YMMV / The Creator (2023)

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Did the US use the AI as a scapegoat, or did they truly believe the nuclear explosion was intentional? Or was it a False Flag Operation by the Americans in the first place?
• Angst? What Angst?: Alphie witnesses an awful lot of horrific death, of humans and simulants, and barely reacts to most of it.
• Awesome Music:
  • Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place" playing over Joshua and the American troops flying into New Asia, hit by the culture shock of a nation that embraces A.I.
  • The Sweet Dreams Fuel (and to some, Tear Jerker) that is Claude Debussy's most iconic piece "Clair de Lune" plays at several points in the movie, including over the credits.
  • As for the score itself, with Hans Zimmer, this was inevitable.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Early in the movie, Alphie claims that Maya is in Tiāntáng. People fluent in Chinese may recognize the actual meaning of this word, roughly heaven, and figure out the reveal of Maya's permanent coma early on.
  • In general, the movie features a variety of Asian languages, dialects, and even songs.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Given that Alphie looks roughly the age Joseph's and Maya's unborn child would have been had she not been killed, it was clear as day the film was setting up that Alphie is related in some way to the child, even if it is ultimately just her capabilities which were designed after the human fetus.
• Creepy Awesome: The NOMAD is a terrifying sight to behold both In-Universe and out, being a quick-moving high-tech military spaceship with an arsenal of high-powered explosives at its fingertips. Its fearsome appearance and operations as well as its eerie sound design made it a huge hit amongst fans and critics.
• Dancing Bear: A not insubstantial part of the film's pre-release hype revolved around the fact that it featured a very modest budget of just $80 million and was filmed on a Sony FX3 (a $4,000 camera, a bargain at a professional cinema level), in spite of also being an IMAX-compatible, special-effects heavy film.
• Special Effects Failure: While the special effects are generally quite excellent considering the film's modest budget, one robot is obviously a woman with her head and limbs digitally replaced with slender robot appendages, given that her clothing-covered torso clearly has the incongruous shape of an overweight human.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: It might be confusing for some viewers when Joshua starts referring to Alphie as "her" due to Alphie being played by a young child with buzzed hair and in a gender-neutral jumpsuit. The name "Alphie" is also a homophone for the boys' name "Alfie".
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Gareth Edwards once again proves he can make a special effects-driven film feel massive and tangible, from the imposing NOMAD to the lifelike simulants. Special regards to the movie's surprisingly modest budget of $80 million.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?:
  • The film has been construed as in favor of real life applications of AI- It's a notable choice to refer to the sentient robots by this name at a time in which AI is such a hot button issue. The scene in which a character from New Asia- a society that is fully accepting of AI- tells an American soldier that they "can't stop AI", and an advanced and benevolent AI is presented as the solution to human squabbles in the same way as the Roko's Basilisk thought experiment.
  • Game Theory gives an even darker twist to this notion by bringing up how a plot point of letting people scan faces for the AI brings to mind Disney's infamous deep fake technology.
  • There are also shades of The Vietnam War in the AI conflict; the US is deploying overwhelming firepower against farmers and civilians who, by and large, just want to live and let live with the rest of the world, while justifying it with a "war on AI" (which they themselves are using in secret for their own ends) and conveniently only going after the settlements in southeast Asia.

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