History Film / TheCreator2023

* {{Foreshadowing}}:

* ArtisticLicenseExplosives: The grenade that the robot police throw at Joshua and the others is timed to explode at ''twelve'' seconds, as clearly shown on the display. Actual grenades have fuses that last 4-5 seconds, and are sometimes "cooked off" for a second before throwing precisely to prevent the targets having enough time to throw them back - much less have a dog ''lazily deposit the grenade back at the thrower's feet". Needless to say, a display that clearly shows how long the target has to safely throw it back would also be an ''extremely'' counter-productive feature.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: Whether NOMAD is a few miles in the atmosphere, a few dozen miles in the atmosphere, or actually in space on an orbital trajectory somewhere above the Karman line is unclear.[[note]]NOMAD stands for North American ''Orbital'' Mobile Aerospace Defense.[[/note]] Judging by the scale of Joshua, NOMAD seems to be no more than a couple kilometers long. When viewed from the ground, it looks fairly large, as if it's relatively close to the ground, flying like a commercial airliner. But later, it's shown to be much higher, at a point where there's vacuum outside. There is also a brief shot during the shuttle takeoff where the moon is way bigger than it should be.

** While NOMAD is capable of striking a target anywhere on the planet from high orbit, it seems to like to get up-close and personal, descending into atmosphere and hovering a few miles in the air right over the target zone. Had any insurgents brought a decent anti-air rocket, they could have done decent damage to it, especially since the film does not demonstrate any point-defense capabilities on NOMAD's part.

* AmbiguousSituation: The exact events that led to the [[spoiler:nuking of Los Angeles]] are never shown, and the two explanations for what happened are given by people who directly benefit from their version of events. Which side is lying, or if either actually knows the truth at all, is unclear.

* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: Many AI robots are given android bodies. They exhibit a full range of standard human expressions and reactions. They eat, drink, wear clothes, and even sleep like a human when recharging. Choking them also seems to have a similar effect as it does on humans. One robot is even shown ''smoking.'' And they eat and enjoy ice cream. Despite one line (from Colonel Howell) about A.I. being smarter, they all appear to have human-level intelligence and reaction time, too.

* NukeEm: The American-designed spaceship ''Nomad'' was designed for the purpose of bombing A.I bases in New Asia [[spoiler:In the climax, the Americans prepare to destroy the remaining AI bases in New Asia, regardless of if they're located in human-occupied cities or not.]]

* VillainousBreakdown: Downplayed, but [[spoiler:when Andrews realizes he's been {{Outgambitted}} by Joshua and Alphie and are on a direct course for NOMAD to destroy it, he orders an ''immediate firing'' of its entire payload across the planet in hopes of annihilating the last holdouts of the AI Resistance spread out so that its destruction wouldn't matter in the event they can't stop them since NOMAD's purpose would have been fulfilled either way and the war would be over, [[AMillionIsAStatistic regardless of the massive amount of civilian causalities that would ensue]] due to many holdouts hiding in major New Asia cities. He manages to get a couple of their bases, but the remaining warheads go undetonated when Joshua's rigged detonation of the remaining missile stuck within NOMAD to go off and implode the entire station, severing the connection while Andrews looks hopelessly defeated as [[AllForNothing he realizes the war right at that moment is lost]].]]

* ArtisticLicense-Physics: Whether NOMAD is a few miles in the atmosphere, a few dozen miles in the atmosphere, or actually in space on an orbital trajectory somewhere above the Karman line is unclear.[[note]]NOMAD stands for North American ''Orbital'' Mobile Aerospace Defense.[[/note]] Judging by the scale of Joshua, NOMAD seems to be no more than a couple kilometers long. When viewed from the ground, it looks fairly large, as if it's relatively close to the ground, flying like a commercial airliner. But later, it's shown to be much higher, at a point where there's vacuum outside. There is also a brief shot during the shuttle takeoff where the moon is way bigger than it should be.

* DissonantSerenity: Alphie is a very subdued child, rarely responding to the deaths and chaos that surrounds her.

* AIIsACrapshoot: ArtificialIntelligence is said to have turned against humanity (by nuking Los Angeles ala [[Franchise/{{Terminator}} Judgment Day]]) and is hunted by it as a result. [[spoiler: Subverted when it's revealed by Harun that the nuke detonating in Los Angeles was a result of human error and the Americans blamed the A.I for it.]]

** Colonel Howell is a sympathetic person who is in the fight because both her sons were [[spoiler: supposedly]] killed in the war against AI, one being tortured to death by insurgents. Even after Joshua shows signs of going native, she offers to cover things up and let him be a hero if he helps complete the mission. That said, she's still committed to wiping out AI and shows little remorse over killing any human sympathizers. [[spoiler:Of course, given how much else she lies about, it's entirely possible that she never had any children at all.]]

* BadassAndChildDuo: Joshua and Alphie become this over time, [[spoiler: which is especially true in the climax, as they're the ones who stop the conflict between humans and robots]].

* BigDoor: During the American commandos' raid on the A.I lab, Alphie is shown to be kept beneath one of these
* BilingualDialogue: As the film goes on, it becomes increasingly common for some New Asians to say a line in English while otherwise having conversations between each other in their native languages, even when no Americans are present.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:''Nomad'' is brought down, ending the super-station's threat to New Asia and their robots, and Alphie survives to live on with humanity, but Joshua dies on board the doom-base in the sky as it explodes, which took a bunch of A.I. bases with it.]]

* InterchangeableAsianCultures: "New Asia" is apparently a unified nation of various South and Southeast Asian countries. Scenes in New Asia show a broad hodgepodge of Asian cultures.
* IronicEcho: During Joshua's clean-up job at Los Angeles Ground Zero, he and his partner comes across an active and struggling robot in the ruins, and Joshua calms his distraught partner by saying "It's not real, it's just programming." [[spoiler:After the US Army captures and separates Joshua and Alfie, one of them attempts to calm Joshua down (while injecting him with a tranquilizer) that Alfie "is not real, it's just programming".]]

* InterspeciesAdoption: Seems to be quite prevalent amongst robots with human children, since they can’t have any of their own.

** The [[MessianicArchetype liberator of humanity]] is named Joshua, which is the English version of the Hebrew name ''Yeshua'' - or UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} in Greek. [[spoiler: This is played with in the end in that he's indeed the liberator, but of robotkind following the destruction of the ''Nomad''.]]

* TactfulTranslation: When a New Asian doctor is screaming belligerently at American commandos, their auto-translator translates it as, "Make love to yourself and to your mother"

* TurnedAgainstTheirMasters: A high ranking US military officer states that an artificial intelligence created to "protect us" detonated a nuclear warhead on Los Angeles. [[spoiler: Subverted when Harun reveals that the nuke detonating was a result of human error and the Americans blamed the A.I for it.]]

* TheWallsAreClosingIn: At the L.A Ground Zero Disposal Facility, a compactor is shown crushing dozens of discarded A.I with one shown trying to escape