Writer/director and all-round sci-fi maven Neill Blomkamp has just announced his official entry to the Aliens universe but before Aliens 5 gets up and running, he has the small matter of Chappie to introduce to the world. This new clip introduces the childlike robot to the tooled-up side of the tracks as a couple of bad 'uns set him on the path to weaponisation. Click on the video to see what we mean.
Chappie's prime directive is to serve as a police robot. By this point in proceedings, however, he's had his inner workings manipulated sufficiently to be putty in the hands of a couple of Johannesburg gangsters. "E.T. if it was set in Detroit" is how its creator frames it. A heavily-armed E.T.
Performance-captured and furnished with a childlike innocence by District 9 and Elysium actor Sharlto Copley, Chappie is a robot like no other. Not least for its floppy ears. "I wanted the robot to feel functional, real and utilitarian," Blomkamp tells **Empire **in the new issue. "But then I threw those weird rabbit ears in."
Expect plenty of similar design quirks and Blomkamp's trademark world-building prowess on display when Chappie hits UK cinemas on March 6.