In the never-ending parade of adaptations of established works and all the sequels, prequels, remakes, re-imaginings, reboots and spin-offs that follow, a movie about an original idea is becoming rarer and rarer to find.

While two of the biggest movies of the year are technically original films — “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — the former is a billion-dollar media franchise and the latter is a true story that closely follows a successful biography published in 2005.

Unfortunately, unless they only cost $5 million to make, a truly original film has a hard time succeeding in modern Hollywood, which makes Gareth Edwards’ “The Creator” all the more impressive. But while the characters, settings and plot points haven’t appeared in any other movies, video games or books, there is a lot of familiar ground tread upon here.

In order to get the financial backing for an $80 million sci-fi action film, the studios had to hear something along the lines of “it’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ meets ‘Blade Runner’” or “it’s ‘E.T.’ meets ‘Paper Moon,’” all of which are inspirations cited by director Edwards, who co-wrote the screenplay with Chris Weitz.

And while those are well and good, it’s the meat of this film discussing the conflict between humans and artificial intelligence as relationships form leading to that age-old question: what makes us human? That’s something you’re not likely to experience in these other corporate-driven franchises, but it’s philosophical questions like that that make art better.

In the year 2070, a future war between the human race and artificial intelligence machines rages on following a nuclear bombing of Los Angeles initiated by AI. Ex-special forces agent Joshua (played by John David Washington) is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI.

On a mission to New Asia, a new united nation in southeast Asia, the Creator has developed a mysterious weapon that has the power to end the war and all of mankind. As Joshua and his team of elite operatives venture into enemy-occupied territory, they soon discover the weapon is actually an AI in the form of a young child (Madeleine Yuna Voyles).

Despite its timely discussions, the story immediately takes a back seat to the production quality which dwarfs the visuals of Marvel movies with twice the budget. Edwards, who previously directed the rebooted “Godzilla” in 2014 and the Star Wars spin-off “Rogue One” in 2016, has a way of shooting the scope and scale and weight of vast landscapes and gigantic spaceships or buildings better than any filmmaker working today. Despite the extensive CGI used in a comparably smaller budget, everything about this world set 50 years in the future is tactile and real and believable, which goes a long way for an original thought-provoking sci-fi movie today.

And thank goodness for those visuals keeping the movie going along because the characters and story are sadly where “The Creator” falters. On the one hand, the actors are doing a wonderful job and the characters are written more complexly without a sarcastic quip or pop culture reference every other sentence. But it also means that the mood is generally serious and the people and AI are talking about things audiences don’t have a strong familiarity with, which can be off-putting for the casual moviegoer.

So while those original and, in one sense, refreshing choices are a positive for Hollywood today, the elements that are familiar reminders of previous films have to carry it across the finish line. Primarily set in New Asia — which includes Vietnam, Korea and Japan — the war scenes sure do feel like a John Wayne or Oliver Stone movie with robots and spaceships. If you’re like me, that’s pretty cool, but seeing a mash-up of “The Deer Hunter” and “The Terminator” is not for everyone.

Only time will tell what sort of impact “The Creator” will have in the coming decades, especially after a disappointing $32 million opening weekend box office. But if its ideas and themes hold up as well as its gorgeous visuals, it could be the start of a welcome change in Hollywood with big budget original filmmaking again.