The Creator: A Christmas Film
The Creator is not a perfect film, but where it’s good, it’s really good. As the film begins, we are plunged into the future, where the rise of AI and robots has led to a nuclear strike on Los Angeles. In the aftermath, the United States bans all AI and is now embroiled in a messy ground war with New Asia, who has embraced AI tech.
Joshua and Alphie
Although I enjoyed the sci-fi angle, the questions of technology, and beautiful imagery, and yes, even Radiohead playing as soldiers drop in (in a kind of 21st century Apocalypse Now style), what I enjoyed most was the human-ness of it all. The hope for something big, and within these big ideas, the very close relational connection between a man and a child.
We watch as the main character, Joshua, work his way through New Asia on the hunt for the AI’s newest super weapon. This weapon has been created by Maya, Joshua’s wife who was long presumed dead. Joshua finds this weapon, turns out it is an AI child, that Joshua names Alphie. Her powers can control all technology as she clasps her hands together like a prayer. It is the hope of New Asia and all AI that Alphie won’t destroy those trying to destroy them, but unite all people and bring peace.
The most surprising thing the director Gareth Edwards did was to combine the hope of a saviour as a child with the parental desire to protect one so vulnerable. The big hopes of ultimate deliverance came in the package of a small child that needed protection.
There are more than just biblical metaphors, but those metaphors are clear. The powerful occupying force of the US Army is the Romans, Joshua as Joseph and Maya as Mary, and of course, Alphie as the Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ.
“The child will save us.”
What was it like for Joseph to protect and be responsible for Jesus? We get a peak into the fears and worries and anxieties, even what struggle of belief could have looked like, all through Joshua’s eyes.
There are many things this film has us think through, but two quotes in particular stuck with me. Early on in the film, the poor have a hope in Alphie, and we hear: “The child will save us.” Towards the end of the film, Joshua realises some of the errors of his ways and sees the consequences of his wrongs directly in front of him. As he embraces the child, eyes locked on his consequences, he cries out, “Jesus, I’m sorry…forgive me.”
Like the poor in The Creator, we all need saving from something. We all experience oppression. Yes, some more than others, but the darkness over this world is an evil, oppressive force that is always trying to hold all of us back. It becomes more poignant over the Christmas season to say, even to sing: “The child will save us.” Our hope is that Jesus will.
At the same time, there is not only a darkness out there but a darkness in here. In all of us lies the same darkness within our own hearts, wreaking havoc, destroying relationships, we contribute this to the world in our own sin. We are the oppressed and the oppressor. As Christians, we come to this sad reality and say through tear streamed eyes, “Jesus, I’m sorry, forgive me.”
This is the world Jesus was born into. Broken, dark, oppressive. This is also what Jesus liberates us from. In his death, he became all the darkness that we brought into this world. All that brings in oppression, all that causes us to be the oppressor. And now all of that darkness is buried and stayed that way. In his resurrection, He offers something more than a slightly better life now, but a real, true life. One that starts now and doesn’t end. We can ask Jesus for forgiveness–and He actually does!
Jesus coming to earth as a vulnerable child leads us in our own vulnerability. What do we do with it? Where do we put it? How do we deal with our own vulnerability, whilst also caring for others who are equally vulnerable?
In the hands of a good Father, we are freed to be our true vulnerable selves. Free to need help. We also have access to the supernatural help we need in caring for others’ vulnerability.
As we go about this life, oscillating between the future of “The child will save us” and the past of “Jesus, I’m sorry, forgive me” we find ourselves in the present: leaving our vulnerable selves in the care of a Father who is always good, always powerful, always loving, and uses that good, powerful love on our behalf.