The Creator - The Widower's Edit

Bad Movies Made Less Bad Presents:
Picking up the pieces after lies destroy a family.

The Widower Edit:

Another "evil overlords in the sky" futureworld rich in atmosphere but short on substance, safe writing hiding behind pretty set design. I wanted to love this one from the trailers, but it failed to deliver as a full movie. The visuals are stunning; it is the story that holds things back. It is designed to be an epic, but it is slow-moving in parts and shallow character development stand out. Posing as a deep allegory on the realities of xenophobia and a speculative examination of our AI-panicked future, it's actually a dull, simplistic fable lacking any moral complexity. The generally strong acting performances are completely overshadowed by clunky, poorly handled exposition and underdeveloped plot points so transparent you can predict every plot point about five minutes in. Instead of developing and exploring the existential conflict between humankind and machines, conflicts are boiled down to Allison Janney doing her best Duke Nukem impersonation and generic soldiers unironically shouting painful lines like, "We've got company!"

But... its just such a gorgeous movie - the integration of the robots in a feature length movie is a treat. The settings are gorgeous, especially considering how much new content out lately is clearly not shot on location, the environments while problematic, are hypnotic. So how can we keep a decent enough story to enjoy the visuals? 

So what is the actual main story we got? The journey of a widower in a really cool futureworld. So I tried to trim to just that and cut out anything distracting from that. Especially what didn't work. And let a more simple visual tale unfold. No epic expectations.

That is mostly addressing the script, but also the questionable specs and location of Nomad. Sometimes its in orbit, sometimes it is just above. Now, shots of Nomad in the sky are trimmed when possible in favor of the more distant shots - those that better give the impression that the lasers are from the heavens themselves, at least from the POV on the ground.

In this edit, the dialogue of Joshua and Alphie are trimmed for a more "show, don't tell" approach. Lines like “What do you want?” and “For robots to be free” are cut. The visuals are so beautiful, but the atrocious preachy dialogue just clutters everything up. Alphie's a kid, not spouting philosophy.  The paper-thin message The Creator attempts to wrap itself in, with a central theme so simple and self-evident, feels vaguely insulting to be preached to by it. It's similar to the ones found in Neill Blomkamp's Elysium - where high-paced action is meant to distract from the fact that it's seemingly impactful statements boil down the central conflict to "racism is bad".

America as the big bad is reframed as The wealthy West using the LA Nuke as an excuse to prohibit the economically disadvantaged in the East from using A.I. tools.

I've removed any presence of Colonel Howell and McBride after their capture - including McBride on the Bridge, and Colonel Howell's confrontation at Maya's body. Instead, after they pull the plug, we move to Alphie and Joshua at LAX on the day of a public planned attack on AI bases. This means the whole element of putting memories into a new body is removed. 

In the final Nomad destruction sequence, Alphie still finds a Maya simulant. But without the memory chip aspect, he just wants to bring Maya to Joshua, but eventually gives up as one set of missiles destroys a city. This means Joshua doesn't reunite with Maya as Nomad destructs.

Silly moments are cut throughout, like the "Dog Grenade operator" with the dumb robot cops and the "monkey mine operator". No more jokes like translating "Sex with your mother" either. This is a not a funny movie.

But... to set expectations low that this is a simple story, Anthony Hopkins now gives a little intro and exit line of dialogue about a girl who "was to usher in a new age of peace and compassion." (from the only good part about Rebel Moon - The Hopkins narration.) 

Change List:

• New 1920x900 screen size to make the beautiful scenery more immersive

• Added new intro quote about the possibilities of AI

• Added robot footage from real footage, like Boston Dynamics, to ground the newsreel to our world

• Cropped most of Newsreel footage to Newsreel rounded box frame

• Adjusted military speech from "Ten years later" to "Today"

• Removed "western World vs New Asia" references in speech

• Added Anthony Hopkins introducing the story of the girl during Nirmata Title Card

• Trimmed Nomad and soldier dialogue and removed shot of the Nomad targeting laser in the same shot and within view of Joshua and Maya's beach house

• Trimmed Joshua and Maya's terrible "pillow talk" 

• Trimmed Joshua looking up in the sky to see Nomad coming

• Removed "American" references during raid

• Trimmed fake assassinating's Drew and removed talking to him, instead used audio for Joshua on the walkie talkie.

• Tightened Joshua and Maya confrontation to remove her knowledge of his  "past" life, added "What did you do?" line to Maya from The Eternals

• Removed shot of Nomad structure overhead of Maya on the boat

• New "The Widower" chapter card

• Tightened Joshua and CAT scan doctor, added in flashback of Maya fixing Joshua's arm, and ending with "What did you do?" line

• Removed News story about Nomad and Joshua looking at photos

• Tightened Joshua meeting the General Andrews and Colonel Howell at the pool, adjusted dialogue for better flow

• Removed mention of "New Asia" during the briefing on the transport

• Removed Howell asking Joshua if the photo is of his wife

• Removed Radiohead needledrop and rescored sequence

• Re-edited soldier interrogation of kid for lab entrance for "three-two-one" countdown

• Removed farmer's line about AI being evolution

• Removed translation of doctors cursing soldiers

• Tightened soldiers finding vault

• Removed shot of Nomad in sky over raid

• Tightened soldiers finding the bomb attached to the backpack sequence

• Removed "The Child" chapter card

• Removed Colonel Howell and McBride being put in police van

• Removed farmer touching Alphie before "Its a miracle line", removed mention of "the American"

• Removed farmer looking at the hole in his chest.

• Removed Alphie reluctant to get in the truck

• Tightened truck escape sequence, refoleyed to remove truck stereo music, and removed the dog and bomb silliness

• Removed sequence with Colonel Howell and McBride taking over police van

• Added faulty truck sounds to truck breaking down

• Removed discussion of artist "Candy" and Joshua reading "Alpha Omega" on Alphies head

• Removed Colonel Howell reviving Shipley

• Removed whole "van at checkpoint" sequence

• Tightened Joshua and Alphie "wanna play a game?" sequence to remove Joshua threatening Alphie before the bus ride

• Removed Alphie asking what Heaven is. She knows.

• Moved "The Friend" chapter card to after flashback, to be consistent with other chapter card appearances

• Removed Alphie asking "for robots to be free"

• Changed Joshua saying "it knows where Nirmata is, Maya will be with him" to Drew, to "it knows where Maya is."

• Removed Drew realizing she can grow, just that she is super advanced, then asks about her powers before they are interrupted

• Removed Drew and Joshua discussing the "fake Mayas"

• Removed Colonel Howell and McBride arriving at Drew's

• Removed needledrop during Joshua's rescue of Alphie from the police and rescored, tightened fight

• Removed Drew knowing and trying to tell Joshua he knew Maya was Nirmata this whole time

• Removed Harun telling Joshua about Alphie's powers and that robots just want to live in peace

• Removed Nomad from binoculars shot from boat

• Removed Harun saying Alphie's powers are still growing

• Removed kids' storyteller robot mentioning that their savior has "the power to end all wars"

• Removed Harun drinking tea

• Removed robot watching robot dancer hologram

• Removed reference to Americans when waking Harun

• Removed monkey trigering bomb

• Removed Colonel Howell and soldiers talking to bomb robots

• Removed McBride from Bridge sequence

• Removed Colonel Howell interrogating injured robot

• Removed Harun discussing Maya's motivations when making Alphie, saying "a copy of your child" and that Joshua is a part of them now

• Tightened Maya's story about the AI village attack

• Removed Nomad attacking Maya's village and the confrontation with Colonel Howell

• Removed Alphie's capture and Joshua's rescue. Instead we the "The Child" chapter card and then cut straight to the Airport

• Alphie and Joshua boarding plane tightened to remove "to be free" line

• Removed General Andrews knowing Joshua is on the plane until they see him on video, shots edits before that to make that narrative work

• Removed Joshua putting Maya's memories around Alphie's neck

• Removed Alphie putting Maya's memories into the Maya simulant. 

• Removed Joshua putting importance on the bomb timer display

• Removed operator for the mechanical octopus

• Removed Joshua and Maya simulant sequence

• Added Anthony Hopkins narration calling Alphie "the Redeemer" to close the story.