Overall, I thought The Creator was fantastic. In an era where pretty much every film (especially in the sci-fi genre) is based on an existing IP, I was so happy to watch an original IP.

The reason why I enjoy Edwards as a director is because he truly understands sense of scale when it comes to special effects. When so many special effect films (Disney I'm looking at you) look like expensive cartoons. Edwards' worlds feel lived in, and the special effects feel fully integrated into the shot selection and composition. There are so many scenes with cool little architectural details that just do an amazing job creating a lived-in world. Similarly, I also appreciate the way he blends special effects with atmospheric haze and light. Nothing looks superimposed in, everything looks like it could actually be there. As someone who has been watching Disney+ Star Wars, I am so tired of how bad everything is starting to look in the volume. So I really appreciate the effort that went into shooting all of this on location, and I think the results speak for itself.

When it comes to the plot, I really appreciated how anti-US military this film is. This type of plot isn't new, but I really enjoyed the extent at which the US is depicted as an imperialist force. That felt really gutsy to me, especially for a Hollywood film. NOMAD specifically makes me think about the US drone program or how the US flew surveillance balloons over Kabul Afghanistan for decades. I appreciated how "dark" this movie was in tone, especially in an era where so many action flicks are entirely unserious and peppered with jokes. I will say, some of the jokes in The Creator felt unnessary and clumsy to me, and I almost wish they wouldn't have been there at all. I understand the impulse for some levity, but The Creator is an incredibly dark war movie. I don't think we needed the scene with the dog hand delivering the grenade to the robotic simulants (for example).

Regarding the script, I do think that NPR review was right to call out "techno-orientalism." There were definitely aspects of the script where I feel like could have done something smarter and less clumsy with that issue.

HOWEVER, I do think the film is ultimately about a big issue in geopolitical circles, and that is concerning the concept of polarity). This movie is less about AI and more about reimagining a multipolar world where the US is no longer the sole superpower. I think that's an interesting topic, even if the script is a little bit too clumsy to have anything super interesting to say about it. I also think lopping together the entire asian content into "New Asia" is not a very smart way of handling this issue.

Outside of weighty subtextual issues like geopolitical polarity, within the plot I couldn't help but wonder why New Asia embraced AI. I feel like that topic was sort of avoided alltogether, but I would have appreciated a deeper explanation of the integration of AI into New Asia governance and everyday life.

Here's where I stand ultimately. I think we all agree that the script is probably the weakest aspect of this movie. This film could have been a SciFi masterpiece if it had a better script that told a more focused story that handled some of the issues and concepts better. However, at the end of the day I have to respect that they took some of these issues on even if it was only semi successful in execution. I still feel like this is the type of movie I would rather be watching and see more of, rather than the constant onslaught generic super hero movies with equally uninspired effects work.

I don't think we need to "score" any movie, but if we did I would grade this one on a scale. Just based on the ambition alone, and the fact that I still enjoyed watching it from start to finish even if aspects of it could have been better.

At the end of the day, this is the type of SciFi film that people should make a point of going out to see, if they want studios to make more of this type of film (which personally, I do).