The Creator, Gareth Edwards' latest scifi movie, was made on a budget of just $80 Million, but it looks better than most $300 Million "blockbusters". It shows just how wasteful and bloated most Hollywood movies have become.
When asked if she wanted to be Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor said, jokingly, "tell them I'll do it for a million dollars." She was the first to get that much for starring in a big movie.
I have to give Edwards and his crew a lot of credit here - how many times has an errant prop, object, or worker blundered into the shot forcing a reshoot , or worse, ended up all the way to the final stage without any one noticing so we see a nice car zooming by a medieval village or an errant wristwatch in an era of sundials? By dressing everyone on set in costumes, this issue is negated so simplistically yet also so brilliantly.
I hate when people say they don't like sci-fi because they think all the candy-colored comic book superhero crap saturating the market are Sci-Fi. It's like fools who won't watch LOTR because "I don't like fantasy". So stupid. It's like hating the Beatles because hippies are dumb and some copycat bands super-suck and that's all they associate with them.
Remember the time when Spielberg preferred to cast brilliant unknowns in his films instead of established stars and ended up launching the careers of several actors? Good times
@@mat2000100 No, he wouldn't. A woke version of Schindler's List would have had all the Jews be perfection personified and able to fight off the Nazis with no effort whatsoever, while every German would have been pure evil, completely ignoring that there was a decent subset of ethnic Germans who hated Hitler and the Nazi party, and they played a massive part in helping Jews escape Germany. Instead, the movie focused more on the mundane horror of the Holocaust, how, for most of the German military, the atrocities were just their 9-5, no different to them from anything we do today. Understanding that requires a degree of intelligence Hollywood simply lacks
The Creator intentionally shot using a Sony FX3, which is a 3k "prosumer" camera. This was done to keep the size of the kit (gimbals, tripods, cranes) small. This allowed them to have a smaller crew. A smaller crew meant they could more easily jump on planes and fly to more locations. More locations widened the scope and scale of the film (before visual effects were added) so every £ spent resulted in more varied visuals which always create the perception of a larger budget. This is before you get onto how specific Gareth Edwards is in terms of the coverage he shoots and how efficient he is in terms of visual effects usage. Also don't forget the film had two DPs, one of whom was Greig Fraser, who shot The Batman, Dune and Rogue One.
Gareth Edwards I am quite fond of as a director. While we can absolutely go after his writing choices(Godzilla 2014 is a good example with Bryan Cranston being wasted), the thing I respect about him is that he has a VFX background. His film, monsters, he did all the VFX by himself. So he understands exactly what shots are required and how they will look. A lot of newbie directors do not want to educate themselves on VFX or have some producer dictate the shots, cough Marvel. Combine that with Edwards having a limited crew and wanting to be more grounds down, you can see why the film being so cheap looks good. All in all, Hollywood really should take a page from Edwards and just go for cheaper films and actually lock down scripts and VFX shots without needlessly changing them all the time. Because at the end of the day, making a movie is about being a creative but also being a problem-solver. Good problem solvers educate themselves and in turn work hard to figure out ways to resolve problems.
@@greggibson33 i mean, yes, when that style is fairly unique. Don't get me wrong, it's a valid criticism of some of what he's done, but in this era of hollywood where you basically can't have a distinct style because the studio's too afraid you'll need to do reshoots and therefore the camera work has to be easily repeatable.... having style is at least something of a plus all things considered. When he's making movies like 'the creator', stand alone efforts that aren't meant to be especially deep and don't have anything to do with an IP you may be invested in, just a couple of hours of entertainment... yeah, at least making it visually interesting is something you can give him props for.
This is why I admire Keanu Reeves. Hes very commonly passes a lot of his payday on a lot of really big movies to help the production. He knows who and what he is, he does it for love of the game and gawd damn. I love that.
If a film has a limited budget - comparatively speaking - the producer cannot rely so heavily on special effects and name stars, and hopefully demands a solid script and excellent acting. Special effects and name stars cannot overcome a poorly crafted story, dopey dialogue, and lackluster acting.
Disney seemed to have a bottomless capacity for waste , they reshot every movie right up till the release date forced whatever crap they had onto the screen without ever getting a favorable test screening. They'll burn down Hollywood before taking out the woke. If there hadn't been endless reshoots most of these movies would have still flopped but at least it would only cost half what it finally was
Back in the 90s, scifi shows started using 3d graphics for special effects vs sets and miniatures as it was cheaper than doing special effects the way it had been. Back then, it took even more time to render and finish the effects and it was considered more cost effective. Now, the cost of the special effects which have actually become much easier to do with all the plug ins and faster computers is now considered one of the most expensive parts of production...
@@hellacoorinna9995 I think it's become way overpriced as well. Almost to the point of wondering where the money is actually going. Especially when you see the quality in movies going way, way down. Remember when Jurassic Park was out and that movie still holds up today to what's being made.
Gareth Edwards knows how to do CGI because he did the visual effects of his first full-length feature Monsters (2010) himself. He also wrote the script, so The Creator is not his first "auteur" movie.
Except there's plenty of scripts, so one must chalk the shortage up to unwillingness by studios to do something new, rather than rehashing existing properties.
My favourite example of practical effects in media is the Ash vs Evil Dead show. The digital effects can be very hit or miss in the show though but the practical effects are well worth the sacrifice
Absolutely maddening that the thought process of "Finish the job first, then we tweek what needs tweeking" is a radical idea. It's nuts. The technology exists to assist in the work. Not do the work for you for "cheap but slowly becomes even more expensive".
The problem I have with The Creator is how completely interchangeable it is. You could watch the beginning of Terminator 2, the middle of Avatar, and the ending of Oblivion and see exactly the same movie.
Maybe the only way to get an original major movie made today is the old technique of saying 'X meets Y meets Z'. IIRC Underworld was pitched as something like 'Romeo and Juliet meets The Matrix, with vampires'. It's a step up from 'must be a sequel' or 'must be a book/game/comic adaptation'.
I think the entertainment industry is ready to have its own Lee Iacocca: he was the ultimate money-man in the car industry who pulled back Chrysler from total financial collapse because he cut out all the waste from the company by making it way leaner, cost efficient and strict in finances. Sure, there was a time if abysmal K-car era, but after that they came out with a ton of goodies when they were able to afford them, like the Viper, the SRT tuned cars, etc. Hollywood needs to face the exact same financial reality check.
The Creator is not Edwards first Writer-Drirector credit. His first Film, "Monsters", was written and directed by him. He made it with a budget of only 500.000$, but it looks more like 10-20 million. An amazing showcase of resourceful filming.
The best thing about 60 to 80 million dollar films is the studio won't interfere with it as that is not considered a big studio film. One possible upside to the waste in big budget films.
Perhaps, but if you watch this movie closely you could see it is heavily edited for violent scenes and language… I believe to make the pg13 rating since this is now a Disney release, since they purchased 20th century
@@JoseMolina-jz9hhDisney working as hard as possible to either reduce or eliminate the quality of any IP that they get their hands on. It’s astounding how these days, whenever I see the name “disney” in a project, I instantly know to significantly lower whatever my expectations had built up to.
I feel like the CGI craze of the last decade (since Avatar, I’ll allow arguments for the Star Wars prequels) is like the Cecil B. DeMille epics back in the day, where they would build a set the size of Rome and then burn it down at the end of the film. Ultimately they stopped making these huge budget movies and started to make the more story focused films of the late 60’s and 70’s. The Creator is maybe the start of “gorilla CGI” movies that take the technology developed by the epics, to make films that actually have a story and a purpose for the effects, rather than effects that lack a purpose…
Just saw it an hour ago. My immediate impression was that it looked/felt like Elysium. You made an identical film a decade later for $35 million less. Well done.
Problem with the film was it is a confusing mess. I think they tried to edited it as an action film; which, the worst part of the movie was most of the action scenes, not from effects but the choreographing. But it was a beautiful movie with great acting and a fantastic looking world that I would like to see more of it. Was blown away when I heard the budget, the movie looks better than 90% of films released in the last decade.
The movie seems to have been heavily edited for a pg13 rating … I’ve seen it several times and I’ve noted that there are scenes missing and I think they were violent scenes and maybe the film was rated r but since it’s now a Disney property, it was cut down to pg13.
Towards the end the scenes started to feel disconnected. I think this movie would have been better served a 5-6 episode mini series. Best action scene was in the apartment. I think the girl who played Alpha was my favorite, she pulled of that inhuman element of an android like Data from Star Trek.@@JoseMolina-jz9hh
Not written by an AI so much as incomplete. You can tell that Edwards has a solid story in there but there are so many gaps in the storytelling that I had to wonder how much got cut out to keep the movie to a reasonable length. Even the big question of how human is AI, which is touched on repeatedly with sensitivity and a definite bent towards being open ended, is completely forgotten for the over the top finale. He clearly decided to focus on tying up the emotional aspect of the main character, which is okay I guess but it does leave the larger issues regarding AI just dangling. At least I never felt that the story was just there to service the visuals, which are great. Well okay maybe a little in the finale.
@@floydffrogfloydffrog7453 Incomplete could be an understatement - I heard his original cut was 5+ hrs which would explain the somewhat disjointed narrative. The childish level of writing in the final act is unforgivable though. Other than that, what really stood out to me was the child's sudden unexplained leaps in ability. Though Watanabe's character explains her abilities will grow exponentially over time, I didn't expect her to go from turning on the TV to downing NOMAD in the space of a few chapters. I'd be curious to see a much longer cut.
Well to be fair she doesn't down NOMAD. It's done by the bomb that Joshua plants and which had been set up earlier as capable of destroying a very large target when it was used on one of the huge blue machines in the battle on earth. I didn't actually get the sense that her powers had grown excessively by the end. Though TBH the mechanic they employed, ie. her meditative pose, when she used her power was one of the more cringey things they decided to do; more like magic than technology, though perhaps that was the intent. I hadn't heard about the 5 1/2 hour cut which, assuming it's true, makes perfect sense. Edwards had waaaaaay too many ideas for one little movie, clearly. I kind of wish he'd pruned even more of them and instead really fleshed out the ones he kept. Easy to say in retrospect but no doubt a very difficult task when you're in the weeds. There's a great film in there though I think. @@skycatcher5483
These were my thoughts too, the exposition scenes seemed so forced and I felt like if he'd had more time and money it could have been a really good movie.
It was pretty good up until the end. That last bit seemed like it was written by studio executives who thought the needed more explosions for the audience. Probably could have saved a few million if they’d just ended it with him killing the weapon or Nirmata especially given that the explosions didn’t bring in an audience.
I'd give the movie a solid 7/10. It captures the fervour of the American war machine when given a clear enemy to focus on. I can see both sides of the story but I feel it leaned more heavily on 'America Bad'. There were some changes that I thought in my head would have made the story better and some suspension of logic to get through the plot but it was enjoyable overall. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't feel a need to rewatch it.
Seen it 4 times and it’s deeper. It’s more like the military complex control vs free independent folk … and whom should control the future, by oppression, or a child’s compassion and innocence. If you go deeper, you could even consider that all the robots and stimulants are demons trying to get to heaven … and our protagonist is conflicted with his own emotions and trauma, he is deceived into betraying his humanity. Or consider that we successfully did transfer our humanity, and the human spirit as resilient as it is, finds a way to continue our spiritual devotion to god in an evolved form. It’s fascinating to say the least, and it’s exactly what it needed to be. So refreshing
I didn't see it all as Murica bad because the higher ups were afraid of a Terminator type world after the intial nuke was dropped I take it as more opposing sides
More like 6/10 for me and ultimately would not recommend. Nice bits here and there, but full with things that either don't make sense or are meaningless in the end, achieving nothing. I was _hoping_ for big twist, Oblivion style, but it never come. The twists we got were predictable, silly (computer bug, pleeeeeease) and/or inconsequential.
I agree that the movie looks great and the budget was well used, but the story... The US military looses the war against a country with obviously no army, just police. They build a giant unstealthy space station which slowly creeps across the sky and shoots missiles to the ground, while the AI country has no air defense. They send building block sized tanks through the jungle to hunt guerillas with the only armaments being 200m-range missiles and running and exploding garbage cans. And the message: robots and humans can live peacefully together in paradise, but humans alone are going the path of the neanderthals, because they are to dumb to survive and even nuke LA as a result of a coding error.
I actually was kind of unimpressed with the movie. I think the most diverse thing they did was see AI in a good way, rather than apocalyptic. The child had a perfect ability for the plot and it was not explained at all. The ending was predictable. Not smart how they blew up the ship with so many people on it and didnt consider the incredible damage and death resulting from the debris. People yelled at each other in other languages and somehow expected to be understood. Ultra high tech cars, but exterior from the 80s.... I may have missed something, but I also don t understand why the robots had to eat sleep and drink and why the monk robots still had to use canes and walk crooked.The child landed in a presumably random location, but people already knew who she was and cheered her. Cameras conveniently and absolutely everywhere. In the beginning the protagonist( i forget his name) takes a walkie talkie thingy and yells he is undercover while his wife just went up a few stairs (which trained spy does that? ).How was his wife s body in perfect condition (but virtually dead) after an almost direct hit by a missile that convinced everyone there is no chance anyone could have survived? The devastating missiles conveniently turned off the moment the ship exploded, rendering them harmless ...Idk...too many conveniencies, not much thought behind it all. On the good side, decent acting, great visuals, no agenda pushing, a bit thought provoking...these my 22 cents
The robots drinking, smoking, and watching porn was the best thing I have seen ever. The only agenda it seemed to push was chinese propaganda of America bad, china good. This movie was made for china audience and will make a killing over there. At least it was a nice change from remakes and superhero garbage though. I mean who doesn't like a redneck threatening to kill a puppy? It's straight out of an Adam Sandler movie.
Regarding the effects of The Creator, they had texture. Everything felt real. All too often when there's digital effects, you can tell because it's too perfect with no blemishes but this movie looked like it was weather worn and real.
So I heard the creator was shot on a Sony FX3, which is a 3k consumer level camera, and edited the movie first before the efx studio even got to work on it so that they have an exact idea what’s needed to cut down any repetitive work.
I really can't emphasize enough how important it is to have people know what they are doing, but more importantly know what they want. In VFX it drastically increases the quality and reduces the cost. When we have people who don't know what they want, they ask for 15 different things and change their mind another 20. The deadline is usually still the same, so instead of a month to make an amazing shot you have 3 days, the rest was wasted on constant changes.
Literally guy from ILM wrote on reddit, that they had 10 - 20 revisions per scene even in most complicated shots. Gareth didn't waste resources in any form and knows what he wants.
Thing is, with a movie that's b/w $40 to $80 million, you can easily make a tidy profit off of, say $400 million box office. No need for the billion dollar box offices that Disney keeps shooting for and missing. I wouldn't be surprised if this movie is already making a profit.
Gareth Edwards has said in interviews that he likes making fully self contained films and The Creator is no different. We will likely see more from him, but not this world he created.
When I saw capabilities of shooting with the volume background, my reaction was "wow, this would be great for indie & small budget productions." Instead, apparently, it's become the playground for endless A,B,C,D,E,F & G version reshoots on bloated budget productions who don't or cannot hire good writers or directors....
If someone asked me "Do you want to see The Creator?" I would assume that person was a Jehovah's Witness! Oh, and eighty million is not cheap. Bread's going up again...
I totally relate to Robot Head's comment - I too was sitting watching it last night and kept thinking "wow, this is cool, I wonder when they'll fk it.. ooh, maybe now, hey that CGI is great, ooh I like the character dynamics, he's got a secret, she's going to die... cyber city is southeast asia ok" but it was all well done. None of the scenes, dialog, interactions, etc seemed out of place, or groaned under the weight of their own over-used tropes, no abrasive teenagers, no Bechdel Test neon lights. It was damned good.
My favorite movie of the year, i don't expect everyone to enjoy it as much as i did. But NO one can deny that the movie cost $80 million and looks better than anything Disney and Marvel have done for $300 million I enjoyed the world and the characters and the moral questions about A.I. and consciousness and good vs evil. Heuy if the Drinker liked it but didn't love it, that's fine with me
I think I saw one of two ads for The Creator on TV but it didn't even register as being a trailer for a movie. I kind of thought it was one of those commercials that have a sci-fi angle and kind of look like trailers but are selling some sort of Apple product.
Same but I'll go see the creator Sunday. If smaller budget films are the only ones to profit we should start getting new good movies. Studios don't interfere as much. I loved district 9, chappie, etc.. and those are very low budget compared to what is spent now. That director screwed up and went the normal big budget route. Supposedly he and his wife are working on the sequel to district 9 and their returning to the bare bones basics that made their films popular.
I thought the volume screen they were using in Mandalorian was so they could do less location shooting but get more dynamic lighting than a green screen allows, thus saving money. With Mandalorian they initially leaned into it such that it gave the show a neat visual aesthetic that I thought complemented the tone of the show. That tone has since been lost and the scenes that aren't on location now feel more like typical green screen and less like they are using the benefits of that technology.
It took them over 50 years, but the studios have succeeded in rebuilding a status quo in which they are more important than the actors and directors they employ. Gone is the age of avant-garde directors pushing the medium forward, gone is the age of movie stars who can fill a theater with just a name on a poster. Today, they who hold the IP hold all the cards, leaving us with all the stagnancy of the studio era, but with none of its glitz and bombast, and only a fraction of its cultural relevance. Sure, it'll sometimes churn out something worth watching- an old IP might get a meaningful new entry, or some compelling original content might slip through the cracks and gain an audience, but there are only a handful of these per year, amidst a backdrop of colorful, expansive mediocrity. Welcome to the Gilded Age of Hollywood.
Also just found out about it, looks so good it may get me back into a theater . Director did what I have been asking for/trying to do for decades. Beginning of the end for the bloated studio system.
I was shocked to become aware of such an original sci fi movie in 2023. I saw the trailer for it before the Transformers movie, both released super late here in Japan, TF two months late and Creator later this month.
I was REALLY digging this movie in the first half, then when we get the explanation as to why the robots set off the nuke, I was a little disappointed, and then rest of the movie is mostly schmaltzy and sentimental. Definitely would still recommend it tho
I only saw one TV ad for the movie, not even any internet ads that I can recall. Remember thinking it looked cool and then kind of forgetting about it. Sounds like a good rainy day film.
That's why I really enjoyed Landscape With Invisible Hands. It was something new, good sci-fi premise, great acting without a Megastar, and a lot to think about humanity's sense of purpose. It didn't resonate too much with audiences. I guess because there wasn't enough spectacle (sigh).
i've been seeing adverts for it for ages. i think its kept being delayed. there was a whole thing back when the original trailer came out, because they used footage from that real explosion that happened and people thought that was pretty tasteless.
Raiders of the Lost Ark's cost to make adjusted for inflation is around $80m, so I think $80m is good budget healthy budget for a film. Do modern movies like MCU not storyboard every thing any more? I still remember the making doco for The Phantom Menace which showed George, preproduction meetings, attacking all the story boards with different highlighters showing what in each cell was going to be CGI, sets or locations to help with the planning and budgeting etc.
Most of the major projects don't have anyone with a vision - that's why they're turning out crap. The studio executives have a vision, and then they try to hire others to make it happen. It doesn't.
Great points, but I thought The Creator was average. The plot was a slight spin on an old plot. I was reminded of Ultraviolet but with better plot and weaker action.
In my speculative opinion, these huge Hollywood Budgets, are masking money laundering, financial crimes & using bloated budgets to enrich to their actor friends & tech /specials effects companies associated with the producers, directors & executives. Damn the fans...lets get RICH!
It looked really good. I'm surprised about the $80 million budget. There were big flaws...especially near the end but overall it was pretty good. The kid actor did a REALLY good job. I hope Hollywood doesn't screw her up.
I saw a trailer for The Creator before the latest Mission Impossible a few months back. At the time I was sold on seeing it, especially given Gareth Edwards' pedigree. I've seen it now and really enjoyed it. More so than Dune just because, as you guys said, I didn't know what was going to happen in the story.
I think some of the bloat from Hollywood will probably gone now that Hollywood has leave to hire fewer writers and lean more on AI, thanks to the strike.
We are in an era where people running the companies think that being creative is just to throw money at a project. These people lack any human qualities.
The volume also forces only some kinds of lenses to be used, greatly narrowing the range of images and staging you can attempt. Blocking? What blocking?
I've noticed since they've hit this new era of VFX bloat, things are starting to look more fake again. MCU films are so bad looking now, they might as well do animation like What If.
If you haven't noticed in the trailer for The Creator. They used the 2020 Beirut explosion as a CGI asset. Couple of building replacements but a majority of the shot is actual footage.
Maybe it's all a big misunderstanding... people up and down the country are being asked "do you want to see the creator?" and are taking it as a direct threat from someone they thought they knew.
The Volume is worst thing to happen in Hollywood in 15 years. The reason why Andor works...mostly...is because Tony Gilroy had the good grace to say "fuck that shit, I'm off to Scotland to do it outdoors".
I enjoyed it. Very solid, better graphics than Disney for past decade! Budget makes it even better. Hollywood didn’t want to promote it in think is the messaging. A male setting an example of selflessness to his child. It actually goes against the new liberal order.
if u blend together Looper, aliens, blade runner, ai, platoon, dances with wolves, avatar you get the creator. But why didn't they upload mayas memory into a sim sooner instead of leaving her in a coma for 5 years?
