The Creator follows a jaded ex-special forces soldier with a grudge against AI named Joshua. He is mourning the loss of his wife when he's recruited by the United States military to hunt down and kill the Creator, the mysterious architect of Artificial Intelligence, who has constructed a new weapon that could turn the tide in the war between humanity and AI robots. Joshua discovers this is not any ordinary rather, but rather one in the form of a young child, forcing him to question everything he thinks he knows about the war.

The Creator is directed by Gareth Edwards, who also directed Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. This movie was filmed using as many real life locations as possible, instead of building sets, which is something the director prides himself on. Discover the world of The Creator, available now on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and Digital.

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Screen Rant interviewed Gareth Edwards in celebration of the home release of The Creator, which just received two Critics Choice Awards nominations for Best Young Actor/Actress (Madeleine Yuna Voyles) and Best Visual Effects. Edwards spoke about Madeleine and why they couldn't have made the film without her. He also commented on the heartbreaking end of the movie, and why he always planned it to be that way.

Gareth Edwards Talks The Creator

Screen Rant: First of all, congratulations on the two Critics Choice Awards nominations this morning!

Gareth Edwards: Thank you. I saw Madeleine got a nod. That's fantastic.

Screen Rant: Yes, for best young actress. Do you have anything to say about her work in The Creator?

Gareth Edwards: Yeah, totally. I'm not sure I'll ever be in that situation again, where I'm able to be so straightforward with an actor. You could literally say to her, this is what Alphie's thinking and feeling, and this is what Alphie would like to happen, and you could just completely be like, no games, nothing. You just say it straightforwardly. She'd go, "Okay." And then she'd give this incredible performance, and no backstory. It was like a director's dream. And it would be a performance that made you cry.

I got incredibly lucky. If we hadn't found Madeleine, this film either wouldn't have happened, or it'd be a terrible version of itself. I don't know. I'm not a fan of films that rely heavily on little kids. They're usually terrible. There's a few examples that are masterpieces. And so I knew we were going to live or die based on this kid we found and, thank God, Madeleine walked through the door. It was, I don't know how it's going to be. I'm really fascinated by how things play out if she carries on wanting to be an actress. How she is later down the line, because I feel like her first point in the graph is so high, the trajectory is kind of incredible. It can't be possible, really. So we'll see. But she's so grounded. Her family is so sweet. She's in a great situation. She'll be able to do whatever she wants in life, I think.

Screen Rant: Is there anything that you're particularly proud of the VFX team for pulling off?

Gareth Edwards: Yeah, I mean, lots really, I think mainly just letting the whole process be left till the last minute. We didn't really design the shots properly, if at all, until we were in the edit on purpose. What normally happens on a film is you do some artwork of like, this is a temporal sci-fi thing, whatever. And then everyone goes, "Okay, where can we find this? And we can't find it, we're gonna have to build it. Oh, okay, that's going to be $300,000. And maybe we have to green screen." You just get sent down this path, where it never looks as real as you want it to in your mind. And so we will say, "Let's go to Nepal, and go to the Himalayas and film a real temple."

And then when we've decided what's in the edit, and we've got the actual footage, we can paint over the footage and change it. So it has all the same materials, it has the same vocabulary of the things that are in the foreground, and it made way more sense. But the scary aspect is, no one can do anything until quite late in the game. And so everyone gets very nervous. They're basically agreeing to pull this thing off that they know nothing about. And that takes a lot of faith, I guess. We did a little test and it proved that idea out and everyone was game. We're all really proud of how it all looks. So I feel we probably learned a terrible lesson to do that all over again and make everyone's life Hell one more time.

Screen Rant: You always know how to break my heart. The ending of Rogue One, and now this one. Do you set out to write an ending like that, or does it just find itself through the process?

​​​​Gareth Edwards:​​​​​​​ It's totally the ultimate goal of any filmmaker, isn't it? If you make people shed a tear in the cinema then you've maxed out in terms of emotional response of the audience. For me, as a kid, I grew up with Star Wars like everybody. And then went to see a film called E.T., bawled my eyes out, couldn't quite understand why I was crying over this deformed little bugger. And went three times, I remember and I cried my eyes out every time, and felt like, well, that's what you've got to do in a film, I guess, if you want to be like Spielberg. So yeah, every time, you're layering in all sorts of things when you're trying to come up with a film.

But at some point, you stop and go, "Okay. Now, how do we really get to people?" And you try to start to do that. And it doesn't always work. There's sometimes it's stronger than others and all that, but it's, even if you don't actually cry, there's a feeling you can have towards the end of a movie that can just, it feels very primal, very life affirming, and cinema does it better than any other art form. Because it has music as well, that music does it. Music with visuals and story is like, I think, the ultimate art form and has this ability to really get to you in a powerful way. And so yeah, it's got to be the goal. I don't know why you would aim for anything else. It's like saying to someone, when you play soccer, why do you always try to kick the ball? Like, isn't that the whole point?

About The Creator

Against the backdrop of a war between humans and robots with artificial intelligence, a former soldier finds the secret weapon, a robot in the form of a young child.

Be sure to also check out our interview with Gareth Edwards about The Creator at SDCC.

The Creator

PG-13

Action

Sci-Fi

Drama

The Creator is a sci-fi action film from Rogue One director Gareth Edwards. Edwards wrote and directed the movie, which centers on the human race's war against AI. In the post-apocalyptic world, Joshua (John David Washington) is tasked with finding and killing the architect of the dangerous AI and the mysterious weapon they are developing.

Release Date

September 29, 2023

Director

Gareth Edwards

Cast

John David Washington , Gemma Chan , Ken Watanabe , Sturgill Simpson , Allison Janney , Madeleine Yuna Voyles

Writers

Gareth Edwards

Studio(s)

Entertainment One , McFarland Entertainment , Regency Enterprises

Distributor(s)

20th Century