What would happen if ChatGPT turned on humanity? Released on September 29, 2023, “The Creator” portrays this dystopian future where AI is seen as a threat by some and an ally by others. Breathtaking visuals and stunning cinematography are recurrent traits of “The Creator” but the message the movie hopes to convey comes off as flawed and unconvincing.
Director Gareth Edwards isn’t new to science fiction movies, with previous works like “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” Similarly to his previous works, Edwards maintains his stunning cinematography in “The Creator”, where controversy arises is the content and messaging of the movie. Combines political themes with hard-hitting ethical dilemmas that we are beginning to face today.
The main antagonist of the movie wasn’t a singular person, but a weapon developed by the United States known as NOMAD. There were recurring visuals of the destruction caused by NOMAD as well as numerous shots of NOMAD in the atmosphere closing in on its targets. The main character on the other hand was Joshua, an ex-Special Forces agent searching for New Asia’s counter-weapon to NOMAD. The dilemma present in this movie is that Joshua struggles to figure out who he can trust and everyone else struggles to figure out if they can trust him
The visuals of “The Creator” amazed me, with the realistic visual effects playing an integral part in the world-building. These effects also carried over to many of the characters since some of them were AI robots with human faces known as symbionts.
However, I personally thought the open mechanical parts visible in symbionts to illustrate the idea of “donating your likeness” to an AI robot were interesting but impractical. I mainly think this because AI already has the ability to generate faces that seem realistic and unique, but that do not exist in the real world. This would make donating someone’s features for symbiont creation unnecessary. Moreover, the realism and humanity that the movie attempted to attach to the symbionts were immediately driven away at the sight of the mechanical parts composing parts of the symbiont’s head — a lot of opportunities for the character development of important symbionts in the movie.
There were many interesting and odd concepts implemented in the movie other than the whole “donating your likeness” idea. For example, the idea of uploading a person’s brain into an AI robot was touched upon but was not a central part of the movie.
I also noticed that the political roles of the world powers remained consistent with the current day. The United States and its military remained deeply concerned about the development of every country other than itself throughout the movie with the evident division between “New Asia” and the Western world reflecting many of the political and ideological divisions that exist in the real world today.
Regarding the main themes of this movie, my concerns arise mainly in the portrayal of AI as a net positive. I feel that it resulted in many unrealistic inferences and conclusions that include the assumption that AI does not make mistakes and that it will never deviate from its programming to not harm humans. At the end of the day, it felt more like a promotion of the AI industry than an emotionally touching story that was actually concerned with the future of the world.
Overall, I would give the movie a 3.7/5. The visuals were stunning and there were many shots that left me in awe, but a few of the huge leaps in logic the movie takes to support its conclusion about AI are too glaring for me to ignore. If you are an AI optimist this movie is for you, but if you think AI will destroy humanity as a whole you might leave the movie disinterested.
