The Creator: how Gareth Edwards’ sci-fi epic film was influenced by Asian culture and the subject of AI – resulting in ‘Vietnam jungle warfare, but with robots’

Rogue One director Gareth Edwards’ new endeavour, The Creator, marries his love of Asian culture with the current conversation around the dangers of AI

He explains how he came up with the idea for the film, what he truly thinks about sci-fi and why working on Star Wars can feel ‘like playing in the Super Bowl’

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Madeline Voyles in a still from “The Creator”. The film marries Gareth Edwards’ love of Asian culture with the current conversation around the use of AI. Photo: 20th Century Studios

James Mottram

Published: 7:15am, 27 Sep 2023

It will come as no surprise to learn that Gareth Edwards has a love for Asian culture.

The British filmmaker, who burst onto the movie scene with the low-fi sci-fi Monsters in 2010, made the leap to Hollywood with his second film, Godzilla. The first of the “MonsterVerse” series, that 2014 film was a stylish, huge-budget take on the Japanese series of creature features made by entertainment company Toho, starring the great Japanese actor Ken Watanabe.

He followed it with Rogue One in 2016, easily the best Star Wars movie in the modern era, in which he cast Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen Ji-dan as the blind warrior Chirrut Imwe.

Now Edwards is back with The Creator, a sci-fi as epic as any Star Wars movie and one entirely inspired by his love of Asia.

Set in 2070, in a world where the Americans have banned AI, the story follows a US soldier, Sergeant Joshua Taylor (John David Washington), who has been sent on a mission into the Republic of New Asia to find Nirmata (Hindi for “creator”).

The mysterious Nirmata has built a superweapon to help the AI-friendly New Asia defeat the Americans, who themselves use an aerial space station, Nomad, that zaps whole areas with its ominous blue ray.