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)