Film / The Creator (2023)

♫ Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter and sing for the tear ♫

NIRMATA. Def. [Nir•ma•ta]
n.¹ [Nepalese for 'the Creator'] The mysterious unknown architect of advanced A.I.
² A being worshipped by Artificial Intelligence as their creator; savior; God.

— Opening Text

The Creator is a 2023 American Science Fiction action thriller film directed, written and co-produced by Gareth Edwards.

A war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence has erupted in the future. Joshua, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of the AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war—and mankind itself.

The cast includes John David Washington as Joshua, Allison Janney as Howell, Ralph Ineson as Andrews, Ken Watanabe as Harun, Sturgill Simpson as Shipley, Gemma Chan and Marc Menchaca. The film was released on September 29, 2023.

Not to be confused with the 1999 French film of the same name.

Previews: Teaser trailer, Official trailer.

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Tropes featured in The Creator include:

• Action Bomb: The American military fields humanoid robots whose only job is to run to a specific location while shrugging off gunfire, and explode.
• Advertising by Association: The trailer has "From the director of Rogue One" (his previous film).
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Artificial Intelligence is said to have turned against humanity (by nuking Los Angeles ala Judgment Day) and is hunted by it as a result. 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.s for it.
• Alternate History: The opening sequence makes it clear that the events of the movie take place in the future of a world where humanity has had robots and AI since around the time of black and white television.
• Ambiguous Situation: The exact events that led to the 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 knows the truth at all, is unclear.
• Anyone Can Die: By the time the story has finished, Alphie, Harun, and Andrews are the only surviving major characters.
• Anti-Villain:
  • Colonel Howell is a sympathetic person who is in the fight because both her sons were 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. Of course, given how much else she lies about, it's entirely possible that she never had any children at all.
  • General Andrews is leading the war against New Asia and has no issues with bombing civilian settlements to take out AI labs, but he also legitimately believes failure will lead to humanity's extinction. How much of his compassion for Joshua is unclear given he likely lied about Maya being alive, but he also goes out of his way to let Joshua kill Alphie humanely as an alternative to more extreme methods and then grants his request to be present at Alphie's cremation.
• Artificial Intelligence: Humanity developed AI during the late 20th and early 21st century, first as basic machines and later as integral parts of society and family life. The destruction of Los Angeles, apparently carried out by an AI, led to the technology being banned in much of the world and the current war against New Asia.
• Artificial Limbs: Joshua has a bionic arm and leg due to injuries from the Los Angeles nuke.
• Artistic License – Explosives: 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.
• Artistic License – 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. 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's also the matter that if it is in orbit, its missiles' speed and trajectories don't make much sense.
  • There is also a brief shot during the shuttle takeoff where the moon is way bigger than it should be.
• Awesome, but Impractical: American Battleship tanks are huge and quite intimidating, have a nifty targeting system, and somehow manage not to sink through the jungle floor. Unfortunately, they are slow, bright blue, and one gets taken out by a hand-held grenade. So, they would've been sitting ducks had New Asia been able to mount any sort of armed response beyond lightly armed farmers.
  • 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 serious damage to it, especially since the film does not demonstrate any point-defense capabilities on NOMAD's part.
  • As impressive as NOMAD seems, its primary (and the only shown) mode of attack are rather modest-looking (supposedly nuclear) explosions. Since in all shown engagements, Americans seem to have total air superiority, they could've delivered similar damage with a simple plane-carried missile at a much lower cost.
• Badass and Child Duo: Joshua and Alphie become this over time, which is especially true in the climax, as they're the ones who stop the conflict between humans and robots.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite being blown up by a warhead and put into a coma for five years, Maya looks exactly as she did when she was in perfect health.
• Becoming the Mask: Joshua was ordered to romance Maya in order to find the Creator's location, only to genuinely fall in love with her.
• Big Door: During the American commandos' raid on the A.I lab, Alphie is shown to be kept beneath one of these.
• Bilingual Dialogue: 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.
• Bittersweet Ending: 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 doomed base in the sky as it explodes, which took a bunch of A.I. bases with it.
• Brain Uploading: When a human dies, their brain can be scanned to capture their mind and memories. That scan can then be uploaded into a simulant body to allow for a second life. However, this needs to be done relatively quickly, as the brain will degrade over the following hours, which will cause the simulant's mind to shut down.
• Bulletproof Vest: Americans and New Asians wear bulky cuirasses which are capable of resisting some weapons fire.
• Colonized Solar System: Lunar colonies have been opened and space planes make regular trips straight from Earth to the moon.
• Crosshair Aware: American heavy weaponry paints large bright-blue reticles on the ground below their targets. It's unclear if these have a purpose beyond intimidation, as none of the real-world weapons require such system.
• Death by Transceiver: Harun and his cell receive a panicked transmission from a village that they were staying at which has Nomad above. After a few seconds of panicked screaming and shouting, a nuke is launched and the transmission immediately cuts out.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In response to a single nuclear warhead being detonated over Los Angeles (eventually revealed to be caused by technical error), the US Government creates a superweapon that drops tactical nukes like confetti on targets, some of which are civilian settlements and cities. They also believe the Robot War justifies illegal incursions on foreign soil and executing innocent civilians.
• Dissonant Serenity: Alphie is a very subdued child, rarely responding to the deaths and chaos that surround her.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite being a villain who is committed to killing Alphie, General Andrews is reluctant to make her death painful. Since she can stop the Americans from using any technological device, they would have to manually tear her apart without Joshua's assistance.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: While undercover, Joshua wore his hair free to emphasize his feigned rebellious nature. He started wearing it in tight cornrows during the timeskip as he returned to an orderly, regimented lifestyle. While preparing to meet Maya, he accepts his growing kinship with the robots and undoes his cornrows.
• Faking the Dead: Joshua puts Alphie in standby before firing an EMP to trick their captors into believing she's dead.
• Fantasy Conflict Counterpart: The Robot War is The Vietnam War in an alternate future.
• Final Solution: While never named as such, the American war on AI is clearly genocidal in nature. Robots, whether military or civilian, are summarily killed, as are humans who build or help them. Entire communities of AI are routinely annihilated by nuclear strikes by NOMAD with no apparent regard for human casualties. The Americans see the war in an existential “us or them” way, seeing the extermination of AI as necessary for human survival.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: In a flashback, we discover that Joshua and Maya met while she helped him acclimate to his artificial limbs.
• Fun with Acronyms: The US Military's trillion-dollar orbital weapons platform is called NOMAD, which stands for North American Orbital Mobile Aerospace Defense.
• Go Fetch: Police fire a time-delayed grenade into a garage where Joshua is hiding. A dog that has been barking at Joshua grabs the grenade and returns it to the police.
• Going Native: After admonishing Joshua not to "go native," Drew turns up living in New Asia with a robot girlfriend.
• Goo-Goo-Godlike: Alpha is the ultimate weapon of the AI, in the form of a little girl. She has the power to control all technology within a given range, and as she ages, that range will become infinite. The military is after her because, if allowed to grow up, she'll be able to take out NOMAD — as well as any other human resistance — with a thought, and the war will be totally lost.
• Grenade Hot Potato: The Asian robot police throw a grenade at our heroes. Joshua sees it and is worried a great deal, but a dog saves the day by playing fetch and depositing it at the feet of the robot cops. Boom.
• Hated by All: Howell states that the A.I, simultants and New Asians all hate them during the American commandos' flight to the A.I lab.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: The commandos don't wear helmets, which makes it easier to differentiate between them. The rest of the US military soldiers are shown wearing open-faced helmets.
• Heroic Sacrifice: A resistance fighter targeted by a guided missile is running for cover only to spot several terrified civilians are already there. Realizing they could be hit if he dives into cover, he instead stops so they're safely out of the blast radius.
• Hollywood Genetics: Toward the end, it's revealed that Alphie is based on the child of Joshua and Maya, yet Alphie looks nothing like Joshua. This is because the actress has no African ancestry, which helps obscure her origin before the reveal.
• Honey Trap: Joshua was sent to seduce and, if necessary, marry Maya in order to learn the Creator's location.
• Hypocrite:
  • America is at war with AI and claims that they have outlawed all AI, yet the third act reveals that the military does employ several specialized robots.
  • For all that a nuclear detonation in Los Angeles is what triggered the war, America seems more than willing to use tactical nukes on New Asian villages and cities if there's a target.
  • Played for laughs with Drew, Taylor's friend from back when he was undercover. After advising Joshua not to go native, Drew ends up doing exactly that when it's revealed he entered a relationship with a simulant woman. Joshua can't help but tease him over this.
• Interchangeable Asian Cultures: "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.
• Interspecies Adoption: Seems to be quite prevalent amongst robots with human children, since they can’t have any of their own.
• Ironic Echo: 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." 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".
• I Surrender, Suckers: During the commando raid, Bradbury surrenders to New Asia police after firing missiles into the air that loop around and bombard the police.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Americans tend to refer to robots as "it." Joshua waffles between calling Alphie "it" and "her" before he starts to change his outlook and protect Alphie.
• Just a Machine: Many Americans downplay the robots' emotions by saying, in so many words, "It's not real; it's just programming."
• Kill Sat: NOMAD, a nuke-launching, orbiting space station that represents humanity's trump card against the machines.
• Legacy Character: Late in the movie, it's revealed that "the Creator" was the title given to Maya's father which was then passed on to her after his death.
• The Lost Lenore: Joshua genuinely fell in love with Maya and her death five years ago has left him adrift in life. His main motivation for most of the movie is to reunite with her after being told she's alive only to find she was in a permanent coma and he was the only one who could free her.
• Manipulative Bastard: Howell and Andrews approach a grieving Joshua and offer him hope that Maya is alive and a promise of amnesty for her if he helps them with one last mission. Once in the field they show little interest in actually locating Maya once Alphie is located as they faked the proof of her survival.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The liberator of humanity is named Joshua, which is the English version of the Hebrew name Yeshua - or Jesus in Greek. This is played with in the end in that he's indeed the liberator, but of robotkind following the destruction of the Nomad.
  • The liberator of robotkind is named Alpha Omega, a reference to Jesus's declaration "I am the Alpha and the Omega". It also refers to her status as a unique type of simulant, the first and last of her kind.
• Motivational Lie:
  • Andrews telling Joshua that Maya was seen alive is revealed to be a lie late in the movie, used solely to convince Joshua to join the mission.
  • On a greater scope, it is heavily suggested thanks to Harun that the whole war's purpose is simply to not admit to human error being responsible for the destruction of Los Angeles rather than an AI attack, meaning all of the death and destruction throughout the film on both sides is built upon a lie.
• Never Found the Body: Maya and the rest of her cell were near the center of a NOMAD strike and were assumed dead for five years. A recording shows they are still alive, which prompts Joshua's involvement in the new mission. The recording is a fake, but it turns out Maya is still alive late in the film - but in a coma and on life support.
• No Endor Holocaust: No one in New Asia seems to get harmed when a gigantic space station explodes and rains the area in debris. Cheering New Asians and robots alike run right up to massive chunks crashing into the Earth, heedless of any danger.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Harun states that Alphie is a unique creation and there will never be another like her. This is likely because with Maya dead, her unique method of creating a simulant based on an embryo was lost. This is also the case for NOMAD, as it took 10 years for it to be made, over a trillion dollars as a best estimate, and there's no others like it.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Joshua initially refuses to partake in the "weapon" recovery mission as he blames the military for the loss of Maya, even when it's framed as the deciding moment in the war with New Asia. He only agrees to join when shown a recording of Maya alive and is given assurances that she will be brought back alive.
• Nuke 'em: The American-designed space station Nomad was designed for the purpose of bombing AI bases in New Asia. In the climax, the Americans prepare to destroy the remaining AI bases in New Asia, regardless of the fact that several are based in cities with millions of humans.
• Poor Communication Kills: The AI know that the nuke that wiped out Los Angeles was set off as a result of human error. Granted every side has its version of the story, and it's unlikely that just going "wasn't us, honest" would have solved everything, but we're never shown the AI even trying to make that case as a reason for a ceasefire, nor is there any mention of it by any other character, which is weird considering it'd be a pretty damn important piece of information even if it were incorrect. Apparently, before Harun mentions it to Joshua, none of the humans even know the possibility exists.
• Precision F-Strike: Alphie repeats to Kami that she "played" a game called "Help Joshua escape from the fucking police."
• Public Service Announcement: The movie opens with what looks like a PSA reel from the '40s and '50s showcasing the early stages of robot development, transitioning to newer clips as AI advances.
• Reality Has No Subtitles: When we are viewing New Asians from an American perspective, their language is not translated via subtitles and either must be inferred by context or is translated in-universe by the commandos' translator device. However, when no Americans are present in a scene, some dialogue is given subtitles or just spoken in English for some reason.
• Redshirt Army:
  • Joshua deploys with a squad of soldiers, most of whom are killed shortly thereafter.
  • The soldiers aboard the NOMAD who rush to capture Joshua are all killed off when he blows an air lock. The rest of the soldiers don't even get close to him or Alphie.
• Religious Robot: In general, robots and simulants view the Creator as a near deity. Joshua later visits a temple with robots and simulants serving as Buddhist priests, all of them showing the expected serenity and pacifism.
• Repurposed Pop Song: Aerosmith's "Dream On" is remixed for the trailer.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Many AI robots are given android bodies. They exhibit a full range of standard human expressions and reactions. They eat, drink, smoke, wear clothes, and even sleep like a human when recharging. Choking them also seems to have a similar effect as it does on humans. Despite one line (from Colonel Howell) about A.I. being smarter, they all appear to have human-level intelligence and reaction time, too.
• Robot Kid: Alphie is a simulant who looks and behaves like a five year old human child. She was originally modeled on scans of Maya's unborn child and was constructed as an embryo simulant five years ago.
• Robot War: America is at war with AI robots in New Asia. The war turns out to be one-sided, as the robots never actually nuked America, and they have no desire to wipe humanity out.
• Save the Villain: Attempted. When Harun fires a bomb onto Colonel Howell's back, Alphie actually uses her powers to stop it at the last second. However, Howell's men point their guns at Alphie and Joshua grabs her to duck for cover. This causes Alphie to lose her concentration and the bomb goes off.
• Schizo Tech: The film is set in an alternate timeline where AI and robotics were created way earlier than in reality. In the year 2070, some technology is naturally far more advanced than our own, but other areas of technology seem to be slightly behind our own or outright missing:
  • The elite commandos use head-mounted flashlights rather than nightvision.
  • The American military relies on a single, giant space station to deliver nuclear warheads, suggesting that they have no nuclear missile silos or submarines.
  • The warheads themselves are vastly less powerful than one would expect: they are fired on large orbital missiles, but have more or less the destructive power of a Davy Crockett.
  • In the AI base, the security terminals are bulky and old-fashioned, with security footage that is grainy and monochrome but also has pinch-to-zoom capabilities.
  • New Asia has advanced AI robots living as simple subsistence farmers and monks in villages that look little different than they would have a century ago.
• Shout-Out:
  • Bradbury is likely named in reference to science fiction author Ray Bradbury, who wrote the classic short story "I Sing the Body Electric," about a compassionate relationship between children and their robotic "grandmother."
  • McBride is apparently named after Danny McBride, who was originally slated to appear in the film as Drew before he had to drop out.
  • One of the spaceport destinations is Scarif, a planet from previous Gareth Edwards film Rogue One.
  • An advertisement for the simulants early in the film touts them as "more human than human", which was the same slogan used by the Tyrell Corporation for the replicants in Blade Runner.
  • The shot of the nuke detonating in Los Angeles is visually very similar to one in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, another film in which AI using a nuclear weapon to destroy the city in a war against humanity is a plot point.
  • One of the numerous bits of Asian media we see Alphie watching on TV is Invasion of the Neptune Men.
  • The vastly powerful world-wrecking superweapon being called "NOMAD" and references to "The Creator" recall the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Changeling'' which centered on the former Earth space probe Nomad, its corrupted and now genocidal programming, and its belief that Captain Kirk was its human creator.
• Sticky Bomb: Two variants are seen. One is a form of rocket propelled grenade which attaches itself to whatever it hits before detonating. The other is a large magnetically attached clamp with a programmable timer and remote detonator switch.
• Tactful Translation: 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".
• Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: The spec ops team delays their takeoff so Bradbury can reach them, even as she's fired on from behind and takes a hit. She manages to climb aboard, and everyone relaxes as the plane lifts off. Then they notice that Bradbury has a Sticky Bomb on her back, which goes off moments later, killing the entire team.
• Tank Goodness: The Americans use giant tanks in a raid against the village where Harun and Alphie are hiding. The tanks fire missiles that won't stop until their targets are destroyed.
• Technopath: Alphie has the power to take control of machines, even simple ones like guns and bombs.
• Terminally Dependent Society: the West's entire capacity of projecting its military power, intimidating other countries and waging the anti-AI war depends wholly on the NOMAD station: taking it down would immediately delete their relevance on the international map. Sure enough, when that happens the war is instantly lost.
• Thank the Maker: In the very few seconds of the movie, we are introduced to the concept of Nirmata, which is explained to come from Nepalese and it means "creator". The term is used as the name of the mysterious creator of advanced AI, whom the artificial intelligence worships as its God.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: Joshua opens an airlock on a space plane docked at NOMAD, blowing several soldiers into space.
• Time Skip: The movie opens with the night Maya is seemingly killed. It then cuts to five years later, where Joshua has long since resigned from the military while the war drags on.
• Together in Death: As the NOMAD is destroyed, Joshua and a simulant Maya reunite and share a kiss before dying together.
• Trapped Behind Enemy Lines: After the raid goes badly, the survivors of the spec ops team are stranded 400 miles from the nearest US base in New Asia.
• Turned Against Their Masters: A high ranking US military officer states that an artificial intelligence created to "protect us" detonated a nuclear warhead on Los Angeles. Subverted when Harun reveals that the nuke detonating was a result of human error and the Americans blamed the A.I for it.
• Villainous Breakdown: Downplayed, but when Andrews realizes he's been Outgambitted by Joshua and Alphie, who 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, dealing a crippling blow to them regardless of NOMAD's destruction. The fact that this would wipe out several major cities full of civilians doesn't cross his mind. He manages to get a couple of their bases, but the remaining warheads go undetonated when the station is destroyed, severing the connection while Andrews looks hopelessly defeated as he realizes the war right at that moment is lost.
• The Walls Are Closing In: At the L.A Ground Zero Disposal Facility, a compactor is shown crushing dozens of discarded A.I with one shown trying to escape.
• War Crime Subverts Heroism:
  • Several scenes reinforce that the war against the robots is not a heroic endeavor as the US soldiers kill many innocent civilians, human and robot alike, with no compunction. One particular scene shows a line of kneeling Buddhist priest robots being executed.
  • New Asians are fighting to protect robotkind, but they're not entirely exempt from this. In one scene, the police use a grenade to kill Kami, a civilian simulant, and then try to EMP Alphie to take her into custody. Later, Harun admits the only viable plan the resistance has for destroying NOMAD before they lose will end with Alphie's death.
• Wham Line: After Alphie says Maya is in Tiāntáng, Joshua spends most of the movie trying to locate it. When he asks if the temple where Maya is hidden is Tiāntáng, the attending priest responds "Tiāntáng means 'heaven'." Maya has been trapped in a coma, so Alphie was told she was in heaven.
• Why Am I Ticking?: Twice, a character is hit with a Sticky Bomb that latches onto their armor with not enough time to remove it once they realize their situation. Specifically, this is how Howell bites it, after a momentary delay thanks to Alphie disabling its detonation due to her naivety, before being forced to stop by Joshua to save her from Howell's men treating her actions in saving their commander as a hostile action, causing her and her men to all explode just a second later.
• The World's Expert (on Getting Killed): The commandos who accompany Joshua are supposedly battle-hardened veterans, but most of them are killed off in the first night.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Played with. The US makes an explicit statement that their only targets are AI and the researchers behind them, and during several battles they're shown to selectively target only combatants and any robots or simulants. However, they also use a lot of high-yield ordinance in heavily populated areas, which likely leads to many civilians deaths, target boats full of civilians that are trying to evacuate during the raid on the village and in the climax fire nukes into populated cities to destroy hidden labs and bases. For their part, the robots and their New Asian allies are not above opening fire on a car full of hostages or hiding bombs in ice cream boxes and handing them over to civilians.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The Americans evidently see the New Asian and A.I forces that fight against them as terrorists. On the other side, the insurgents are seen as heroes and protectors by the local population.

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