Gareth Edwards answered questions from journalists via zoom about The Creator, the science fiction thriller that he directed and co-wrote (with Chris Weisz), starring John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Allison Janney.
Watch him say in this featurette: “My favorite cinema is very visually driven, it’s not like a play, it’s like a dream, it’s just a pure emotion.”
As to why he loves science fiction, he replied: “It’s probably from growing up with Star Wars and being promised this amazing world with spaceships and robots. Then you realize it’s not true and it’s not gonna happen, so, the second-best thing is to become a liar, like George Lucas, and create these stories for kids to grow up with.”
The British director was chosen to helm Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), starring Felicity Jones, set before the events of Star Wars (1977) retitled A New Hope.
He cited as another influence: “The film that had the biggest impact on me as a kid was Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982). When I went in, as a seven-year-old, all I was interested in was that I wanted to see an alien and a spaceship, then I got absolutely moved to tears on this emotional journey with the two of them.” He added: “That’s the secret goal for every movie you make, to do something that affects people emotionally, if you don’t make some people well up or cry, then you’re not really using the power of cinema.”
About how AI, Artificial Intelligence, is portrayed in his movie: “We were using AI as a metaphor for people who are different to yourself. But then, in the last year or so, it’s become quite a reality, it’s gotten very surreal. When I started writing this script in 2018, AI was up there with flying cars and living on the moon, it was something that maybe you would see in your lifetime, but probably not.”
He did not believe we should fear AI. “With every major technological breakthrough that’s happened in the last century or so, like electricity, computers, the internet, they always bring seismic changes on industries, it’s like a big bump in the road that we have to get over, but on the other side of it, when the dust finally settles, we all look back and go,
‘I’m glad we have electricity, computers and the internet.’ And AI will be another one. The next few years will probably be a little tricky, but the upside will be that AI is such a powerful tool that’s going to help so many things in the world, that the positives are going to outweigh the negatives.”
This article was posted in Italian on Voilà Magazine Facebook and Instagram