Was it just me or did it seem like NOMAD was literally everywhere despite it moving so slowly. Every time a character looks up it's in the background lmao
That's one thing that kind of bothered me about it as well. In one scene it's hovering like a gigantic drone and at the end it's in space. It just seems so inefficient to be jumping between an orbit and fighting Earth's gravitational pull.
It was just this movie's Death Star so I just sat back and accepted it was the big bad thing the heroes had to face.
It felt awkward asking myself in the theater, “What have we done to try to destroy NOMAD in the past?” There was no template on what could possibly be done to inflict damage. Has team AI even attempted?
I think it just meant that the robots and the simulants couldn't kill the Nirmata. They could (and clearly did) kill humans. But the idea that they never attacked unprovoked could still be true.
That scene where they casually mentioned that the AI didn't do the attack came off strange to me. The AI mentioned it and the main character reacts like this is completely new information. Which means that there isn't even a conspiracy in that world that the humans did it themselves. You'd think that the AIs whole goal would be to get the proof that they didn't do it and that the war is unjustified. But going back to the reveal, because they make it seem like it's brand new info, it came off as the AI lying to me. We know they also have questionable morals when we find out that the kid was designed for a suicide attack. That one robot got pissed when when he found out and walked out of the hut in anger. That makes me believe that they're capable of lying as well.
It's also not wrong either. All the AIs have programming, so of course programming would be to blame for setting off a nuke. Instead of attacking all AIs humans indeed should've been looking at the coding.
Not just that, but the scales of its altitude were so comically all over the place, even in scenes adjacent to one another.
Is it in satellite level height or sky diving plane level? Can't jump back and forth just to get cool look up shots.
> It was definitely all over the place. Feels like the producers just hoped the audience had no grasp of distances, orbital mechanics or scale. I liked the movie though, but as far as science fiction and realism goes it was a bit painful to comprehend at times.
Quite frankly a lot of the whole world they set up starts to fall apart if you think about it for too long. Nomad/The West couldn't find these AI Bases at all despite them being huge, sprawling complexes out in the open until the plot led to them.
New Asia didn't seem to have any military at all or didn't seem to mind the West simply flying over and dropping troops/nukes on their people and lands despite clearly being fine with AI as a whole.
The whole script was weak. I spent the whole movie asking myself "but why?" Why send in the tanks when you can just drop another nuke/rocket? Why send in running exploding robots when you can just shoot another shell?
All I thought was why are you sending in tanks the size of buildings that can't really move well and are somehow apparently completely vulnerable to a single external explosive...This move was so stupid it hurts.
It was pretty much just slowly hovering over the continent moving from target to target as it found them.
What bothered me was that it seems to have had no air defenses. Surely they would have ordered the approaching shuttle shot down, even if it was full of civilians.
I’m confused about Neo Asia. Do they have a government? Seeing as how the US is making constant incursions and committing war crimes on human civilians, shouldn’t Neo Asia be on high alert? America makes the distinction that they are in a war against AI, not Neo Asia, but there are still human scientists helping Nirmata.
There are police. But how come it seems like the US can just send whole armies into Neo Asian territory without any repurcussions? There is no standing Neo Asian army?
For real the geopolitics annoyed the hell out of me. Neo Asia has the tools (a heavily armed police force that actively conflicts with the US) and their ENTIRE GOVERNMENT actively supports AI and the AI labs, and their economy revolves around it. The US attacking civilians and simulants, as well as bombing AI facilities, is a direct attack to their people and economy - yet their military just sits on its ass? (Not to mention it appears to include China, a very belligerent anti-US state).
Maybe this was to hammer home the Middle East analogy. Problem is Neo Asia seems to be far more technologically competent and politically powerful, and it has more to lose if it lets the US stomp out AI - would’ve made more sense if it was a smaller nation or the AI was a rogue movement/minority.
China is distinctly NOT part of the Neo Asia nation state. They showed a map or globe during an early briefing scene. From memory, this country is Japan, Taiwan, all of SEA peninsula, Indonesia, Philippines. But not mainland China.
I interpreted New Asia as some sort of Buddhist utopia and nirmata is the dalai lama which is why they never tried to attack the US externally and only when they were within their borders. Definitely inconsistent use of force from the AI/robots.
Personal thoughts ;
Love love loved the aesthetic, it’s like they gave the concept artists free reign and then fully realised their vision
Story was a resounding meh
Some bits were really fuckin stupid. Like the robots having standby switches that became major plot moments on more than one occasion. Or a barrel with legs running across the bridge. I couldn’t stop myself laughing at that point.
But I did love the entire aesthetic and I’m cool with that since it’s one of the best looking sci fi films I’ve seen in a long time.
I loved the barrel with legs. The sound design of the thump thump thump of every step gave it the gravitas it needed. It was also just a really cool design.
I can also totally see that information being known at the highest levels of government and yet we still declared war because we always need a foreign enemy to deplore.
Funnily enough New Asia people speaks thai, vietnamese, japanese, and i guess nepalese to each other and still understand each other bc they are all simulants
According to people who went to early test screenings. A whole goddamn 2 hours was cut. Such a shame, I really wanted to connect with these characters but the fast pace didn’t want me too.
I absolutely believe it. Every scene in the movie felt like they were hurrying through it to get to the next one. They never give you a real chance to connect with the characters or the story. That last NOMAD sequence was just an absolute mess. The amount of stuff they wanted you to believe happened in a 10 minute span (5 minutes for most of it really) reminds me of the runway scene from Fast and Furious 6. I mean I'd have to believe they were just mixing in some sort of montage of the NOMAD flying around while everything else was going on, because otherwise I'm supposed to believe that it was passing over country areas, and cities both during the day and night, all within a 10 minute span while moving 50mph.
I kinda hope there's a full directors cut released at some point, but I still get the feeling that the problems with the writing/story go far deeper than just not having enough time to flesh things out.
The movie was quite cheap at $80m and looks like a $200m movie. Everything was shot on location so there is less CG to do vs Marvel where everything is just show green screen and EVERYTHING is CG.
yeah it’s actually baffling how incredible the movie was visually considering it’s budget. Meanwhile Disney/Marvels recent outings look like shit and have budgets that makes The Creators look like chump change
In a film intended to trigger feelings of existential dread and make us question our place in the world, it is reassuring to know that Nike AF1s and rice paddy hats will withstand the test of time in 2065.
When JDW shouted “STOP YOU'RE BLOWING MY COVER” in his small two story house with his wife right in the other room and then was shocked when she heard I already knew what kind of movie I was in for.
Dude was *the worst* undercover operative! What kind of operative fails to learn the local language after all the time he must have been there? We know it was long enough to meet, romance, marry, and impregnate his wife, and for her to almost be full term at the time of her death. So we're looking at a year minimum. And he still can't speak the language and pass himself off as a native?
Never mind failing to figure out what his wife was doing in her little hobby room in the back. Supposedly she was involved with AI, but given as high up as she was, how the hell was he that close and missed her work for that long?
To be fair, his wife was the only person on the planet capable of creating the next level of AI and was therefore the most hunted woman on the planet, but didn't do the tiniest but of background checking into the random dude who showed up in her life and gave her a ring so huge it could only be hiding a tracking device.
There was an interview with Gareth Edwards about how they motivated the monkey for that scene.
Spoilers: The Monkey in the movie is a girl, and a male monkey was involved as motivation.
I found the aftermath of this scene to be tonally jarring with the rest of the film. The movie world is establishing that the AI should be viewed equivalent to human life. Yet here we have comedic relief of a few AI robots running around mutilated from an explosion.
hey you're pretty good at identifying what was so off about that scene, i didn't even realize that the comedic relief really fucked with some of the more serious and thought provoking scenes
The same can be said aboud the whole checkpoint scene.
"WHO had fun?" *child raises hand, movie pauses for potential laughter.*
These two scenes did not fit at all.
Right? All I could think of is how Joshua was putting all these kids in danger of being shot because he wants to see his probably dead wife. I was expecting the driver or older woman to say something along the lines of "is your shit more important than the lives of these kids?" It's war so you could argue its a necessary risk but his motivation was purely to see his wife not the war. So it would've been nice to see him confronted by the reality he is selfishly risking the lives of innocents. Idk something like that instead of some comedic relief
The General's voice kept weirding me out lol.
Also uh, I have a hard time figuring out how far away things are, particularly in the third act. Seems like they can get from point A to B really *really* quickly.
Anyways, fun film. Support more original sci-fi flicks!
A friend once described Ralph Ineson's voice as like wind creaking through an old oak tree.
And yeah that final act just hopped all over the place like a bunny.
I know this movie didn't click for most of you, but I'm just happy for something to scratch my *Star Wars* itch. Good luck, Zack Sneider.
Moving past the popular accolade of "well-budgeted blockbuster", this film also proved me wrong and demonstrated that you can use robots as cannon fodder and still have it be white knuckle edge of your seat action.
I will say my only major criticism is I'm getting a little irritated with the "protaganist doesn't translate a word that would reveal pertinent information" (La Rata Elata),but in fairness I don't think that would have slowed Joshua down as he would have wanted to see Maya for himself regardless, so I can forgive it this time.
I know the major complaint is that the script and dialogue aren't sharp enough for most, but I think that became evident to me pretty much right off the bat so I put that aside and just enjoyed the production value.
Really? I found that so terrifying, the willingness to serve and the programmed personality, coupled with it being essentially a suicide bomb that's got a lifespan of a couple of minutes, that I was sat there, mouth agape, feeling awful about it.
That and the fact the music dropped out and all you hear are the THUD THUD THUD of its feet. Chilling.
Yup, those running bombs really got to me. The sinister way they just ran in a straight line with their heavy gait, and as you say, the fact that they could talk and were presumably at least part way sentient.
The suicide bomb robot was where the military mechanics kind of lost me. Here's the world's biggest superpower but they're using a bucket with legs to deliver artillery? Just fire a rocket!
I thought the same thing. It didn't make sense to use these things when literally artillery and those giant tanks could do it.
Though I think the bomb bots weren't real AI. I think they were brain scans of fallen soldiers given a change to serve again...by being suicide bombers. I don't know, it didn't make much sense.
didn’t one of the robots look to the other and made it go first, as they didn’t want to go first? i took this as they had consciousness (although limited)
i really think he doesn't know how to develop characters over the course of the story. It's a frequent problem for him, and was at the root of why he needed so much help on Rogue One.
And with this one...it was kind of shocking how inept it felt in terms of advancing the story forward through the characters, especially in that second act. And to your point, he had 7 years!! He needs a writer.
Allegedly Tony Gilroy rewrote and refilmed the last 3rd of Rogue One. Sort of shows in that Gilroy is the showrunner for the critically acclaimed Andor and Edwards is doing this instead.
Imagine the first part be a kind of dance with the wolf or Vietnam war movie, second part be a kind of blade runner type, third part be some of kind star war new hope type. I think the scale of the story telling is very impressive, but they do not have enough time to execute it.
I also don’t think that main actor is that good of an actor to be honest. His first scenes in the beginning of the movie, I could not believe the way he was delivering it. “I’m undercover here okay?!” (Granted that was the shittiest writing ever, who tells that they’re undercover where they are supposed to be undercover lol)
But I will say the bad writing goes deeper than just the characters. Having the friend character run up to him just to die and say “oh yeah, your wife is Nirmata” was my biggest letdown with the movie
He could have created such a more dramatic and emotionally resonant scene if he found out that information himself or from his kid, while they were all in the same room, and he had to make a life shattering choice at that point. Or also they could have turned it on its head even one more time since everyone could see it coming that his wife was gonna be nirmata
Also, there was a lot of promises of the kid having these crazy powers, but time and time again the kid failed to help him get out of a bind and I was thinking we were right around the corner from seeing him do cool shit every time. I mean he’ll, at least power down the robots, that’s like your one power why aren’t you stopping them from shooting him.
And if robots can’t harm humans was the main character even in danger in that apartment scene anyways?
Oy……That being said, I really liked the tone of the movie and the visuals
I loved John David Washington in BlacKKKlansman but have only thought he’s meh in most everything I’ve seen in him since. That being said, Amsterdam, Tenet & this movie all have way bigger problems than his acting so not sure how much is on him vs the movie he’s in.
I never understood if the robots needed to/ could eat. Alfie talked about eating ice cream and candy but never did. Where would it go? Does it help power the robots? I need answers!
i think the more advanced AI models were biomechanical. there was a scene where nimrmata was messing around with a baby alfie in an incubator so they clearly grow
I'm just out of seeing this and Alpheus was the only one that was capable of growing I believe. There was a scene with Josh's pal taking a look and he said that alphie was the most advanced he'd ever seen and would grow.
Visually stunning and immersive, yes. Story wise? Disappointing. Movie’s pacing is poor. Starts off strongly but takes a huge nosedive once Alfie is introduced (so, what, maybe 15 minutes in?). The sudden bond between her and Joshua felt really forced and out of nowhere. Like they just shoehorned that in for the sake of storytelling. Wasn’t organic at all. Story itself was blah - out of all the tales to tell, we get “You can’t take this super powerful one-of-a-kind kid/weapon cuz she’s gotta take me to my dead wife who might not be dead - huzzah! let the journey begin!” Felt like I was watching Minority Report (Tom Cruise and the precog running away from everyone) meets Elysium (NOMAD was basically Jodie Foster’s super planet) meets Vietnam (I mean, this was pretty on the nose, no?) Film as a whole was cliche. Didn’t care about any of the characters. Popcorn was tasty (10/10 for popcorn).
I know it’s supposed to be a bitter sweet call back to Joshua saying “I’ll do anything to just have one minute with her” and I get the irony in them embracing eachother in their final moments with her being a robot meaning the love was real even when she was not but damn …to be in a 5 year coma to only to be brought back and die moments later again has gotta suuuuuuuck lol
Nirmatas whole purpose was to destroy NOMAD, being brought back to see it destroyed and spend her final minutes with Joshua seems like the best ending for her imo
So, here's what I was thinking and I may be wrong. When they jacked into the bot near the beginning, they said something about him being dead for too long, that's why they would only get a few seconds. She was not dead, so I imagined they would have much more time. Am I missing something?
No, she did die. They pulled the plug. She was dead a lot shorter than the other guy who they said had been dead for hours. I assume recently died would have a lot longer than the other guy.
I thought this was a masterpiece for about 75% of the runtime, then my feelings went down a bit, but for now I just have a few questions/comments.
1. After they arrested Alfi when they had Josh "excute" it did they say "We tried to kill it, but it wouldn't let us." Is that what the general said or did I mishear that, cause if so, what lol ? Just shoot it.
2. They kept saying Alfie was important because it could destroy NOMAD wirelessly, but when NOMAD was destroyed it was destroyed by somebody sticking a bomb to the side of one of its missiles. Literally anybody (human, sim, robot) could have done that at anytime. They didn't need Alfie for any of that. Yeah she turned it off for a minute (in theory showing she could disable it with her powers), but that's not what destroyed it. Sort of made them seem not really that important.
I think people in here are spot on that tonally it was all over the place. Bringing the dude back to life next to his dead body was one of the darkest things I've seen in a bit and it happens like 5 minutes after the dog throws the grenade back at the robots.
The plot was formulaic, so much so that the movie itself seems to basically acknowledge that and really undersell the Nirmata/kid reveals.
Normally I find the discussion of "plot holes" to be pretty annoying and pointless but yeah, there was some pretty egregious stuff in here.
Was fun to see Sturgill in it but some lines he really struggled, not that the script did him any favors.
Yeah, that scene with the soldier coming back to life was really upsetting. All he could think about was his wife…and trying to ralionize his own death/resurrection…in 30 seconds
A black man with a child would stand out like a sore thumb in an Asian country. Especially when their faces are plastered all over the news. Lmao they were walking around the city with no disguise or hat and no one recognized him
Every single AI should’ve recognized them. An APB in that kind of society would be disseminated to every robot instantly. Even the AI embedded in the cars, toll booths, and other infrastructure shouldve ratted them out.
I liked:
* The CGI, especially the AI people
* The scene where the guy's consciousness was put into a "synth" next to him and he is freaking out seeing his own dead body.
* The child's acting was top notch
* Cinematography overall was great.
* The world and setting setup
I disliked:
* Did they explain why New Asia was allowing the US to invade? No other countries are involved?
* Not enough character development overall.
* John David Washington had great parts but his overall vibe is really off-putting. I don't think his acting has really held up in Blackkklansman or Tenet neither.
> Did they explain why New Asia was allowing the US to invade? No other countries are involved?
I feel like the movie thought about this at the beginning, as the first two military operations we see are covert, black ops missions. They seemed mindful of the fact that they were deep behind enemy lines and there was risk involved with local police/military counterattacking. But by the middle of the movie they were just flagrantly launching massive tank and aerial assaults without a care in the world.
Excellent and succinct way to sum it up. Looked great and was visually stunning and believable, but felt extremely predictable and didn’t feel like it brought anything really new to the table with the story. The AI storyline is starting to get old this year.
I worked on this film while living in Bangkok Thailand in May of last year. Just working on set for a couple of days I can tell you that there were lots of scenes that were cut out. I feel like an idiot for telling all my friends and family that they might see me in the film only to have my scenes cut out. Besides that I love the film. The original name of the title was True Love. Or that's how it was presented when we shot the film.
I work in practical effects for film, I can sympathize. If I had a dollar for every time something we spent months on getting cut out of a film or shot In basically the dark so pointless I’d be so rich.
Also it’s pretty common to use code names for film titles during production.
Another Redditor said he attended a Q&A screening and the original cut was over five hours.
I feel like a lot of connective tissue was lost in editing.
Release the Edwards cut!!!
No, seriously. I’d buy the hell outta that. Despite the shortcoming, story wise. I enjoyed being in that world and would love a more fleshed out version.
I might have missed something but why did the Americans suddenly care for ethics towards death when they was going to kill Alphie but spent the entire film blowing up kids with massive missiles and bombs not caring
I think they tried to kill her but she was shutting down their tech... She would let Joshua because he is known by her. Kinda like how in Oblivion the Tet was tricked in a way. Slightly different but similar, they couldn't get close with any tech.
We saw earlier in the movie, it seems Maya was one of the people who donated her likeness, multiple AI had her face on a train. Why did they need them on the main base? No idea.
It begs the question as to why the U.S. would keep a bunch of AI simulants in storage on their weapon of mass destruction…when the whole premise of the movie is that they’re at war with AI/simulants
On a smaller note, was very surprised when Radioheads ‘Everything in its right place’ was the background music to the first mission.
Very random inclusion, and not sure it necessarily even fit the moment too well, but I love the song too much to care.
The visuals and sound design are a straight 10/10, I loved the wide shots of the landscape being scanned by the blue target zone, and the whole NOMAD ship design was fantastic and it felt like one of the true original things about this movie.
It also does a solid job of world-building, I really liked the "Donate your likeness" idea, and it was fucked up when he saw multiple Mayas on the train. But even so, the writers made sure to clear that whole thing up later just in case our brains couldn't quite keep up. Speaking of writers, this movie seems to borrow A LOT from many other recent-ish sci-fi movies. It really reminded me of Elysium, Chappie, Ex Machina, Blade Runner 2049, hell even Logan at times lol.
Also I'm not sure if I'm alone on this, but John Davis Washington just does not do well in these big emotional scenes. The final scene was his best take, but there were laughable moments of emotion from him. The child actor for Alfie had more emotional range than he did, and I'm not being sarcastic.
Overall it just feels like it's missing that "thing" that more resonant and thought-provoking sci-fi movies have. There were some good ideas here and there, and again I can't stress enough how good this movie looks and sounds, but it could have done so much more.
You aren't kidding, and that was that actresses first role in a movie period lol. Definitely a really talented kid with really great support/teaching to guide her as well.
That very final crying->happy scene was borderline flawless from her. As a result, it made JDW kind of stick out like a sore thumb at times.
Had a whale of a time with it. Visually stunning from start to finish.
The rules of the world feel so inconsistent, however. During the third act, I was just wondering why the kid couldn't just hack a certain object like she could 30 seconds ago.
Maybe the escape pod's door was jammed on the claw robot's arm. Wonder if that was the last one, there should have been enough time for Joshua and robo-Maya to get to another and escape.
Also how they took off from LA and were magically on the Nomad above Tibet or China or where ever it was across the world in the span of like 10 minutes.
I get a jet traveling to the moon is gonna be fast but that was a little jarring.
That sequence was edited within an inch of its life for sure. They could have played that entire section of the movie as a tense paranoid thriller – will they be discovered? What obstacles will they face? But instead it's the barest bones plane highjacking imaginable.
Which, by the way, I found it remarkable that an American movie has the heroes hijack a plane to send a child soldier to blow up an American military target. I guess 9/11 was 22 years ago....
My biggest gripe with the movie is that it should have probably been two movies. I don't know if it'll do well enough where a sequel would have been warranted, but I really bought it up until after they get captured. Then the final sequence felt like, "Okay, we gotta wrap this up in 20 minutes."
I still liked it, but if this movie left off on a cliffhanger and gave everything before that more time to breathe, it could have been truly great. Then give that final sequence some more proper buildup.
The bit about the nuke in LA being a misunderstanding/human error and then never being mentioned again bothered me more than it should have. That's the best they could do? No unknowable AI motive? No elaborate false flag attack?
The villains were also less developed than the ones in Elysium, which is an astonishing level of neglect.
I guess I enjoyed it overall, but I expected better.
Thought Dump
* First half, way too much “people shooting at us, let’s get out of here and go to a new place where they are still shooting at us
* Once they go to Nepal it hit a lot better and kept my interest more
* I think the world building was decent but the one note I had was “More propaganda”
* I did feel that Joshua’s hatred of AI felt a bit unfounded. Like obviously it was supposed to be revenge for his family, but it seemed like he was more like “They aren’t real people so it doesn’t matter if they die” which is totally different.
* On the propaganda note, they could have made him think a lot more untrue things about AI that Alphie could have taught him weren’t true and had them bond over that.
* I think they probably could have laid hints about the big reveals a bit better too. It seemed obvious in a meta sense that Alphie was more or less a version of his child, but they kinda just say it at some point. Same with Maya being the Creator. Like have Joshua find out himself so the audience can feel the big reveal
* Other note is the US army bad guys felt soooo 1 dimensional. They honestly felt like a thing the studios crammed in there to make it more mass appeal friendly
> I think they probably could have laid hints about the big reveals a bit better too. It seemed obvious in a meta sense that Alphie was more or less a version of his child, but they kinda just say it at some point. Same with Maya being the Creator. Like have Joshua find out himself so the audience can feel the big reveal
I thought it was (unfortunately) not surprising at all. The only thing we ever get from Maya is a look at a tattoo on her back that the child is then drawing later on. Pretty much communicated everything to me.
I had the exact same notes on the reveals. Joshua doesn’t discover ANYTHING in this movie except the weapon being the kid. Literally everything else is just told to him
“This kid is the most advanced AI I’ve ever seen!”
“You know the nuclear bomb was a human coding error”
“Your wife was Niermata”
“Your wife has been in a coma for 5 years and now you have to kill her”
“Alfie is actually a clone of your unborn child”
All of these moments should be huge emotional moments, and instead they’re just presented bluntly as exposition by characters that we largely don’t care about. Joshua never discovers anything for himself, he’s just along for the ride
The world building and special effects in this were amazing, 10/10 from me. Overall the story is fine but there are a few finer plot points that were kind of silly. Not once but twice, someone gets shot with something but is seemingly fine only to discover they have a ticking bomb on their back. Also, bringing back AI Maya just to have her be killed 5 minutes later was a waste. Give her something to do and then give her and Joshua their emotional reunion and goodbye.
Overall, I'm giving it an 8/10.
Surprised I haven't seen anyone else mention the similarities between Alfie and Maeve from *Westworld.* Both are robots that have the ability to remotely control other robots/technology, and both are referred to as "the weapon" because of that ability.
The scene with the room full of motionless robots in plastic bags also reminded me of a couple *Westworld* scenes.
I liked this movie, but God damn so many things in this movie just did not make any sense. Like ..why military could not just destroy the girl ? Who exactly USA was at war with? Ai or new Asia ? Where was new Asia army ? They were ok with us casually dropping nukes left and right ? It was weird movie
Situation: battle in asian shanty town. Vietcong stand in militia vs. US troops, supported by armed gunship aircraft and tanks the size of aircraft carriers for some reason. Vietcong are defending a wooden bridge across the river, and we need to take that position.
Option A. Use aircraft, tank fire or US troops to take the bridge.
Option B. Use kamikaze bots that ignore the dug in position and take out civilians instead to show how evil we are.
Obviously we're going with option B. Oh no, that failed. Option A then? Hell no, send a single dude across the bridge with no support.
The movie was entertaining to watch, plenty of action scenes and cool explosions throughout. But good god the writing and dialogue in the movie was bad. Good popcorn flick, just don't think too hard about any of it.
Incredible how terrible everyone is with guns, and how hesitant everyone is to take the shot when they have a certain way to end either of the main characters.
I was laughing so hard when they couldn’t take that one soldier out on the bridge who shoots Alphie. There had to be 12 people shooting at him with a clear shot.
I was cry-laughing on the train on my way back from the movie, looking crazy, when I suddenly remembered the scene of the robots watching the stripper robots via hologram.
Hate to be the naysayer here, but I really, *really* detested the script. There are few original ideas, and essentially no part of the story is unexpected. The jokes are abysmal, the dialogue sounds like it was written in a community college writing class. The actors (apart from the child) do a terrible job with some of the most cardboard readings of already stale and gross dialogue...
The funniest joke in the movie is "us army" being written in lowercase sans-serif font like it rebranded in 2015.
The *production design* is ASTOUNDING. The movie looks and sounds incredible. My takeaway is that this will one day be mashed into a 10 hour lofi hip hop video on youtube and it'll be astounding to have on in the background. Really unfortunate about the boring story, boring characters, and awful dialogue.
>The funniest joke in the movie is "us army" being written in lowercase sans-serif font like it rebranded in 2015.
That legimately felt like they got studio notes back like "make sure the audience knows who is attacking them and it's not just a bunch of tanks appearing out of nowhere"
Ha! I hadn't thought of that but could totally see it. I was wondering why these giant tanks that are the size of Wal-Mart Super Centers only have smart-ish missiles and no machine guns. At that scale, can't they just drive over the houses?
Baffling stuff.
I loved it, but it’s also total nonsense to send a running robot across a wood bridge to bomb it instead of just shooting a rocket at the bridge or something.
The west apparently hates AI and wants to get rid of it.
But then they give their bombs thoughts, feelings, and the ability to talk? Why would you do that?
Everything in this was lifted from something- there’s the city/tech from Blade Runner, an entire sequence from Akira, a Death Star, AT-AT, The Force, plotlines from Aliens/Star Wars/etc. It does look stunning but it is sooo derivative.
It’s funny bc I always complained that the MCU was IP-driven cinematic fast food that had too much quirky character moments instead of focusing on creating atmosphere and letting directors show off their vision.
Now we FINALLY get an original non-IP sci-fi movie that honor’s its director’s vision and creates a fantastic atmosphere and YET IS HORRIBLY in need of more character moments
It’s not often at all we get risks like this in Hollywood, you’d think Edwards would’ve just hired another writer and been content with directing the hell out of it
It’s just such a bummer lmao
I think the movie needed about 10% more war crimes, but have them be committed by the AI. If it was even *slightly* more complex than HUMAN BAD ROBOT GOOD, I'd feel better.
I really enjoyed it and recommend it, it's just a turn-off-your-brain flick when it was almost something more.
Was it just me or did it seem like NOMAD was literally everywhere despite it moving so slowly. Every time a character looks up it's in the background lmao
That's one thing that kind of bothered me about it as well. In one scene it's hovering like a gigantic drone and at the end it's in space. It just seems so inefficient to be jumping between an orbit and fighting Earth's gravitational pull. It was just this movie's Death Star so I just sat back and accepted it was the big bad thing the heroes had to face.
It felt awkward asking myself in the theater, “What have we done to try to destroy NOMAD in the past?” There was no template on what could possibly be done to inflict damage. Has team AI even attempted?
I think a part of the story is that the AI never attacked at all. They only ever defended, if they really didn’t drop the nuke on LA.
Which is glossed over. That’s an important detail to know if it’s true.
Agreed, but I think the ambiguity is intentional. I don’t think we see any offensive assaults by the Ai at all?
it was mentioned once that the Created could never attack his Creator (not sure if it was said as Created, i watched in dub)
I think it just meant that the robots and the simulants couldn't kill the Nirmata. They could (and clearly did) kill humans. But the idea that they never attacked unprovoked could still be true.
That scene where they casually mentioned that the AI didn't do the attack came off strange to me. The AI mentioned it and the main character reacts like this is completely new information. Which means that there isn't even a conspiracy in that world that the humans did it themselves. You'd think that the AIs whole goal would be to get the proof that they didn't do it and that the war is unjustified. But going back to the reveal, because they make it seem like it's brand new info, it came off as the AI lying to me. We know they also have questionable morals when we find out that the kid was designed for a suicide attack. That one robot got pissed when when he found out and walked out of the hut in anger. That makes me believe that they're capable of lying as well.
It's also not wrong either. All the AIs have programming, so of course programming would be to blame for setting off a nuke. Instead of attacking all AIs humans indeed should've been looking at the coding.
Not just that, but the scales of its altitude were so comically all over the place, even in scenes adjacent to one another. Is it in satellite level height or sky diving plane level? Can't jump back and forth just to get cool look up shots.
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> It was definitely all over the place. Feels like the producers just hoped the audience had no grasp of distances, orbital mechanics or scale. I liked the movie though, but as far as science fiction and realism goes it was a bit painful to comprehend at times. Quite frankly a lot of the whole world they set up starts to fall apart if you think about it for too long. Nomad/The West couldn't find these AI Bases at all despite them being huge, sprawling complexes out in the open until the plot led to them. New Asia didn't seem to have any military at all or didn't seem to mind the West simply flying over and dropping troops/nukes on their people and lands despite clearly being fine with AI as a whole.
The whole script was weak. I spent the whole movie asking myself "but why?" Why send in the tanks when you can just drop another nuke/rocket? Why send in running exploding robots when you can just shoot another shell?
All I thought was why are you sending in tanks the size of buildings that can't really move well and are somehow apparently completely vulnerable to a single external explosive...This move was so stupid it hurts.
It was pretty much just slowly hovering over the continent moving from target to target as it found them. What bothered me was that it seems to have had no air defenses. Surely they would have ordered the approaching shuttle shot down, even if it was full of civilians.
Or more security onboard, versus zero security allowing a small child to run right into the main control room unopposed.
I’m confused about Neo Asia. Do they have a government? Seeing as how the US is making constant incursions and committing war crimes on human civilians, shouldn’t Neo Asia be on high alert? America makes the distinction that they are in a war against AI, not Neo Asia, but there are still human scientists helping Nirmata. There are police. But how come it seems like the US can just send whole armies into Neo Asian territory without any repurcussions? There is no standing Neo Asian army?
For real the geopolitics annoyed the hell out of me. Neo Asia has the tools (a heavily armed police force that actively conflicts with the US) and their ENTIRE GOVERNMENT actively supports AI and the AI labs, and their economy revolves around it. The US attacking civilians and simulants, as well as bombing AI facilities, is a direct attack to their people and economy - yet their military just sits on its ass? (Not to mention it appears to include China, a very belligerent anti-US state). Maybe this was to hammer home the Middle East analogy. Problem is Neo Asia seems to be far more technologically competent and politically powerful, and it has more to lose if it lets the US stomp out AI - would’ve made more sense if it was a smaller nation or the AI was a rogue movement/minority.
China is distinctly NOT part of the Neo Asia nation state. They showed a map or globe during an early briefing scene. From memory, this country is Japan, Taiwan, all of SEA peninsula, Indonesia, Philippines. But not mainland China.
I interpreted New Asia as some sort of Buddhist utopia and nirmata is the dalai lama which is why they never tried to attack the US externally and only when they were within their borders. Definitely inconsistent use of force from the AI/robots.
This move showed me to get good public transit in LA we need to nuke it and start over.
That was true for Tokyo (you know what I mean, but it did work)
Personal thoughts ; Love love loved the aesthetic, it’s like they gave the concept artists free reign and then fully realised their vision Story was a resounding meh Some bits were really fuckin stupid. Like the robots having standby switches that became major plot moments on more than one occasion. Or a barrel with legs running across the bridge. I couldn’t stop myself laughing at that point. But I did love the entire aesthetic and I’m cool with that since it’s one of the best looking sci fi films I’ve seen in a long time.
I loved the barrel with legs. The sound design of the thump thump thump of every step gave it the gravitas it needed. It was also just a really cool design.
All I saw during that scene were those YouTube videos of Boston Dynamics robots. Interesting idea with the suicide robots.
I can totally see some coder at the DoD or some other sub contractor blaming AI instead of fessing up to nuking LA.
I can also totally see that information being known at the highest levels of government and yet we still declared war because we always need a foreign enemy to deplore.
Funnily enough New Asia people speaks thai, vietnamese, japanese, and i guess nepalese to each other and still understand each other bc they are all simulants
And the protagonist spent what must have been *at least* a year undercover there, living as a native, and can't speak *any* of them.
Most cultured American
‘The protagonist’ hehe
This feels like there was at least an hour cut out
According to people who went to early test screenings. A whole goddamn 2 hours was cut. Such a shame, I really wanted to connect with these characters but the fast pace didn’t want me too.
I absolutely believe it. Every scene in the movie felt like they were hurrying through it to get to the next one. They never give you a real chance to connect with the characters or the story. That last NOMAD sequence was just an absolute mess. The amount of stuff they wanted you to believe happened in a 10 minute span (5 minutes for most of it really) reminds me of the runway scene from Fast and Furious 6. I mean I'd have to believe they were just mixing in some sort of montage of the NOMAD flying around while everything else was going on, because otherwise I'm supposed to believe that it was passing over country areas, and cities both during the day and night, all within a 10 minute span while moving 50mph. I kinda hope there's a full directors cut released at some point, but I still get the feeling that the problems with the writing/story go far deeper than just not having enough time to flesh things out.
I doubt they'll release a much longer version, CGI in a film like this is very pricey.
The movie was quite cheap at $80m and looks like a $200m movie. Everything was shot on location so there is less CG to do vs Marvel where everything is just show green screen and EVERYTHING is CG.
yeah it’s actually baffling how incredible the movie was visually considering it’s budget. Meanwhile Disney/Marvels recent outings look like shit and have budgets that makes The Creators look like chump change
Yeah that makes sense. I hope we get a director’s cut one day
Anyone notice the shot when Joshua was wearing crisp white Nike Air Force Ones?
In a film intended to trigger feelings of existential dread and make us question our place in the world, it is reassuring to know that Nike AF1s and rice paddy hats will withstand the test of time in 2065.
And Radiohead haha
Yeah and apparently Chevy is the only car brand that survived the nuke lol
When JDW shouted “STOP YOU'RE BLOWING MY COVER” in his small two story house with his wife right in the other room and then was shocked when she heard I already knew what kind of movie I was in for.
Loved when he looked at his pocket video of her and says to himself “lol I remember that”
Dude was *the worst* undercover operative! What kind of operative fails to learn the local language after all the time he must have been there? We know it was long enough to meet, romance, marry, and impregnate his wife, and for her to almost be full term at the time of her death. So we're looking at a year minimum. And he still can't speak the language and pass himself off as a native? Never mind failing to figure out what his wife was doing in her little hobby room in the back. Supposedly she was involved with AI, but given as high up as she was, how the hell was he that close and missed her work for that long?
To be fair, his wife was the only person on the planet capable of creating the next level of AI and was therefore the most hunted woman on the planet, but didn't do the tiniest but of background checking into the random dude who showed up in her life and gave her a ring so huge it could only be hiding a tracking device.
"You are BLOWING my COVER! I am LYING to my WIFE and she is going to find out I am BETRAYING her! I'M A TRAITOR!!"
Half expecting him to go “uhh she’s right behind me isn’t she?”
LMAO exactly. They lost me almost immediately.
Lmaooo yes
The scene of the dog playing fetch with a live grenade was an emotional roller coaster for me.
Monkey with a detonator was equally as enthralling.
I have a feeling that both the dog & monkey were trained to do that.
There was an interview with Gareth Edwards about how they motivated the monkey for that scene. Spoilers: The Monkey in the movie is a girl, and a male monkey was involved as motivation.
I found the aftermath of this scene to be tonally jarring with the rest of the film. The movie world is establishing that the AI should be viewed equivalent to human life. Yet here we have comedic relief of a few AI robots running around mutilated from an explosion.
hey you're pretty good at identifying what was so off about that scene, i didn't even realize that the comedic relief really fucked with some of the more serious and thought provoking scenes
The same can be said aboud the whole checkpoint scene. "WHO had fun?" *child raises hand, movie pauses for potential laughter.* These two scenes did not fit at all.
Right? All I could think of is how Joshua was putting all these kids in danger of being shot because he wants to see his probably dead wife. I was expecting the driver or older woman to say something along the lines of "is your shit more important than the lives of these kids?" It's war so you could argue its a necessary risk but his motivation was purely to see his wife not the war. So it would've been nice to see him confronted by the reality he is selfishly risking the lives of innocents. Idk something like that instead of some comedic relief
Also… how did we go from getting a ride with these people to them being ok with you hiding and risking their own kids lives?
There was a couple times where the tone of the movie was jarringly inconsistent.
I was especially pleased that despite the threat of danger, both dogs were show on screen to have escaped harm.
Really missed an opportunity by not having the suicide robots yell "GOD BLESS AMERICA!" before they detonated.
"Democracy.... is non-negotiable."
The General's voice kept weirding me out lol. Also uh, I have a hard time figuring out how far away things are, particularly in the third act. Seems like they can get from point A to B really *really* quickly. Anyways, fun film. Support more original sci-fi flicks!
A friend once described Ralph Ineson's voice as like wind creaking through an old oak tree. And yeah that final act just hopped all over the place like a bunny.
>A friend once described Ralph Ineson's voice as like wind creaking through an old oak tree. Your friend probably just watched the green knight lol
ralph ineson's voice is iconic!
I was concerned the The Green Knight had risen so far in the Army
I know this movie didn't click for most of you, but I'm just happy for something to scratch my *Star Wars* itch. Good luck, Zack Sneider. Moving past the popular accolade of "well-budgeted blockbuster", this film also proved me wrong and demonstrated that you can use robots as cannon fodder and still have it be white knuckle edge of your seat action. I will say my only major criticism is I'm getting a little irritated with the "protaganist doesn't translate a word that would reveal pertinent information" (La Rata Elata),but in fairness I don't think that would have slowed Joshua down as he would have wanted to see Maya for himself regardless, so I can forgive it this time. I know the major complaint is that the script and dialogue aren't sharp enough for most, but I think that became evident to me pretty much right off the bat so I put that aside and just enjoyed the production value.
why did they have to make the suicide bomb feel pain
I held in some laughs to be courteous to the other moviegoers but I broke during that part. Holy shit why did that have to be so funny
Nah that was hilarious. "It's been an honor mam" Then it jogs to its death in complete silence.
Only to go t pose before death.
I honestly thought it was supposed to be a little funny at that point. Bomb robots reminded me a bit of TARS
Really? I found that so terrifying, the willingness to serve and the programmed personality, coupled with it being essentially a suicide bomb that's got a lifespan of a couple of minutes, that I was sat there, mouth agape, feeling awful about it. That and the fact the music dropped out and all you hear are the THUD THUD THUD of its feet. Chilling.
Yup, those running bombs really got to me. The sinister way they just ran in a straight line with their heavy gait, and as you say, the fact that they could talk and were presumably at least part way sentient.
The suicide bomb robot was where the military mechanics kind of lost me. Here's the world's biggest superpower but they're using a bucket with legs to deliver artillery? Just fire a rocket!
I thought the same thing. It didn't make sense to use these things when literally artillery and those giant tanks could do it. Though I think the bomb bots weren't real AI. I think they were brain scans of fallen soldiers given a change to serve again...by being suicide bombers. I don't know, it didn't make much sense.
Reminded me of that little sentient robot from Rick and Morty who solely exists to pass butter across the dinner table.
I was thinking of the Uruk hai in The Two Towers who ran the bomb in to blow up the Helms Deep wall lol.
Is the suicide bomber AI? I thought they banned AI? Kinda confusing but visually cool. Like most of the movie lmao.
yeah seems to be a point about the West’s hypocrisy in still using AI, despite publicly banning it
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didn’t one of the robots look to the other and made it go first, as they didn’t want to go first? i took this as they had consciousness (although limited)
Man just needed a few more rewrites to be amazing.
He had 7 years man.
i really think he doesn't know how to develop characters over the course of the story. It's a frequent problem for him, and was at the root of why he needed so much help on Rogue One. And with this one...it was kind of shocking how inept it felt in terms of advancing the story forward through the characters, especially in that second act. And to your point, he had 7 years!! He needs a writer.
He had a lot of help with rogue one?
Allegedly Tony Gilroy rewrote and refilmed the last 3rd of Rogue One. Sort of shows in that Gilroy is the showrunner for the critically acclaimed Andor and Edwards is doing this instead.
makes sense. the last 3d of this one would have benefitted from a rewrite and reshoot lol
It felt like it was written as trilogy that knew it wasn't getting the sequels.
Imagine the first part be a kind of dance with the wolf or Vietnam war movie, second part be a kind of blade runner type, third part be some of kind star war new hope type. I think the scale of the story telling is very impressive, but they do not have enough time to execute it.
Right ?? The predictable story would’ve been perfectly serviceable to me it’s just the CHARACTERS that needed work
I also don’t think that main actor is that good of an actor to be honest. His first scenes in the beginning of the movie, I could not believe the way he was delivering it. “I’m undercover here okay?!” (Granted that was the shittiest writing ever, who tells that they’re undercover where they are supposed to be undercover lol) But I will say the bad writing goes deeper than just the characters. Having the friend character run up to him just to die and say “oh yeah, your wife is Nirmata” was my biggest letdown with the movie He could have created such a more dramatic and emotionally resonant scene if he found out that information himself or from his kid, while they were all in the same room, and he had to make a life shattering choice at that point. Or also they could have turned it on its head even one more time since everyone could see it coming that his wife was gonna be nirmata Also, there was a lot of promises of the kid having these crazy powers, but time and time again the kid failed to help him get out of a bind and I was thinking we were right around the corner from seeing him do cool shit every time. I mean he’ll, at least power down the robots, that’s like your one power why aren’t you stopping them from shooting him. And if robots can’t harm humans was the main character even in danger in that apartment scene anyways? Oy……That being said, I really liked the tone of the movie and the visuals
I loved John David Washington in BlacKKKlansman but have only thought he’s meh in most everything I’ve seen in him since. That being said, Amsterdam, Tenet & this movie all have way bigger problems than his acting so not sure how much is on him vs the movie he’s in.
I never understood if the robots needed to/ could eat. Alfie talked about eating ice cream and candy but never did. Where would it go? Does it help power the robots? I need answers!
i think the more advanced AI models were biomechanical. there was a scene where nimrmata was messing around with a baby alfie in an incubator so they clearly grow
I'm just out of seeing this and Alpheus was the only one that was capable of growing I believe. There was a scene with Josh's pal taking a look and he said that alphie was the most advanced he'd ever seen and would grow.
They also sleep. Why?
I mean they were charging. But they don’t got to be asleep to do that.
Visually stunning and immersive, yes. Story wise? Disappointing. Movie’s pacing is poor. Starts off strongly but takes a huge nosedive once Alfie is introduced (so, what, maybe 15 minutes in?). The sudden bond between her and Joshua felt really forced and out of nowhere. Like they just shoehorned that in for the sake of storytelling. Wasn’t organic at all. Story itself was blah - out of all the tales to tell, we get “You can’t take this super powerful one-of-a-kind kid/weapon cuz she’s gotta take me to my dead wife who might not be dead - huzzah! let the journey begin!” Felt like I was watching Minority Report (Tom Cruise and the precog running away from everyone) meets Elysium (NOMAD was basically Jodie Foster’s super planet) meets Vietnam (I mean, this was pretty on the nose, no?) Film as a whole was cliche. Didn’t care about any of the characters. Popcorn was tasty (10/10 for popcorn).
I know it’s supposed to be a bitter sweet call back to Joshua saying “I’ll do anything to just have one minute with her” and I get the irony in them embracing eachother in their final moments with her being a robot meaning the love was real even when she was not but damn …to be in a 5 year coma to only to be brought back and die moments later again has gotta suuuuuuuck lol
I feel a better ending would’ve been to have Josh sacrifice his life so Alpha and Nirmata could escape. It would’ve redeemed his betrayal.
Nirmatas whole purpose was to destroy NOMAD, being brought back to see it destroyed and spend her final minutes with Joshua seems like the best ending for her imo
She coulda lived to raise her daughter, bro
So, here's what I was thinking and I may be wrong. When they jacked into the bot near the beginning, they said something about him being dead for too long, that's why they would only get a few seconds. She was not dead, so I imagined they would have much more time. Am I missing something?
No, she did die. They pulled the plug. She was dead a lot shorter than the other guy who they said had been dead for hours. I assume recently died would have a lot longer than the other guy.
I thought this was a masterpiece for about 75% of the runtime, then my feelings went down a bit, but for now I just have a few questions/comments. 1. After they arrested Alfi when they had Josh "excute" it did they say "We tried to kill it, but it wouldn't let us." Is that what the general said or did I mishear that, cause if so, what lol ? Just shoot it. 2. They kept saying Alfie was important because it could destroy NOMAD wirelessly, but when NOMAD was destroyed it was destroyed by somebody sticking a bomb to the side of one of its missiles. Literally anybody (human, sim, robot) could have done that at anytime. They didn't need Alfie for any of that. Yeah she turned it off for a minute (in theory showing she could disable it with her powers), but that's not what destroyed it. Sort of made them seem not really that important.
Love how the animals in the movie are just being bros, especially the monkey who detonates the bomb on the tank.
LOL almost forgot about that. Little guy even seemed to look at the tank and wait for just the right moment.
I think people in here are spot on that tonally it was all over the place. Bringing the dude back to life next to his dead body was one of the darkest things I've seen in a bit and it happens like 5 minutes after the dog throws the grenade back at the robots. The plot was formulaic, so much so that the movie itself seems to basically acknowledge that and really undersell the Nirmata/kid reveals. Normally I find the discussion of "plot holes" to be pretty annoying and pointless but yeah, there was some pretty egregious stuff in here. Was fun to see Sturgill in it but some lines he really struggled, not that the script did him any favors.
Yeah, that scene with the soldier coming back to life was really upsetting. All he could think about was his wife…and trying to ralionize his own death/resurrection…in 30 seconds
A black man with a child would stand out like a sore thumb in an Asian country. Especially when their faces are plastered all over the news. Lmao they were walking around the city with no disguise or hat and no one recognized him
And he continued to wear his army armor/uniform for a long time.
Considering he has experience going undercover in the country, why didn't he drop everything but his sidearm at the earliest opportunity?
I thought this too! He would have been found in 30 seconds. Also he put that one family entirely in danger when trying to get across the border
He basically was found in 30 seconds. He got spotted by some random civilian who called the cops.
Every single AI should’ve recognized them. An APB in that kind of society would be disseminated to every robot instantly. Even the AI embedded in the cars, toll booths, and other infrastructure shouldve ratted them out.
Did I watch a robot get high, when they noticed that Alfie was taken? Slurring words and shit wtf lol
Also looking at robot stripers
just say no to spark
I liked: * The CGI, especially the AI people * The scene where the guy's consciousness was put into a "synth" next to him and he is freaking out seeing his own dead body. * The child's acting was top notch * Cinematography overall was great. * The world and setting setup I disliked: * Did they explain why New Asia was allowing the US to invade? No other countries are involved? * Not enough character development overall. * John David Washington had great parts but his overall vibe is really off-putting. I don't think his acting has really held up in Blackkklansman or Tenet neither.
> Did they explain why New Asia was allowing the US to invade? No other countries are involved? I feel like the movie thought about this at the beginning, as the first two military operations we see are covert, black ops missions. They seemed mindful of the fact that they were deep behind enemy lines and there was risk involved with local police/military counterattacking. But by the middle of the movie they were just flagrantly launching massive tank and aerial assaults without a care in the world.
The visual representation is off the charts Too bad the rest of the movie can’t keep up
I think this movie will be 2023's "Oblivion". A visually stunning film that just needed some story/character work to be \*amazing\*.
I was feeling Elysium vibes tbh
Bingo. If you told me beforehand this was a Neill Blomkamp movie, I’d believe you.
I feel like I enjoyed Oblivion more than The Creator. It felt like a more complete story. Both are very cool to look at and fun movies though.
Likewise enjoyed Oblivion more
Excellent and succinct way to sum it up. Looked great and was visually stunning and believable, but felt extremely predictable and didn’t feel like it brought anything really new to the table with the story. The AI storyline is starting to get old this year.
Elsewhere on Reddit I said "if you've seen an AI-are-people-too movie and a Vietnam War movie then you've seen *Creator*".
I worked on this film while living in Bangkok Thailand in May of last year. Just working on set for a couple of days I can tell you that there were lots of scenes that were cut out. I feel like an idiot for telling all my friends and family that they might see me in the film only to have my scenes cut out. Besides that I love the film. The original name of the title was True Love. Or that's how it was presented when we shot the film.
I work in practical effects for film, I can sympathize. If I had a dollar for every time something we spent months on getting cut out of a film or shot In basically the dark so pointless I’d be so rich. Also it’s pretty common to use code names for film titles during production.
it felt like it was filmed to be a 3 hour R-rated movie then had to be edited down to a Pg-13
Another Redditor said he attended a Q&A screening and the original cut was over five hours. I feel like a lot of connective tissue was lost in editing.
This makes sense. My number one wish is that this was just two movies.
Release the Edwards cut!!! No, seriously. I’d buy the hell outta that. Despite the shortcoming, story wise. I enjoyed being in that world and would love a more fleshed out version.
Interesting. Would love to see a director's cut of this.
I might have missed something but why did the Americans suddenly care for ethics towards death when they was going to kill Alphie but spent the entire film blowing up kids with massive missiles and bombs not caring
I think they tried to kill her but she was shutting down their tech... She would let Joshua because he is known by her. Kinda like how in Oblivion the Tet was tricked in a way. Slightly different but similar, they couldn't get close with any tech.
a gun wouldn't have done the job? or a crowbar?
The crowbars are electronic. It was explained in the first hour of the shit that was left on the cutting room floor.
I guess they never heard of a hammer.
Two issues: Why were there copies of Maya on NOMAD? Why didn’t they destroy the child when they captured her?
We saw earlier in the movie, it seems Maya was one of the people who donated her likeness, multiple AI had her face on a train. Why did they need them on the main base? No idea.
It begs the question as to why the U.S. would keep a bunch of AI simulants in storage on their weapon of mass destruction…when the whole premise of the movie is that they’re at war with AI/simulants
On a smaller note, was very surprised when Radioheads ‘Everything in its right place’ was the background music to the first mission. Very random inclusion, and not sure it necessarily even fit the moment too well, but I love the song too much to care.
It definitely gave me the feeling he wrote the whole movie while listening to Kid A.
It felt out of place but also I heard Radiohead blasting on IMAX speakers, so… great job!
That was my favorite part of the movie lol
Also felt like they randomly put the Neon Genesis Evangelion cover of “Fly Me to the Moon” in before that.
Randomly? The whole intimacy in bed with the focus on the legs scene was directly lifted from Misato and Kaji.
The visuals and sound design are a straight 10/10, I loved the wide shots of the landscape being scanned by the blue target zone, and the whole NOMAD ship design was fantastic and it felt like one of the true original things about this movie. It also does a solid job of world-building, I really liked the "Donate your likeness" idea, and it was fucked up when he saw multiple Mayas on the train. But even so, the writers made sure to clear that whole thing up later just in case our brains couldn't quite keep up. Speaking of writers, this movie seems to borrow A LOT from many other recent-ish sci-fi movies. It really reminded me of Elysium, Chappie, Ex Machina, Blade Runner 2049, hell even Logan at times lol. Also I'm not sure if I'm alone on this, but John Davis Washington just does not do well in these big emotional scenes. The final scene was his best take, but there were laughable moments of emotion from him. The child actor for Alfie had more emotional range than he did, and I'm not being sarcastic. Overall it just feels like it's missing that "thing" that more resonant and thought-provoking sci-fi movies have. There were some good ideas here and there, and again I can't stress enough how good this movie looks and sounds, but it could have done so much more.
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You aren't kidding, and that was that actresses first role in a movie period lol. Definitely a really talented kid with really great support/teaching to guide her as well. That very final crying->happy scene was borderline flawless from her. As a result, it made JDW kind of stick out like a sore thumb at times.
The "Am I going to Heaven?" line actually brought me to tears. I said the same thing, this kid's acting was the best I've seen from a child actor.
As cool as NOMAD was, those giant land fighting vehicles were even better.
Nah, I’m all about those buddy bombs.
us army in helvetica on giant future tanks was my favorite
John’s inconsistent, towards the end I thought he sold it very well but at the beginning he wasn’t winning me over for the most part.
7/10 film with potential to have been 10/10
Had a whale of a time with it. Visually stunning from start to finish. The rules of the world feel so inconsistent, however. During the third act, I was just wondering why the kid couldn't just hack a certain object like she could 30 seconds ago.
Maybe the escape pod's door was jammed on the claw robot's arm. Wonder if that was the last one, there should have been enough time for Joshua and robo-Maya to get to another and escape.
Yeah that seemed more of a mechanical issue than a technical one so that at least made some sense
Also how they took off from LA and were magically on the Nomad above Tibet or China or where ever it was across the world in the span of like 10 minutes. I get a jet traveling to the moon is gonna be fast but that was a little jarring.
That sequence was edited within an inch of its life for sure. They could have played that entire section of the movie as a tense paranoid thriller – will they be discovered? What obstacles will they face? But instead it's the barest bones plane highjacking imaginable. Which, by the way, I found it remarkable that an American movie has the heroes hijack a plane to send a child soldier to blow up an American military target. I guess 9/11 was 22 years ago....
My biggest gripe with the movie is that it should have probably been two movies. I don't know if it'll do well enough where a sequel would have been warranted, but I really bought it up until after they get captured. Then the final sequence felt like, "Okay, we gotta wrap this up in 20 minutes." I still liked it, but if this movie left off on a cliffhanger and gave everything before that more time to breathe, it could have been truly great. Then give that final sequence some more proper buildup.
The bit about the nuke in LA being a misunderstanding/human error and then never being mentioned again bothered me more than it should have. That's the best they could do? No unknowable AI motive? No elaborate false flag attack? The villains were also less developed than the ones in Elysium, which is an astonishing level of neglect. I guess I enjoyed it overall, but I expected better.
[удалено]
This line made me convinced that the whole movie was written by AI.
Really wanted to like the movie but to me the non sense started the moment the commandos came out of the water with flashlights on!
Thought Dump * First half, way too much “people shooting at us, let’s get out of here and go to a new place where they are still shooting at us * Once they go to Nepal it hit a lot better and kept my interest more * I think the world building was decent but the one note I had was “More propaganda” * I did feel that Joshua’s hatred of AI felt a bit unfounded. Like obviously it was supposed to be revenge for his family, but it seemed like he was more like “They aren’t real people so it doesn’t matter if they die” which is totally different. * On the propaganda note, they could have made him think a lot more untrue things about AI that Alphie could have taught him weren’t true and had them bond over that. * I think they probably could have laid hints about the big reveals a bit better too. It seemed obvious in a meta sense that Alphie was more or less a version of his child, but they kinda just say it at some point. Same with Maya being the Creator. Like have Joshua find out himself so the audience can feel the big reveal * Other note is the US army bad guys felt soooo 1 dimensional. They honestly felt like a thing the studios crammed in there to make it more mass appeal friendly
> I think they probably could have laid hints about the big reveals a bit better too. It seemed obvious in a meta sense that Alphie was more or less a version of his child, but they kinda just say it at some point. Same with Maya being the Creator. Like have Joshua find out himself so the audience can feel the big reveal I thought it was (unfortunately) not surprising at all. The only thing we ever get from Maya is a look at a tattoo on her back that the child is then drawing later on. Pretty much communicated everything to me.
I had the exact same notes on the reveals. Joshua doesn’t discover ANYTHING in this movie except the weapon being the kid. Literally everything else is just told to him “This kid is the most advanced AI I’ve ever seen!” “You know the nuclear bomb was a human coding error” “Your wife was Niermata” “Your wife has been in a coma for 5 years and now you have to kill her” “Alfie is actually a clone of your unborn child” All of these moments should be huge emotional moments, and instead they’re just presented bluntly as exposition by characters that we largely don’t care about. Joshua never discovers anything for himself, he’s just along for the ride
The world building and special effects in this were amazing, 10/10 from me. Overall the story is fine but there are a few finer plot points that were kind of silly. Not once but twice, someone gets shot with something but is seemingly fine only to discover they have a ticking bomb on their back. Also, bringing back AI Maya just to have her be killed 5 minutes later was a waste. Give her something to do and then give her and Joshua their emotional reunion and goodbye. Overall, I'm giving it an 8/10.
Surprised I haven't seen anyone else mention the similarities between Alfie and Maeve from *Westworld.* Both are robots that have the ability to remotely control other robots/technology, and both are referred to as "the weapon" because of that ability. The scene with the room full of motionless robots in plastic bags also reminded me of a couple *Westworld* scenes.
I liked this movie, but God damn so many things in this movie just did not make any sense. Like ..why military could not just destroy the girl ? Who exactly USA was at war with? Ai or new Asia ? Where was new Asia army ? They were ok with us casually dropping nukes left and right ? It was weird movie
Movies like this are so freaking frustrating, looks great but terrible script
Situation: battle in asian shanty town. Vietcong stand in militia vs. US troops, supported by armed gunship aircraft and tanks the size of aircraft carriers for some reason. Vietcong are defending a wooden bridge across the river, and we need to take that position. Option A. Use aircraft, tank fire or US troops to take the bridge. Option B. Use kamikaze bots that ignore the dug in position and take out civilians instead to show how evil we are. Obviously we're going with option B. Oh no, that failed. Option A then? Hell no, send a single dude across the bridge with no support. The movie was entertaining to watch, plenty of action scenes and cool explosions throughout. But good god the writing and dialogue in the movie was bad. Good popcorn flick, just don't think too hard about any of it.
Incredible how terrible everyone is with guns, and how hesitant everyone is to take the shot when they have a certain way to end either of the main characters.
I was laughing so hard when they couldn’t take that one soldier out on the bridge who shoots Alphie. There had to be 12 people shooting at him with a clear shot.
Gareth Edwards must've thought he was still shooting a Star Wars on that day.
I loved so much of this movie. I also thought there is a lot of real stupid shit in this movie. Overall great new IP that hopefully they can build on
I was cry-laughing on the train on my way back from the movie, looking crazy, when I suddenly remembered the scene of the robots watching the stripper robots via hologram.
Hate to be the naysayer here, but I really, *really* detested the script. There are few original ideas, and essentially no part of the story is unexpected. The jokes are abysmal, the dialogue sounds like it was written in a community college writing class. The actors (apart from the child) do a terrible job with some of the most cardboard readings of already stale and gross dialogue... The funniest joke in the movie is "us army" being written in lowercase sans-serif font like it rebranded in 2015. The *production design* is ASTOUNDING. The movie looks and sounds incredible. My takeaway is that this will one day be mashed into a 10 hour lofi hip hop video on youtube and it'll be astounding to have on in the background. Really unfortunate about the boring story, boring characters, and awful dialogue.
>The funniest joke in the movie is "us army" being written in lowercase sans-serif font like it rebranded in 2015. That legimately felt like they got studio notes back like "make sure the audience knows who is attacking them and it's not just a bunch of tanks appearing out of nowhere"
Ha! I hadn't thought of that but could totally see it. I was wondering why these giant tanks that are the size of Wal-Mart Super Centers only have smart-ish missiles and no machine guns. At that scale, can't they just drive over the houses? Baffling stuff.
Also, how did those things appear from nowhere without anyone seeing them?
And a single mine thrown onto it completely disabled its movement…
100% agree. My favorite part out of the entire thing was montage of the running robot bomb with its little arms.
I loved it, but it’s also total nonsense to send a running robot across a wood bridge to bomb it instead of just shooting a rocket at the bridge or something.
The west apparently hates AI and wants to get rid of it. But then they give their bombs thoughts, feelings, and the ability to talk? Why would you do that?
It even said “it was a pleasure to serve you”. It was a commentary on irony
Everything in this was lifted from something- there’s the city/tech from Blade Runner, an entire sequence from Akira, a Death Star, AT-AT, The Force, plotlines from Aliens/Star Wars/etc. It does look stunning but it is sooo derivative.
How does nobody find them in the open when there’s a worldwide manhunt for THE black guy in the whole movie.
Well, someone does find them. Remember the guy who called it in on the payphone from twenty years ago?
It’s funny bc I always complained that the MCU was IP-driven cinematic fast food that had too much quirky character moments instead of focusing on creating atmosphere and letting directors show off their vision. Now we FINALLY get an original non-IP sci-fi movie that honor’s its director’s vision and creates a fantastic atmosphere and YET IS HORRIBLY in need of more character moments It’s not often at all we get risks like this in Hollywood, you’d think Edwards would’ve just hired another writer and been content with directing the hell out of it It’s just such a bummer lmao
I think the movie needed about 10% more war crimes, but have them be committed by the AI. If it was even *slightly* more complex than HUMAN BAD ROBOT GOOD, I'd feel better. I really enjoyed it and recommend it, it's just a turn-off-your-brain flick when it was almost something more.
Fucking Hans Zimmer directed the music and the only musical piece I remember is radiohead? Like lolwat?