New Trailer for ‘Chappie’ Focuses on Conflict, Plot

While the first trailer for Neil Blomkamp’s Chappie gave us a sense of the continuing visual style of Blomkamp and his unique vision of robotics, it left fans clamoring for a more detailed look into the world of the film. The newest trailer for Chappie does precisely that, providing us with a better idea of the conflict at the heart of the story and the key roles by the cast members of where they fall within the story.

Directed and written by Blomkamp (with his wife, Terri Tatchell, co-writing), Chappie stars frequent Blomkamp collaborator Sharlto Copley (District 9) as ‘Chappie’, with supporting turns from Hugh Jackman (Prisoners), Sigourney Weaver (Alien), Dev Patel (HBO’s The Newsroom), and South African rap group Die Antwoord (Yo-landi Visser and Ninja).

The trailer continues some of the themes Blomkamp worked into his first two films, District 9 and Elysium. There’s the socio-political relationship between robotics and urban decay, with a large part of the film appearing to take place in some sort of housing project where the titular robot develops relationships and learns human emotions. There’s also the incorporation of social commentaries involving consciousness and existentialism.

Chappie tells the story of a robot who gets kidnapped by South African gangsters and begins to develop an attachment to them, but both his existence and theirs is threatened by bureaucratic forces (with Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver serving as the main antagonists). Chappie will be released on March 6th, 2015.