The Reel Rejects - JUST WATCHED THE CREATOR!! Reaction & Review + MEETING Director Gareth Edwards!

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

RIGHT OUT-OF-THEATER MOVIE REVIEW + DIRECTOR INTERVIEW for the New Science Fiction Action Epic from Rogue One & Godzilla 2014's Gareth Edwards!! Imagining a Not-Too-Distant AI Robot Apocalypse, The Creator stars John David Washington (Tenet, BlackKklansman) & newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles along w/ Gemma Chan (Marvel's Eternals, Crazy Rich Asians, Captain Marvel), Ken Watanabe (Inception, The Last Samurai) Allison Janney (I, Tonya, Juno, The West Wing), Ralph Ineson (The Witch, The Green Knight), Sturgill Simpson (Killers of the Flower Moon), and more! John breaks down the movie's plot, characters, & themes along with its unique filmmaking & world-building, then speaks w/ Director Gareth Edwards about Creating that Future, Building the Performances, the Dread of Artificial Intelligence, and combining Independent Cinema Techniques with Blockbuster Filmmaking. With hints of Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now, Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium, Chappie), Avatar, & more, this was definitely something to behold. Some are hailing it the Best Sci-Fi Movie of the Year, but will it be enough to be a hit at the box-office?? #TheCreator #JohnDavidWashington #MadeleineYunaVoyles #SciFi #ScienceFiction #RogueOne #Godzilla #Monsters #MovieReview #InstantReaction #FirstTimeWatching #Director #interview Become A Super Sexy Reject For Full-Length T.V. & Movie Reactions! https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Aparrel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-reel-rejects/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Flying first class with Alaska Airlines isn't just about getting there. It's about enjoying the journey. Stretch out with industry leading leg room. Sink into an adjustable headrest and cozy up with a custom filsen blanket on long flights. Savor hot fresh meals, never frozen, and sip on our custom stump town coffee. Brewed to taste great at 30,000 feet. Upgrade your next trip. Book now at Alaskaair.com.

Hi, I'm Trisha. your friend and jeweler at Shane Company, where we're all about you, your style, your budget, your dream engagement ring. Are you looking for a style that's classic, modern, vintage, or something in between? Not sure? At Shane Company, we're here to help. We have so much style under one roof because a friend knows you like options. Drop by or visit us at shanko.com. Shane Company, your friend and jeweler. I was playing with ChachyPT, and I put in the opening scene of our movie, didn't tell the studio I was doing this, but I put in the opening a few pages.

Then I said, can you please tell me what happens next? And it said, I think four possible things happen next. And one of them was spot on. And I stopped. That's got to make you shiver. Yeah, I was like, okay, this is getting a bit too interesting now. How's it going there, citizens of the reject nation? It's your boy, Johnald, out here flying solo today in these cinema streets.

Quite literally, I tried to shoot this walking right out of the theater, and the security guard there said, nope, but you can shoot it by your car, so I set up a pretty decent shot by the car, only to get alley-ooped by a different security guard who said it's time to go. So we're kicking it old school to talk about the creator, the new sci-fi action epic, co-written and directed by Gareth Edwards, who you may recall as the director of Rogue One, a Star Wars story, Godzilla, 2014, and a terrific little indie sci-fi flick from 2020. called Monsters. Check it out if you haven't. Leave a like on this video. In fact, leave a like for original sci-fi. That's what we're going to be talking about today. And speaking of talking, I am actually going to be lucky enough to be able to speak with director Gareth Edwards a couple days from when this is being recorded. So what's going to happen is actually I'm going to give you my initial thoughts here fresh out the theater as the movie is washing over me and then we're going to go into the interview. See what the director himself has to say about the process of bringing this all to life, and maybe see if any of what I got out of this is any way related to what he had in mind. Anyway, what is the creator about and how is the movie? Decades into the future, our worst fears have come to pass, and now a war rages between humans and robots

with artificial intelligence, and amid that a former soldier, John David Washington, is tasked with hunting down the AI's newly developed super weapon, only to discover that it is a robot in the form of a young girl and I am almost at a lie. I'm kind of at a loss for where to begin. This is a whole lot of a movie. I made some notes here just to keep myself on track. I promise I'm not ignoring you. Because yeah, this movie can certainly be overwhelming at points, although not in a way I would necessarily say is bad. Just here in this moment, I find myself very much appreciating and admiring just the things the movie was going for and quite often succeeding at. In front of and behind the camera, there's tons of great work

and movie magic on display. I'm just kind of touched by its overall sense of of heart. That was a particularly nice surprise, especially as represented in the relationship between its two central characters, Joshua and Alfie, John David Washington, and Madeline Univoyles. When those two are together on screen, it is the heart and soul. They play off each other really naturally. And I think her performance in particular as this, you know, supposed super weapon is just pitched so gracefully. You know, I believed her as this self-aware robot. I believed her as just an actual kid. She choked me up. She made me laugh. You know, like, I can't really overstate how striking her performance is. It's to the director's credit also because this is a juggling act of a very high order. This feels like it's attempting to be a bit of every kind of sci-fi movie all at once.

Part sprawling action epic, part intimate character piece, part cyberpunk rumination on things like evolution and the nature of consciousness and free will and the mess of all those things. The interplay between humanity and machinery, empathy, et cetera. And it demonstrates the chops to be able to be all of those things and then some, though it does sort of feel like they were forced to maybe prioritize certain aspects over others in the editing room. With that, there are ways in which the film's reach can outweigh its grasp at times, or it can maybe feel a bit crammed. I can see some people really loving this.

I can see other people maybe coming out a bit frustrated by some of the potential that feels maybe a little less developed or explored, or perhaps paired down in favor of a more agreeable runtime slash MPAA rating in order to attract the kind of audience this needs to in order to make its budget back. It does feel a bit at odds with itself in that respect. Release the Edwards cut. But this to me does feel like a culmination of each of his features up to this point. Godzilla and Rogue One certainly, but very much monsters as well in the way that it really feels like you're out on the road in the thick of things.

Experiencing this world firsthand, you know, monsters does it with Mexico and here you have, you know, like Thailand and various other eastern countries, you know, kind of all over the globe. And the creator's future is really gorgeously shot and lived in. The blending of locations and designs and makeups and models and physical and visual effects, costumes. It's all impressively realized and effectively transportive. Solid Han Zimmer score as well and some pretty fun needle drops I wasn't expecting. This also reminded me of monsters in that it clearly wanted to incorporate a more intimate and off-the-cuff approach to character development, which is definitely present here and exhilarating in fits and bursts, although it does feel like a certain amount of that maybe was paired down to the cutting room floor.

This is one of those broadcasts kind of like you'd see in an alien-type movie where it's people from across the spectrum, and they're all doing good work. But it can leave you craving a bit more when you have people like, or Alison Janney playing against type as a sort of gruff commanding officer. Ken Watanabe Sturgle Simpson, Ralph Innocon. You really want to be able to soak up that ensemble, and I think certain roles can feel a bit slight or pared down at times. Blade Runner definitely feels like an inspiration for this. I was reminded of Neoblamp, kind of across that District 9 Chappi Elysium Run.

Also, Leon the Professional, some iRobot. Tenet, if you want to talk about an archetypical protagonist. Various Vietnam War movies, Avatar, and I haven't seen it, but I'm going to go out on a limit. out on a limb and say that there's some children of men in here as well. If you like any of those movies, chances are you'll get something out of this. This also feels like a really cool video game at times. So yeah, a thick review for a thick movie, but I am very happy to see original sci-fi on this scale again,

with as much vigor as this has, swinging for the fences as passionately as this is. It really gave me some things to chew on multiple angles to look at it from, and I think that's part of what good sci-fi is supposed to do along with transporting you and all that good stuff. It definitely felt to me like Gareth Edwards and his team really took this opportunity, and went for it, and I will always take a film that's trying to do a whole lot over not much. Your enjoyment will depend on which of the films inside of the creator you most gravitate

toward personally. But either way, I think if you're a sci-fi fan, this is definitely worth checking out and forming your own opinion of. But enough of my opinion. Let's see what the man himself has to say. Gareth, it's a huge honor to be talking to you right now. I've been a fan of monsters and Godzilla and Rogue One up until this point, and just, I don't know, to to be here right now and as a big fan of sci-fi this is super cool so thank you for taking the time out no thanks for having me thank you yeah absolutely um and and i mean this this movie watching this kind of felt like a culminative experience just based on you know those other things that you've done you know brought in some of that you know character intimacy that a monster maybe has but all that scope of the

others were you thinking about any of that you know during the production and and you know bringing all this stuff to life or were you more about just pushing ahead and you know figuring out what the next set of influences and inspirations would be No, a thousand percent. It was, it was like, you know, you grew up wanting to be a filmmaker, right? You're trying to get into, well, you think you're trying to get into Hollywood. And then what happens is your only way in is to make a film. And typically everyone's first film, they have to make for no money. And then there's a weird thing happens, which is you make a film for no money.

And it's actually a great experience. Like, you have all this freedom and all this control. And then if you're very lucky like me, like I kind of won the lottery and I got to do like these big Hollywood films. And there's amazing things to doing that. by by a mile like you know you get this massive canvas you get big theatrical releases you can kind of do anything you want but there's things that you did when you had no money that was super easy that now you can hardly even do when you've got like a massive crew and millions and millions of dollars it's like it's basically whatever is easy and hard with one you swap them over for

the other okay and so so i spent a lot of time after star wars going how do you try and get both of these to like how do you get all the positives of no money in an independent film and all the positives of a giant blockbuster and how do you make a film that includes both and so this whole thing was an exercise in doing things differently trying to reinvent the wheel and and because a new technology and new camera equipment uh we kind of instead of doing everything against green screen we went to eight different countries around the world we went to like you know the himalayas and volcanoes in Indonesia and Tokyo and Thailand, Cambodia, and shot this movie. We went 10,000, traveled 10,000 miles, 80 different locations, blah, blah, blah.

And then- You really feel those places. Yeah, because this, when some people talk about world building and go, how did you make a world realistic or whatever, like the big trick is go to the world, right? Like that, it's already there, like all the crazy, random, chaotic details. They're all there. Just go shoot the world. And then add in the science fiction, and it feels so much better. And so, you know, we kind of try to do that.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, this has that aspect of, you know, there's the tension of everyone's racing kind of towards the central point. And you have, you know, the sort of road movie unfolding. And at the center of all of that is this intimately developing story between Joshua, the John David Washington character and Alfie. And I got to ask, you know, how working with both John David and Madeline Univoyles, like that performance, you know, kind of blew me away because I'm like, you know, this kid is so real and

endearing. And yet I'm also like crying and stuff. Like how did you go about building both the chemistry between them and that growth, but also working with her in particular and building that performance because it's very striking. It was, I think we both knew me and John David both kind of understood that the most important thing that could happen on set was that he bonded with Madeline. And Madeline is like way beyond her years. She is like a reincarnated adult or something. Like I don't quite understand how she's such a great actress, so young. And so as a result, it takes a lot to become Madeline's friend.

Like you, she won't let you in easily, right? She's very, you know, keeps herself to herself, she's very shy. And so we tried really hard for John David to become close friends with her. And God bless him, he got in there somehow and they became inseparable. Yeah. And it was kind of hilarious to watch because we do takes and the second the take was over, you know, actors, you know, like they do, they go off to the corner and they go trying to stay in the zone, you know, and it's an emotional scene or something. They're just trying to just stay like, like, as people are moving lights, whatever's going on. And Madeline would go up to him and hold his hand and just like talk about her toy or something, you know. And he's like, oh, really? You know, and he's like being really nice to her and everything, like a big brother or something. And I'm like, oh, poor John David. But it really helped. yeah really help their dynamic on screen they were inseparable and we actually it was madeline's birthday just a few days ago and so meet you david and her family we went to disneyland and it was so cool and again they were just the whole time it was just like being back on set like she was

beaming it's a very high stakes Disneyland trip then yeah yeah yeah it was like it was a mini version of the creator like got to get her to galaxy's edge right away yeah we did go there Actually, yeah. I believe it. No. And I mean, you know, this is an interesting kind of moment to be releasing a film like this. And I have to imagine that you've been, you know, working on it and building it for a long time. But now we're in this moment where AI is like the forefront of the cultural conversation. And granted it's a different iteration. But, you know, does that have any sort of resonance with you? Does this feel like, wow, we couldn't have lucked out with a better moment for this? Or is it kind of arbitrary? No, no, we totally looked out. Thankfully, the Robo Apocalypse is, I think, scheduled for November. So we've got a good month of at this theatrical release until like they take over the world. Yeah, yeah. So we got lucky. But no, it was when I was kind of come out with this, it was a distant dream. It was like flying cars or living on the moon. It wasn't supposed to be happening right now. And so it's very surreal. I even actually, I was playing with ChachyPT and I put in the opening scene of our movie. Like I gave it this. I didn't tell the studio I was doing this.

I put it in the opening a few pages, the first scene. Then I said, can you please tell me what happens next? Oh, no. And it said, I think four possible things happen next. And one of them was spot on. And it was like, it was quite shocking. And it was like, okay, all right. And I stopped.

That's got to make you shiver. Yeah, I was like, okay, this is getting a bit too interesting now. Yeah, I believe it. Well, I mean, our time has come to an end. I'm sad to say I have a million questions I would love to ask you. But again, I really appreciate you taking the time. And it's, again, really cool to see a movie on this scale that does seem authentically concerned with being both, you know, a touching character piece with, you know, ideas and also something action-packed and thrilling and scopic and all that stuff. So, so I'm inspired and, yeah, I really appreciate you for chatting with me today.

Thanks, man. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, looking forward to whatever's next. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.