If anything Ex Machina is a reimagining of the Island of Dr. Moreau for a new generation, in which the idea of artificial intelligence grows closer to becoming a reality every day; Nathan in Ex Machina is very similar to Dr. Moreau, both being scientists who are more concerned with the scientific implications of their experiments rather than their own moral wrongdoings. Both begin as men who are all-knowing and thus all-powerful in their environments, taking their fields beyond what people believed possible. An outsider comes into their world and as time passes they discover the darker side of these experiments; they come to realize that these creations are actually captives of their creators, and the façade of paradise begins to fall apart, eventually resulting in the deaths of the creators at the hands of their creations. In the case of Ava, the AI in Ex Machina, she asks Nathan if “it[‘s] strange, to create something that hates [him]?” demonstrating how much she wants to be free of him and this facility she’s spent her entire life inside. This idea mirrors the real world in the sense that many people view their children as their creations; in recent years there has been controversy over whether things like spanking your child or refusing to have them vaccinated before they have the knowledge to make these decisions for themselves could actually be considered child abuse. It is difficult to determine whether in these cases it is right for parents to make decisions for their children that much of the world views as detrimental to their well-being, in the same way that is it difficult to say whether Nathan and Dr. Moreau can rightfully keep these creations trapped in their current environments.
Related: The Island of Dr. Moreau