Gareth Edwards
The Creator

I don't watch a lot of contemporary mainstream science fiction films, with a few exceptions of very entertaining movies like Pacific Rim or Edge of Tomorrow, blockbuster pure entertainment that are cult classics for me in the genre; or the highly underrated Alita by Rodriguez. A different case is the more intimate science fiction of smaller and independent films like Another Earth or auteur masterpieces like Melancholia.

The Creator by Gareth Edwards is an exception, a film that involved and moved me as rarely happens, specifically, in the realm of high-budget science fiction.

Initially, The Creator gives the impression of a typical manichean production with humans at war against a wicked enemy, and of course, the good guys are the Americans who will save the world from the artificial intelligence they themselves created but which, fatally, turned against them.

However, the perspective is flipped, revealing the true nature of The Creator as a fundamentally anti-war film and not at all gentle with America and the Americans. Considering the current times, it’s not a given, and indeed, this intention is immensely commendable.

Thus, it is a very timely film in this regard. But what makes the film very moving is the relationship between the protagonist and the child/weapon Alphie, which immediately lays bare one of the great references of the work, namely, obviously, AKIRA.

Besides Otomo's masterpiece, other explicit references are clearly Blade Runner, Terminator 2, the aforementioned Alita, and Vietnam War movies. Pervading the work is also, at certain moments, a Spielbergian taste for the strongest and purest emotions, perhaps Hollywoodian (in the best sense of the term), that touch delicate chords and deep feelings.

There are also strong hints of spirituality, which, although not thoroughly explored, do not appear banal or trite at all, rather the opposite.

Even in the most technologically advanced world possible, there will always be wars, and we will never stop pondering God and Paradise. Both humans and machines will share the same torments.

The Creator may seem derivative at first glance, but while gathering tributes and influences, and in the realization that nothing can be original nowadays, it speaks its mind on complex themes that will not remain a science fiction topic for much longer. In fact, even now, they are becoming less so. Beyond what concerns humanity from the dawn of time and will never cease to do so.

The Creator combines blockbuster, cyberpunk, anti-militarist war films, and intimate science fiction together, achieving in its own way a small miracle. And perhaps it is for this reason that it performed below expectations at the box office.