(Based on his behavior, Nathan expects and wants a woman that is totally submissive to HIS needs, I think that’s why Kyoko (who is, spoiler alert, also a robot) cannot talk (Nathan says that she can’t understand English, but I believe that she can, she just can’t say anything). Only, unlike Galatea (who happily lived with her creator) none of these robots are meeting Nathan’s insanely high standards, not to mention they have all tried to escape (one even put cracks in a glass wall). This implies that deep down under all of his insane bravado, he is a very lonely man, maybe he feels that the only woman fit for him is one he creates. He’s tried several times to create the “perfect” woman, just as Pygmalion did. Today, some scholars interpret this story as a very early example of artificial life, and therefore a precursor to robot stories. Over time, he fell in love with his creation and Aphrodite brought the statue to life so they could be together. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Pygmalion was a sculptor who created a statue of a woman out of ivory. Clearly, Nathan is attempting to build the “perfect” woman, and that is why I dub him a 21st-century Pygmalion. There were at least FIVE predecessors to Ava (we see the names of Lily, Jade and Jasmine), and they were all female. Nathan makes it seem like Ava is the first prototype, but Caleb eventually discovers that this is not true. Caleb mentions a line of “If you’ve created artificial intelligence, that’s not the work of a man, that’s the work of gods.” And Nathan happily turns this around and suggests that Caleb is calling him a god, when Caleb meant no such thing. This is his empire, his word is absolute law (and once Caleb arrives he is subject to this law).

Everything in this house is ordered to his exact specifications. Nathan, to put it bluntly, has a God complex. He isn’t just working on it, he’s already made one: Ava (Alicia Vikander), a gynoid with a human face and hands, but exposed metal mesh for limbs and a torso. He quickly reveals to Caleb that he has been working on something exciting: Artificial Intelligence. His personality is so blunt it borders on the abrasive, and his wit is razor sharp. I was originally going to place Nathan in the “mad scientist” category, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized he really belongs in the “lonely” category (though he is crazy regardless).Īs soon as you see Nathan, you know there is something…off… about him (his estate is set in the midst of hundreds of miles of pristine wilderness, for example). The plot of the 2015 film Ex Machina is set in motion when Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins the opportunity to spend a week at the estate of Nathan (Oscar Isaac, aka Poe Dameron), the inventor of Bluebook (the largest search engine in the world). This post is a part of the Movie Scientist Blogathon hosted by Silver Screenings and Christina Wehner

Pygmalion goodreads