KID AI

Rogue One director Gareth Edwards returns with The Creator, an original IP blockbuster in which a future war rages between humans and AI. Edwards and star John David Washington tell Total Film how this huge spectacle was shot guerrilla-style, and concentrates on characters, emotions and ideas as much as large-scale action

- JAMIE GRAHAM

When Gareth Edwards is not making science-fiction films – and what science-fiction films, his first three movies being Monsters, Godzilla and arguably the best Star Wars movie this side of the original trilogy, Rogue One – he likes to annoy family and friends with dilemmas.

‘I love being like, “Ah, imagine if…” and, “What would you do if…”,’ he grins over Zoom from his LA base (‘I can’t bring myself to say I live in LA, not to a fellow Brit’), explaining that the best scenarios are those that offer no easy way out. Like, ‘If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, but the catch is, he’s an innocent, four-yearold kid, could you do it?’

And so he arrived at the ethical dilemma that occupies the heart of his new science-fiction action drama, The Creator. The year is 2070. AI has detonated a nuclear warhead on Los Angeles, sparking all-out war. And John David Washington’s ex-specialforces agent Joshua has gone into New Asia (‘It’s what we call a collection of countries in Southeast Asia, where this war is going on,’ explains Edwards) and located the ultimate AI weapon… which turns out to be a child, played by newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles. ‘Execute her, or we go extinct,’ Joshua is told, as seen in the skin-prickling trailer. But can he do it?