAPPiE is about the abandonment of old religions for a new, futuristic, transhumanist religion.
Warning: Massive spoilers ahead!
CHAPPiE was created by Neill Blomkamp’s, the South African director who is also behind District 9 and Elysium. As in his two previous films, Blomkamp hides a deeper message beneath the guns, the robots and the gangsters, one that even goes in the spiritual realm.
At first glance, the movie appears to be an odd mix of science fiction and Zef aesthetics (South African street culture championed by the rap duo Die Antwoord, who also star in the movie), but there is more than enough symbolism, mainly Biblical, to read a second level of interpretation. Indeed, the story of a sentient robot that becomes aware of its own “mortality” (its battery is dying out) evokes religious and existential questions in the real world where intelligent robots are just about to mix with humanity. However, the movie does not raise its questions or invite reflection. It simply proposes an answer. And that answer can apparently accomplish what religions have been promising since the dawn of time: Immortality. The answer CHAPPiE provides? Transhumanism.
Transhumanism
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