Creation 101

Creation is a beautiful phenomena. Beautiful minds can create beautiful things. But when you go against the laws of Nature, there's a clear victor(no pun intended). I'll take you through the steps of creation, using Nathan, from 'Ex Machina' and Victor from 'Frankenstein' as prime examples in the process.

1. Create Isolation

Via giphy.com

Isolation is crucial! Let your freak flag fly!

For Nathan, this is a house secluded in the Alaska, which he refers to as a research facility. Inside the clinical feeling facility, Nathan keeps no windows and has CCTV cameras around to monitor everything going on. that facility is Nathans past versions of artificial intelligence robots, which he has sex with and in true mad scientist fashion, engages in awkward dance numbers with.

Victor grew up in what he described as a loving home. But begins to isolate himself when he goes off to university. He chooses to be isolated in order for him to pursue his work saying” Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labors; but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves--sights which before always yielded me supreme delight so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation.” This continues through victors life.

2. Create A Human like Being

Now that you're sequestered, proceed to focus on your work. Bring your inginity to life!

Victors monster was a motley crew of left over human parts and bones “from charnel houses; and distributed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame” Victors monster was modeled to be human like.

Nathan is a lot more sophisticated. An artificial intelligence robot is a lot harder to engineer. Nathan, with the help of manufacturers, hacked all the cell phones in the world and collected the data. That data is what allows Ava to be able to recognize multiple facial expressions. Ava’s brain was created with what Nathan describes as “structured gel” that is referred to as ‘wetware’, with her software being the search engine he created, “Bluebook”. He used this to gain insight on how peoples mind and though worked.

3. Be an A**Hole

Of course you can't help it. You just created a human like being with such advanced technology, you deserve to be obnoxious. Right?

You could take some great examples form Nathan. Those options include, treating women as objects(even if they're robots), using them for sex, keep them prisoner, and lastly, when you believe that your creature is developing compassionate human emotions, do as Nathan does and tear up Ava's drawing and install a hidden camera in her room while she tries to gather the pieces of her effort. Ava later goes on to say "Isn't it strange, to create something that hates you?"

Victor on the other hand was more direct. After the monster was created, he looked at that he had created in horror and ran out of the room. He says, " "Unable to endure the aspect of the being I created, I rushed out of the room." The creature becomes distraught over Victors treatment of him. He yearns for affection but his own creator doesn't show that to him. On top of that the rest of the people he encounters are horrified by him.

4. Face Your Own Demise

Eh, what did you expect.

Nathan couldn't have put it better when he said,"I used to think it was death and taxes you couldn't avoid, but it's actually death and shit." Of course he had it coming though. His treatment of Ava could be described as misogynistic, even though she is a robot. He threatens her "death" based upon whether or not she can pass the turing test. In the end, Ava managed to escape her room and with the help of another AI, kill Nathan an escapes. He's last seen blending into a crowd.

Victor was a bit lucky in the end. His death wasn't directly attributed to the monster but the anxiety that came with it did. He dies alone on a ship, leaving the monster on his own.

5. Get To Work

A terrible tutorial but it's important to learn from Victor and Nathan. So you don't make the same mistake isn't made.

Nature is a theme that runs through both the film, 'Ex-Machina', and the novel 'Frankenstein.' But i dont mean nature as in landscape but rather as a phenomena. Both Victor and Nathan try to defy nature, which doesn't work out well for both of them.It's not surprising that when you give sentience to a being and you treat it harshly, it will retaliate against you. It's a natural human desire to want to create. Humans are inquisitive by nature, if not, we wouldn't be as advanced technologically as we are.

Nathan and Victor have incredible minds, but don't really have the heart to match. They're fixation on creation and giving "life", mixed with their egotistic nature,allowed them to accomplish soomthing so technologically advance for their time, but in the end, they both died alone and because of their creation.