How insects, Akira, and Pink Floyd shaped The Creator’s eerie robot designs
The Creator doesn’t look like anything else out in theaters right now. While it obviously expands on visual precedents from films like Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, and Akira, the latest sci-fi action movie from Rogue One director Gareth Edwards feels equally indebted to the mood and spirit of our contemporary reality, thanks in no small part to Edwards’ decision to film on site across eight different countries, including Nepal, Cambodia, and Thailand.
The film stands apart from its contemporaries in its pronounced emphasis on strong art direction, grounded in an emphasis on tactile retrofuturism. It’s evident in everything from the costumes and robot designs to the ominous jagged silhouette of NOMAD, the low-orbit nuclear warship that hovers in the sky throughout the majority of The Creator.
Via Zoom, Polygon spoke to The Creator’s production designer, James Clyne, to talk about how he and Edwards honed in on The Creator’s unique aesthetic. We discussed the importance of graphic design in worldbuilding, and how the 1982 movie Pink Floyd – The Wall inadvertently inspired NOMAD’s design.
Polygon: What was it like working with Gareth Edwards on the aesthetic of The Creator ? What were your visual and philosophical guiding principles for how this particular universe should look and feel?
James Clyne: That’s a big question. I mean Gareth, on so many levels, he’s very hands-on with his filmmaking. He likes to operate the camera, he likes to be involved on every level, and that includes art and creating what this world could be. So a lot of our initial discussions were just influences, what were we influenced by. We’re kind of the same age. We grew up in the ’80s with all these great sci-fi movies like Total Recall and Blad
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