The Big Picture · Discussion

The 21st Century Sci-Fi Canon, ‘The Creator,’ and ‘No One Will Save You’

September 29, 2023/ 94 min/ Sean Fennessey · Chris Ryan

Sean and Chris Ryan review Brian Duffield's 'No One Will Save You' and Gareth Edwards' 'The Creator,' then spend the back half building a ten-movie canon of 21st century sci-fi.

35 films across 4 segments.

AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.

'No One Will Save You'Hulu, dir. Brian Duffield

No One Will Save You 2023

Nearly wordless alien-invasion chase movie starring Kaitlyn Dever. Sean first watched it on an edible while quarantining with COVID, then again sober in a Tulsa hotel room, and liked it both times.

Spontaneous 2020

Duffield's directorial debut, about a wave of spontaneous combustions in a high school, released during COVID.

Prey 2022

The Predator spinoff Sean compares it to for tone and near-silent execution. A sequel has since been greenlit.

Monsters 2010

Gareth Edwards' first film gets pulled in as the other do-a-lot-with-a-little touchstone.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Sean's shorthand for the movie's genre DNA: 'some combination of Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Buster Keaton.'

'The Creator'dir. Gareth Edwards

John David Washington hunts an AI-weapon inventor in a future US-vs-New Asia war. $86 million budget, shot largely in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Nepal. Both hosts call it gorgeous to look at and dramatically thin.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story 2016

Edwards' prior movie, and the one Chris thinks The Creator is quietly trying to redo without Tony Gilroy's rewrite.

Godzilla 2014

Edwards' American debut. Sean: amazing in the first 20 minutes, then dull except when it's amazing, the same problem he sees in The Creator.

Demon Seed 1977

Donald Cammell's Julie Christie-starring AI-home-invasion movie, Sean's go-to 70s comparison for a studio letting an artist make something genuinely strange.

Ex Machina 2014

Chris's pick for the movie that renders The Creator moot: same AI-consciousness questions, tighter and more successful.

Annihilation 2018

Comes up as another Garland movie willing to leave questions unanswered, which The Creator isn't.

Blade Runner 1982

The template for AI-that-acts-human The Creator's robot characters are riffing on.

The 21st Century Sci-Fi Canonthe ten they landed on, in the order they came up

Interstellar 2014

Chris's line in the sand: Nolan's most visually powerful film, and to Sean also his most gloppy, sentimental, over-explained.

Ex Machina 2014

Locked in as one of the ten, on top of its earlier comparison duty against The Creator.

Looper 2012

Rian Johnson's time-hopping assassin story, one of the last great Bruce Willis performances.

Prometheus 2012

Ridley Scott's messier, more ambiguous Alien prequel, chosen over its own sister film The Martian for being the one they think about more.

Under the Skin 2013

Scarlett Johansson as a predatory alien; called out for a visual language nobody's matched in 40 years.

Her 2013

Spike Jonze's story of a man falling for an AI voiced by Scarlett Johansson, praised for building futurism out of soft, ordinary clothes instead of chrome.

Sunshine 2007

Danny Boyle's sun-mission movie. A 2001-style first two-thirds that both hosts admit collapses into a monster movie by the end.

Arrival 2016

Adapted from Ted Chiang; Sean's pick for the film that captured the human heart of this stuff best of the batch.

Edge of Tomorrow 2014

The grounded-blockbuster slot, picked over Minority Report as the one they'd rather rewatch.

Attack the Block 2011

Joe Cornish's council-estate alien invasion, added as the pure-fun B-movie pick to round out the ten.

The near missesjust outside the ten

Minority Report 2002

The blockbuster runner-up to Edge of Tomorrow. Chris calls it the conclusion of the Philip K. Dick era, set in a future that still looks foreign rather than around the corner.