Wes Anderson has one of the most distinctive visual brands in modern cinema, known for his symmetrical framing and meticulously colorful production design. No one else does it like Wes. Ironically, that makes him an easy target for his AI imitators.
This weekend, an AI video of Wes Anderson imagining Star Wars in Wes Anderson’s trademark style emerged and instantly divided opinion. In some ways, it echoes the familiar mashup fan art subgenre (historically accurate Disney princesses, Simpsons his style Marvel his characters, etc.), but like a lot of AI-generated content. caused a highly divisive reaction.
One of the main criticisms of AI art is that it cannot create “new” things. Generators like DALL-E 2 rely on existing images scraped from the web. These images are basically digested and regurgitated into similar output. As such, they are adept at creating generic portraits and copying well-documented and popular art styles.
AI content authors have found that certain keywords work particularly well as image generation prompts.Drive recorder video”, “Balenciaga”, “80s Dark Fantasy” ( labyrinth again dark crystal).Wes Anderson is another obvious choice because his visual style is so recognizable that you can basically plug in his name and get vague Grand Budapest HotelAppearance versions of popular characters such as Batman and the Avengers.
Right now, most movie-related AI discourse is about AI fans saying, “Wow. I had already finished For Hollywood! Moviegoers, on the other hand, use the exact same image as proof that AI is useless.
In this case, we have a “trailer” consisting of minimally animated Star Wars rip-off GIFs. None of them look like a real Wes Anderson movie (obviously). Creators (a video tutorial service named Curious Refuge) aren’t trying to tell stories or make anything that resembles a real movie. Simply placing familiar Star Wars characters in Wes Anderson-associated color palettes and symmetrical framing without the visual flare of a human artist with deep knowledge of either source.
Creatively speaking, it doesn’t give us anything. But now that Hollywood is dominated by nostalgia and recycled branding, some viewers are ready to enjoy this kind of content. Not a fan of Wes Anderson, but they did well,” garnered comments like, “I want to see this,” and “This is an absolutely brilliant satire!” I’m actually going to see that movie.
Meanwhile, in the toxic wasteland of Mask-era Twitter, it gave more inspiration Controversial reactionwith detractor posts reaction Like, “My friend and I would have hammered AI Wes Anderson’s Star Wars to death.” (we also had moonrise kingdom Actor Jared Gilman cynical comment If everyone is so excited about Wes Anderson, you might actually want to see his new movie when it comes out.)
There’s no evidence that Anderson and the Star Wars mashup creator want to be filmmakers. This is a very basic prompt-generated slideshow video, probably posted with the intention of going viral to promote your channel. Unfortunately, it’s also a highly effective anger bait for those who want to discuss movies online.
Anderson’s aesthetic is easily parodied, as evidenced by the recent influx of Wes Anderson-style TikToks. But while these TikToks are made in the spirit of fun and creativity, Anderson’s critics often target his distinctive visuals as flaws, accusing him of being shallow, twee, or a one-trick pony.
As a result, Wes Anderson fans have been very protective of his storytelling qualities, arguing that his films are much more complex than just a showcase of candy-colored, symmetrical framing. Like “Martin Scorsese is a sexist movie buddy” and “Marvel’s CGI is ruining the movie” are the recurring discourses of the movie’s Twitter. So when you combine this with the AI art discussion, you can see why a harmless mashup video caused such a backlash.
AI generators of this sort cannot compete with human creativity and will probably not create anything resembling a “real” movie for some time. But given Hollywood’s current allergy to original stories and obsession with recycled IP, it’s easy to imagine studios adopting the technology, no matter how bland and lifeless the actual output is. can.
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*Premiering: May 1, 2023 at 4:30 PM CDT
Gavia Baker-Whitelaw
Gavia Baker-Whitelaw is a staff writer for the Daily Dot covering geek culture and fandom. She specializes in science fiction films and superheroes, and she has also appeared as a film and television critic on BBC Radio. Elsewhere, she co-hosts pop culture her podcast Overinvested. Follow her on her Twitter: @Hello_Tailor
