The Creator on Hulu is a Beautiful film – The Creator Movie Review
There was an extremely beautiful film called The Creator that I watched on Hulu about a week ago. The sci-fi film has stuck with me, but not for the reasons you would expect.
Beautiful cinematography aside, The Creator sets up an exquisite sci-fi world. A somewhat familiar but also distinct tapestry of artistry that merges man and machine – AI and flesh in a way that is not overdone.
The Premise of The Creator Movie
The Creator takes place in the year 2055, in a world devastated by a nuclear attack blamed on emerging AI. We follow Sergeant Joshua Taylor, a soldier who goes to the continent of New Asia to discover the nefarious creator of advanced AI dubbed “Nirmata”, or “the Creator”. Obviously, New Asia is an amalgamation of current existing territories in our current world’s Asia, who continue to live with, and integrate advanced AI technologies into their lives despite the Western World’s desire to eradicate the technology.
Now while I am not somebody who believes in the sentience and therefore “rights” of artificial intelligence, I can’t help but note the sympathetic tone relating to New Asia throughout the film.
Uploading Your Consciousness to Live On Long After You Are Gone
As I am assuming that you have seen the film if you are reading this review, I want to focus on the Juxtaposition of two particular scenes set in Los Angeles and on the USS NOMAD.
Five years after his wife Maya’s suspected death in New Asia by the USS NOMAD, Sergent Joshua Taylor is cleaning up the still-present wreckage from the nuclear attack on Los Angeles. While checking vehicles for human remains on a desolate and ruined freeway, a robotic ‘simulant’ jumps back to life when touched – frantically asking for its loved one.
Joshua’s cleanup companion is notably disturbed by the “realistic” tone in the simulants voice, while Joshua carelessly disables the machine, telling the partner beside him “it’s not real”.
Joshua Meets and Loses Alphie
As the film progresses, we learn that Nirmata was actually a hereditary title passed down from father to daughter and that Joshua’s (believed to be) late wife Maya, was indeed the elusive Nirmata. Despite knowing that her husband Joshua was seeking Nirmata (whom he believed to still be Maya’s father), Maya developed a “superweapon” in secret capable of destroying the USS NOMAD to free New Asia from the West’s tyranny permanently.
Scanning her unborn child, Maya created Alphie – a simulant copy of Maya and Joshua’s child who died in the womb during the USS NOMAD attack on New Asia five years ago.
Once Joshua learns of Alphie’s true nature and identity as the “superweapon” he was sent to destroy, the two are separated while trying to find Maya’s body in New Asia. U.S. military forces are sent to extract Joshua and capture the child simulant to destroy its AI superweapon capabilities. While being ripped away from the daughter he never met, Joshua becomes emotional to which a soldier simply repeats what he nonchalantly told a colleague earlier – “it’s not real”.
Joshua is Reunited with a Simulant Version of Maya
We explore this particular situation one more time in the film, once Alphie and Joshua make it to the USS NOMAD Space Station.
Before boarding a shuttle to the moon that was diverted to NOMAD telepathically by Alphie, Joshua is taken to his wife’s comatose body by simulants at a temple. As the simulants tell Joshua, they are “unable to harm their creator” – thus driving Joshua to shut down Maya’s life support himself.
As Maya has now “passed on”, U.S. Military forces led by Colonel Howell storm the temple, tracking Joshua and Alphie’s movements for days now at this point. Alphie attempts to save Colonel Howell when she is spiked with explosives by simulants trying to protect Alphie, and the U.S. Military forces ignore Howell’s pleas to stop as Alphie tries to halt the detonation long enough for them to detach the bomb.
This released power surge restarts Maya’s life support machine, prompting Joshua to grab her memory card – a device similar to a flash drive that stores Maya’s consciousness. (Think “the flame” of the commanders in the CW series The 100).
Fast forward to the USS NOMAD, while Alphie attempts to escape in a pod as instructed by Joshua as the ship detonation counts down, she stumbles upon a room full of dormant simulants. Why the USS Nomad military base that claims to arbor AI tech has a room full of simulants is a mystery to me. Alphie manages to find an ‘off’ simulant bearing her mother Maya’s likeness due to Maya donating her face while alive. Alphie plugs the memory card with Maya’s consciousness given to her by Joshua into the simulant before running away to the escape pod.
As Joshua gets stranded on the now deteriorating USS NOMAD and Alfie descends back to earth in the pod, Joshua is reunited with his once-comatose wife – now in the body of a simulant. The two lovers reunite and embrace in a field of reeds on the ship as it explodes, killing them both in the process.
Is The Creator Worth Watching?
The Creator is a film definitely worth watching if you enjoy the debate surrounding AI technology and its growing human-like sentience. Despite using similar tropes sprinkled throughout other media (i.e. Soma, the 100, Black Mirror “San Junipero” to name a few) it is a fresh take on the dilemma with an undercurrent of peace amidst the chaos on screen. New Asia is presented as strangely tranquil despite various attempts at annihilation by Western powers. You can really feel for the humans and simulants who decidedly live in harmony and indulge in almost mundane daily lives despite the ongoing war.
Could you live a second life as a simulant? The Creator poses this question to its audience and despite not personally agreeing with the practice, maybe it could help those in a not-so-distant future attain a degree of ascension not currently possible for their species.
But, what do you think? Did you watch The Creator movie on Hulu? Do you believe simulants have a right to exist a la Detroit: Becoming Human? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below – I would love to read them! And until next time ~
“This World is a Shadow of the Real One”.
❂ Stories From the New World