The Ending Of The Creator Explained
Love, death, and robots? "The Creator" weaves some interesting philosophy into its futuristic tale of AI, so let's break down the themes of the film and unpack that explosive ending.
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00:00 Love, death, and robots?
00:03 The Creator weaves some interesting philosophy into its futuristic tale of AI.
00:08 So let's break down the themes of the film and unpack that explosive ending.
00:12 Spoilers ahead!
00:15 The Creator begins by setting the cinematic table for its sci-fi universe.
00:19 Using the device of a vintage newsreel to explain the retro-futurist tone of the film,
00:24 the rise of artificial intelligence is explained as starting from simple robotics that leads
00:28 to independent thinking entities.
00:30 The evolution of these creations ultimately culminates in the look of the AI characters
00:35 seen throughout the movie.
00:36 The newsreel is interrupted, however, by footage of Los Angeles being decimated by a nuclear
00:41 blast.
00:42 This devastating act of violence is blamed on AI.
00:45 It's explained that before the explosion, the USA not only banned AI outright, but made
00:51 it their mission to eradicate the new beings from the planet.
00:54 This is easier said than done.
00:56 By this point in human history, the AI have achieved sentience, and the remnants of their
01:00 race are protected by the Republic of New Asia.
01:03 Though the nations are not at war, the United States has constructed a massive space station
01:07 called NOMAD.
01:09 This weapons platform can hunt and destroy AI communities from orbit without actually
01:14 invading neighboring countries.
01:16 This drives the world into a new Cold War.
01:19 This new Cold War needs spies, and one of the most successful and deadly is the Special
01:24 Forces soldier Joshua Taylor.
01:26 His mission in the Creator is to infiltrate New Asia, gather intel, and most importantly,
01:32 find the creator of the AI, Nirmata.
01:35 During his infiltration, he discovers a woman named Maya, who is allegedly Nirmata's daughter.
01:40 Taylor falls in love with the young woman, and it changes his life forever.
01:45 Before long, Maya becomes pregnant with his child.
01:47 However, his new life is destroyed when a former ally, Drew, arrives and is captured
01:52 by the AI insurgent leader, Haroon.
01:55 When he's brought to Taylor for interrogation, Maya learns of her love's true identity and
01:59 flees.
02:01 Taylor desperately tries to stop her, but he can't rescue her.
02:04 NOMAD fires, and she and her unborn child are killed.
02:09 Five years later, a broken Taylor lives in the ruins of Los Angeles.
02:13 He works on a cleanup crew in the remains of the city.
02:15 There he's approached by General Andrews and Colonel Howell with a new mission.
02:19 They want Taylor to go back to New Asia with a strike team to infiltrate Nirmata's new
02:24 lab, which they believe harbors a superweapon known only as Alpha-O.
02:28 Taylor refuses until they show him footage of Maya, still alive.
02:32 As he deploys back to the land he briefly called home, he discovers the lab and AI living
02:37 below a human village, attempting to coexist with humanity.
02:41 It's a potent image of enemies working to find a way to live together in peace, but
02:45 Taylor continues with the raid, which quickly goes bad.
02:49 He searches for any sign of Maya in the chaos, but instead finds Alpha-O, which isn't a weapon
02:55 at all.
02:56 Instead, it's a young robot girl named Alfie, who has been locked away in secret.
03:00 "Did you locate the weapon?"
03:02 "Yeah, it's here."
03:04 "It's a kid."
03:06 He captures the girl and intends to trade her for Maya's safety.
03:09 He and his captive flee the encampment just before NOMAD destroys everything.
03:13 As Taylor makes his way to rendezvous with his superiors, he discovers the girl's true
03:17 power.
03:19 She can remotely control anything electronic within a short radius around her.
03:23 Upon this discovery, he refuses to kill the child, and instead enlists her help to find
03:28 Maya.
03:29 However, Alfie insists that Maya is in heaven, a place she says neither she nor Taylor can
03:33 go.
03:35 Taylor and Alfie make their way across New Asia and find Drew living a quiet life in
03:39 a sim factory, along with his sim partner, Cammie.
03:43 When Drew examines Alfie, he discovers that she's aging like a normal human.
03:47 Along with this, he realizes that her powers are growing, too, and she will eventually
03:51 be able to control all technology on the planet.
03:54 In a practical sense, this power will effectively make Alfie a god.
03:58 Unfortunately, the authorities find them.
04:00 But before Drew dies, he helps Taylor follow the tracker in Maya's wedding ring.
04:05 They discover that she's at the beach house where the lovers lived before the initial
04:08 attack.
04:09 It's also revealed that Maya is, in fact, near Mada.
04:13 The AI leader Harun takes Taylor and Alfie back to his village, where he refuses to help
04:18 them reach Maya.
04:19 Instead, he wants to take the nascent god to Nomad so she can destroy it.
04:23 "How could anyone survive that?"
04:25 "She won't."
04:27 Even though it's a suicide mission, Harun is willing to force that sacrifice, because
04:31 the destruction of the station will usher in a new era of peace.
04:35 Harun's plan is never put into action, though, because the military attacks the AI's village.
04:41 Taylor tries to flee with Alfie, but she insists on staying to help her people.
04:45 "They've come for me.
04:46 I have to help."
04:48 She's injured in the battle, and Harun finally agrees to take Taylor and Alfie to Maya.
04:53 Taylor and Maya are finally reunited.
04:56 Near Mada has been in a coma for five years, watched over by monks who refuse to take her
05:00 off life support.
05:02 It's at this point that Taylor learns that Alfie was built by Maya shortly before the
05:06 Nomad attack.
05:08 The young girl is based on scans of Maya's unborn child, so in a way, Taylor is Alfie's
05:13 father.
05:14 She begs Taylor to release Maya and let her die, and he agrees.
05:18 AI believe that their consciousnesses can't move on to the next life without being reborn
05:23 through death.
05:24 This ties into the creators' exploration of the nature of creation through destruction.
05:29 At this point, the human forces attack again.
05:31 Taylor and Alfie are captured, and in a dark irony, Taylor is hailed as a hero for finally
05:36 destroying near Mada.
05:39 In Los Angeles again, the powers that be want Taylor to kill his daughter using an EMP.
05:44 He rigs the device to temporarily put her on standby and escapes with her deactivated
05:49 body.
05:50 Once again, the creator explores the very nature of death.
05:54 The father and daughter make it to a spaceport, where Alfie is revived and uses her tech-controlling
05:58 powers to take her and Taylor to Nomad.
06:01 It's a race against time to prevent Nomad from destroying the last of the AI settlements.
06:06 They're able to stop the destruction in the nick of time, and in the chaos, Taylor sacrifices
06:11 himself so that Alfie can escape Nomad moments before its destruction.
06:16 Throughout The Creator, Taylor is shown to be heavily bigoted against AI, viewing them
06:20 as nothing more than mere machines, despite their obvious individuality and sentience.
06:25 As he keeps saying,
06:26 "They're not people, Maya.
06:29 It's just programming."
06:31 Complicating matters further is the fact that human beings are able to donate their likenesses
06:36 to the Simulants, meaning that a number of Sims share the same face and voice, including
06:41 Maya's.
06:42 Taylor's journey throughout the film involves coming to grips with those beliefs, and growing
06:46 as a result.
06:47 Thanks to his experience with Maya, and especially Alfie, Taylor comes around to seeing how concepts
06:52 like existence and humanity aren't limited to one's physical body, and that human beings
06:57 are susceptible to programming as much as any robot is.
07:00 There's an ambiguity to the film's philosophy as well as its characters.
07:04 Taylor tells Maya that his love was real after she discovers his dual identity, and he's
07:08 both right and wrong in that moment.
07:11 During the movie, Taylor learns that what is real is subjective.
07:14 He especially learns how blurred reality can be when he comes face-to-face with a Sim of
07:19 Maya.
07:20 One of the devices Howell uses to extract info from her prey is a scanner that can map
07:24 the brain patterns of a person, seemingly only after they've died.
07:28 And she uses this scanner on Maya just before she herself perishes.
07:33 Taylor takes that memory card from the device up to Nomad, where Alfie downloads it into
07:37 a Sim with her mother's face on it.
07:40 It allows the repentant Taylor to reunite with her one last time, the lovers embracing
07:44 as Nomad explodes, a Sim and a human truly united.
07:50 The creator cleverly references a great deal of human history within its runtime.
07:54 Those references actually serve a dual purpose.
07:57 From the opening newsreel to the needle drops to the production design and more, director
08:01 Gareth Edwards recalls many of the major conflicts throughout the 20th century, from World War
08:06 II to Vietnam.
08:07 "This film's a melting pot of movies I grew up loving.
08:11 A Vietnam movie mixed with robotic sci-fi."
08:16 Thus the war between AI and humanity in the film isn't an allegory for one particular
08:21 war, but war as a constant, an enemy of love, understanding, and peace.
08:26 When Alfie and Taylor discuss their ability to go to heaven, Nomad is directly referenced
08:31 through a POV edit.
08:32 Nomad itself has a duality.
08:34 Like an angry Old Testament god, it rains down destruction from above.
08:39 Complete with a targeting crosshair that resembles the cross at times, it's also where Alfie
08:43 brings salvation to both intelligent species on Earth, and where Taylor and Maya are forever
08:48 reunited.
08:49 The remains of Nomad crash down to Earth, and the military forces of the USA scowl while
08:54 the people of New Asia, especially the AI, rejoice in victory.
08:58 As Haroon explained to Taylor earlier in the film, the attack on LA was actually a mere
09:02 coding error, and if or when AI won the war, the West would be left alone.
09:07 "We only want to live in peace."
09:10 The chapter titles for the film — The Creator, The Child, The Friend, The Mother — are
09:15 as ambiguous and analogous as much of the movie's content, further developing its mythological
09:20 underpinnings.
09:21 What they really do is indicate the cyclical nature of life, as well as the intertwining
09:26 of destruction and creation, of rebirth through death.
09:31 Just as Taylor and Maya became new people after the death of their parents, so Alfie
09:35 will become one too.
09:37 It's utterly fitting, then, that Alfie's expression upon safely landing back on Earth is a mixed
09:42 one.
09:43 She's devastated at her loss, and elated at what has been gained for both herself and
09:48 millions of others.
09:49 In all respects, a new world has been created.
09:53 Pretty fly for an AI.
09:54 "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do this."
09:55 "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do this."
09:56 "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do this."
09:57 "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do this."
09:57 (upbeat music)