During a special sneak peak at The Creator, writer and director Gareth Edwards reveals his inspirations and behind the scenes details.
The Creator is a completely original Science Fiction movie from the mind of Rogue One director Gareth Edwards. In partnership with IMAX, 20th Century Fox and Disney recently gave fans and press a sneak peak at the upcoming film. This included three scenes, which were set up by Gareth himself. He also answered questions during a Q&A moderated by journalist Scott Mantz, revealing his inspirations that shaped The Creator, filming details, and behind the scenes information.
Note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. The Creator would not exist without the labor of the writers and actors in both unions.
Synopsis: Amidst a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, Joshua, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war… and mankind itself. Joshua and his team of elite operatives journey across enemy lines, into the dark heart of AI-occupied territory… only to discover the world-ending weapon he’s been instructed to destroy is an AI in the form of a young child.
The Creator Director Gareth Edwards Reveals Inspirations
When asked if there are any movies he pulled inspiration from, Gareth confesses that he has a bit of a superstition when working on films. He hangs up movie posters of his inspirations in the ad suite, something he has done ever since his first film.
For The Creator these posters include some that are obvious, and others that are not so obvious. Of course, it should surprise no one that there were posters for Apoloclypse Now, Blade Runner, and Paper Moon, but the not so obvious ones include Baraka, a film he says is one of the greatest movies ever made, and Lone Wolf and Cub. The latter is a Japanese manga series. In the United States, the movie was titled Sword of Vengeance.
Gareth also explains that he takes directing influences from some of the greatest Science Fiction directors of all time: James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, and Ridley Scott.
One of the scenes that we were shown includes a lot of combat in what looks like a very expensive factory. That is because it was shot in a multi-billion dollar particle accelerator, a location that Gareth Edwards had to convince them to shoot in by letting them be in the film.
“We were in Thailand, and we needed to find a really technologically advanced factory. And we looked everywhere.” Gareth explains they looked at car manufacturing plants, but they were nervous about the filming inside. Eventually they found the particle accelerator. “It’s one of the most advanced things, probably in the whole of Thailand.” he claims.
When asked what they were going to film inside, the team behind The Creator was honest, stating people would be shooting and there would be explosions. Before making their decision, they asked what films the director had previously done. When they heard Rogue One, they asked if they could be in it, and Gareth agreed. “So everybody in those scenes that were wandering around are nuclear physicists.”
Another interesting filming story took place at night on a beach. Coming out of the pandemic, the beach was finally opening up to tourists, so they were told they could film on the beach, but were not allowed to close it. However, even though tourists were hanging out on the beach, and the bar that is there, no one came over to them while they were shooting.
“I don’t know what happens normally in Thailand at night on these beaches, but we didn’t close that beach. If you look carefully in the background, you can see bars and tourists. Not one person came over and said what are you doing?” Gareth explains.
When it came to finding the perfect cast, Gareth says he knew The Creator would not work without the right kid as Alphie. There were hundreds of videos of kids that were submitted, and they eventually narrowed it down to ten kids to see in person. Madeleine Yuna Voyles, who plays Alphie, was the first one.
“She came in, she did this scene, and we were all nearly in tears at the end. I thought to myself, this is weird and phenomenal. Maybe the mom was just brilliant at prepping her to get really upset just before she came in.” But in order to test this, they chatted a bit and did some other scenes, then he wanted to see if it was repeatable. “I explained a different scene and we just improvised, and it was even more heartbreaking. I don’t know what we would have done if we hadn’t found the right kid. We got really lucky.”
What worked even better is that on set, Madeleine and John David Washington, who plays Joshua, really connected. Gareth explains that they were inseparable on set and that he became like a surrogate brother or father figure to her.
Gareth Edwards describes the design and aesthetic of The Creator as retro futuristic. “Imagine that Apple Mac hadn’t won the tech war, and the Sony Walkman had. Everything has this ’90s, ’80s Walkman and Nintendo style. We looked at the product design from that era, and ripped off little pieces, and tried to put it on the robots.”
He then goes on to explain that the tricky thing with designing robots is their heads. “So we took insects, and we took insect heads, and then tried to make it as if that insect had been made by Sony. And changed it into product design. Then equally we took products, and tried to turn them into organic looking heads.”
After that, they just continued to put these two things together until they ended up with the designs of the robots.
The Creator comes to theaters on September 29th, and trust us when we say you do not want to be the only one who hasn’t seen this Sci-Fi epic!
NEXT: Gareth Edwards Felt Like A Rebel Himself While Directing Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
About The Creator
As a future war between the human race and artificial intelligence rages on, ex-special forces agent Joshua is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI. The Creator has developed a mysterious weapon that has the power to end the war and all of mankind.
As Joshua and his team of elite operatives venture into enemy-occupied territory, they soon discover the world-ending weapon is actually an AI in the form of a young child.
The Creator comes to theaters on September 29th.
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. On Camera personality and TV / Film Critic with 10+ years of experience in video editing, writing, editing, moderating, and hosting.