AI has taken the internet by storm recently. AI-generated text. AI-generated images. And now, AI-generated movie trailers. The YouTube channel Curious Refuge has put together a trailer for a hypothetical Star Wars movie directed by Wes Anderson, the guy behind charmingly off-kilter movies like Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Check it out:
Now, places like The Hollywood Reporter have called this an “AI trailer,” although it’s unclear where the AI contributions stop and the human direction begins. Obviously the images were generated with AI, complete with renderings of actors like Scarlett Johansson and Willem Dafoe. But what about the slight movements? The script? The perfectly timed “wow” from Owen Wilson as Darth Vader? There’s still a lot of human input here, and I’d be interested to hear more details.
Nonetheless, plenty of folk on Twitter are not pleased. For example:
Is it time to smash your toaster to pieces before it gains sentience and takes your job?
From where I’m sitting, the trailer is pretty effective. There’s no thesis for a whole movie here, but stylistically, this is dead-on — the pastel colors, the framing, etc — and lasts just long enough for me to laugh at it and then move on with my day, which is really all a parody trailer can be expect to do.
I don’t think we’ve reached the bottom of what AI is capable of yet, and there are lots of questions that still need to be answered. For instance, should content creators have to ask actors before they recreate the likenesses using AI, particularly if they’re making a video intended to be monetized?
Courts, lawmakers and studios are going to be figuring this stuff out over the next few years. In the meantime, who knows what fun people will have with this technology?
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