The Creator ending explained: Does Joshua reunite with Maya?
The new sci-fi flick from Rogue One director Gareth Edwards takes place in an imagined future where humans are at war with AI.
In recent months, the topic of AI has become increasingly ingrained in public discourse – and so there's perhaps no better time for Gareth Edwards's new sci-fi flick to arrive in UK cinemas.
The Creator – the director's first feature since he helmed Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016 – is an original story told on an epic scale, set in an imagined version of the future where humanity and AI are locked in a vicious war that has already seen Los Angeles destroyed by an atomic blast.
The film opens with some scene-setting that gets the audience up to speed with the major AI developments that have occurred in this version of the future. We learn that while the West is determined to root out the new sentient technology for good, the same is not true in 'New Asia', where AI and humans live side by side.
Eventually, we hone in on Joshua, a character played by John David Washington who is recruited to hunt down someone called Nirmata. Nirmata is the architect of an advanced form of AI, and has now crafted its most deadly weapon yet – which Joshua must take responsibility for destroying.
To complicate matters further, Joshua had previously been working undercover to root out Nirmata five years prior, and had fallen in love with a robotics expert called Maya (Gemma Chan), who was apparently killed in an attack carried out by US forces while she had been pregnant with his child.
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It is only when he is shown proof Maya may still be alive by his superior Colonel Howell (Allison Janney) that Joshua agrees to take on the mission, and when he does so, he discovers that the apparently deadly weapon he is tasked with destroying takes the form of a young child.
From then on, there are all manner of twists and turns as Joshua begins to question who the bad guys really are – read on to have The Creator's ending explained.
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The Creator ending explained
Before we jump right ahead to the ending, we should probably first recap some of the events that lead up to that emotional climax.
After discovering the AI weapon – which he names Alphie – Joshua realises that she might be able to lead him to Maya, and so he abandons his mission in a desperate attempt to reconnect with his wife.
There are action scenes and epic chases aplenty as his US forces colleagues attempt to intercept Alphie using their massive anti-AI system called USS NOMAD, and as the pair begin to strike up a bond, a few crucial revelations come to the fore.
For one, contrary to the belief that has been repeatedly parroted by US forces, the AI beings are clearly not interested in battling humanity, and are merely out to defend themselves – the atomic blast that had wiped out LA was a result of human coding error and not a deliberate AI attack.
More importantly for this particular story, we learn that Nirmata – the expert architect of AI – is none other than Maya herself, and she had made Alphie using DNA from her unborn baby, a revelation that understandably makes Joshua grow even more protective of the child weapon.
Unfortunately, when they eventually track down Maya, we learn that she has been in a comatose state ever since the attack five years ago, and it is down to Joshua to turn off her life support – the AI had been unable to do so, since she was their creator and they had been programmed never to harm her.
Before he acts on this, Joshua downloads Maya's consciousness onto a hard drive, which he then gives to Alphie.
During this time, the US forces in NOMAD have been closing in and are clearly unbothered by how much damage they cause – both to AI and humans – in their effort to destroy Alphie. They are ultimately successful in kidnapping Alphie and Joshua – and instruct the latter to neutralise the former.
Joshua appears to follow through on these orders, but whispers to her that he is not turning her off, just putting her on standby – meaning she will later be able to come alive again. And so, while they are being transported away, she does just that, and the pair manage to escape the clutches of US forces.
They then attempt to destroy NOMAD to end the war once and for all, and during this mission, Alphie tracks down a simulant that resembles Maya and plugs in the hard drive she had earlier been given by Joshua.
As NOMAD dramatically falls apart, it becomes clear that there is only room in an escape pod for Alphie, so Joshua encourages her to escape, essentially sacrificing himself to ensure that she is able to survive.
Alphie manages to reach safety, and in his final moments, Joshua comes across the simulant that Alphie had injected with Maya's consciousness – allowing the pair to share one final moment together.
The Creator is showing in UK cinemas from Thursday 28th September 2023. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on tonight.
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