It has been seven years since Gareth Edwards directed, for me, the best of the new generation of Star Wars films, Rogue One. Having made Godzilla before that, it’s nice to see him return with a more personal project, a big, bold, beautiful, if flawed sci-fi epic.
It’s still pretty derivative, in an open way, with nods to everything from Terminator, Blade Runner and District 9, to Apocalypse Now, among others, the connecting themes being the confrontation between humankind and technology, American militarism, fear of the other. Usefully, all of this chimes with the current, fiery and fearmongering debate about the advance of artificial intelligence.
Ultimately, Edwards and co-writer Chris Weitz fail to make enough of their scenario’s potential; the script’s not that good. But, visually, the film is another matter entirely, Edwards combining exotic location shooting with seamless CGI, endless invention and flair, to offer a staggering exercise in world-building.
It opens with a speedy prologue introducing the advent of advanced AI, which is handed the keys to America’s defence systems, only for Los Angeles to be nuked by those very protectors, killing millions. So far, so Terminator. But is it?
What can I say – I enjoyed it, even with it’s flaws.
It’s still pretty derivative, in an open way, with nods to everything from Terminator, Blade Runner and District 9, to Apocalypse Now, among others, the connecting themes being the confrontation between humankind and technology, American militarism, fear of the other. Usefully, all of this chimes with the current, fiery and fearmongering debate about the advance of artificial intelligence.
Everything you can say about The Creator’s ‘lack of originality’ you can say about Edwards’ ‘Godzilla’ and ‘La La Land.’ Those other films are scored at 76% and 91%, respectively. Additionally, Godzilla - that tired old reboot of the same movie we’ve re-watched for the past fifty years - made $524,976,069 worldwide. La La Land - that stale celebration of Hollywood musicals - $151,058,124 at the domestic box office.
Shame on Gareth Edwards for making accessible science fiction for a worldwide audience - wasn’t he thinking about the poor, angry nerds who want ‘original scifi’ despite the fact that they refuse to articulate what ‘original’ means and they refuse to create their own ‘original’ scifi and subject it to the same hostile market they make up?
I’m being sarcastic for a reason - The Creator is AMAZING scifi. It doesn’t matter if TheArtsDesk.com dunks on it - If I’m still carrying a 2012 award on the banner of my website, the LAST thing I’d be doing is casting aspersions on anyone with the guts and the grit to go out there and actually try to do something that celebrates everything we love about the science fiction genre. I’m not a marketing guy for Gareth Edwards, but credit where credit is due - we need to support original, imperfect scifi if we want to see more of it.
Deride The Creator at your own peril - lest you be damned to another 10 years of MCU and Fast and the Furious movies.
Totally agree. Also worth mentioning that this was shot guerrilla style on a sub 100M budget with a camera you can get at Best Buy. That alone makes this one of the most impressive sci fi movies made in the modern age considering how beautiful and coherent it is compared to literally everything else being released by Hollywood. Maybe they should have put a little behind the scenes featurette at the beginning of the movie so the dullards actually understood what they were watching.
IMO it was a pretty average, totally fine blockbuster film.
It had some massive plot holes, like the nations of advanced AI being extremely stupid, not networked together and having no surveillance.
It just could have been much more interesting and better written. I wish it took some inspiration from the AI in The Culture books, that’s a much more nuanced take than “humans made of metal and electronic bits”.
