Fire up your positronic brains and get down with your bad A.I. simulant-selves as we check out the new film from Gareth Edwards: The Creator. Cyberpunk, sci-fi military war-movie and zen Buddhist anti-imperial colonialism come crashing together in this visual treat. But is it actually a good film? That’s very much a personal preference and one which will be hotly discussed in this podcast.
Dion and Peta were our two intelligences on this podcast due to a sudden bout of food poisoning taking Quinny out at the last minute.
He has also had some thoughts on the film and wanted to add them and his score here as well:
This is a visual treat that I adored watching up until the last act. It has some really sketchy sexual politics and the totally unnecessary fridging feels like a hangover from a time that this film might have been more at home in. It’s focus on grand visuals to back up it’s world building is certainly playing to it’s strengths, but sadly the more you scratch the surface the more it feels like it’s nowhere near as deep or meaningful as it wishes to be.
It relies heavily on tropes we have seen a lot before, and also surprisingly on some race based stereotypes that are a bit awkward in this day and age. When it does pose intriguing moral questions it does so almost too quietly; so you miss them, or sometimes too blatantly so you’re being beaten over the head with the allegory. The magical child needing a father figure/saviour feels like its lifted from the Golden Child, or one of a hundred other films and any reveals about the child or its genesis are telegraphed massively.
But the world was so intriguing and beautiful that I found it hard to dislike. Yes the third act falls apart and becomes Deus Ex Machina after Deus Ex Machina (gaming reference intended). and yes the logic of where Nomad is, or how big it is or far away it is seems a bit flexible. But this is gorgeous Cyberpunk cinema that looks amazing (especially considering what it was shot on!) and it really is a big example of “Style over substance”.
I am glad i watched it on the biggest screen i could and am not ashamed to say i enjoyed the visual treat I was served, even if it was pure empty calories.
87 from Quinny
As always, a huge cyber-thanks goes to our brilliant community of Bots, A.I.’s and robo-simulants who join in with the conversation on the Twitch stream, live and loud each Tuesday night at 7:30pm AEST. And an especially huge thanks to any of you kind enough to support us by chucking a tip in our jar via Ko-Fi, or subscribing on twitch… every bit helps us get closer to silicon heaven (or digital nirvana depending on your beleifs)!
If you feel so inclined to crypto-hack and support us via wifi, you can login and do so by dropping a sub… please feel free! The more subs we get the more Emotes You get! Every bit of your support helps us to keep our show running that bit longer.
Don’t fret if you can’t be there for the recording though as you can catch them on Youtube usually later that very night. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss them!
What changes would you like to see us make moving forward?
WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK!
Send in voicemails, audio notes, video notes or emails to [email protected]
Please make sure to join our social networks too! We’re on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TPToA/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/TPToA
Facebook: www.facebook.com/PeriodicTableOfAwesome
Instagram: www.instagram.com/theperiodictableofawesome/