AI filmmaking is not the future, says Patrick (H) Willems. But what about those Wes Anderson trailers that people make in a matter of days that look shockingly like Wes Anderson's movies? Well, they actually copy the most obvious aesthetics of Wes Anderson while overlooking all the even slightly more subtle ones. Worst of all, they completely overlook Wes Anderson's humanity. They don't engage with his work on a deeper level. AI reduces Wes Anderson to "an Instagram filter". His movies do not consist of static shots with the same framing. There are incredibly kinetic shots, slow motion dolly shots, sparingly used chaotic handheld shots, stop motion work, action scenes, and, depending on the film, he uses different aspect ratios, film stocks, and color palettes.

None of the AI systems make stories for their hypothetical movies that are anything like what the real Wes Anderson would create. Wes Anderson movies are fun, but at the same time, they are all sad. In Asteroid City, a character is trying to figure out how to break the news to his children that their mother has died. The Darjeeling Limited is about three brothers processing the recent death of their father. The Life Aquatic is about a man seeking revenge for the death of his best friend and along the way he meets his estranged son who (spoilers) also dies. In Asteroid City, finding meaning in a unique location or community happens when the characters are quarantined in a small desert town. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, a young refugee finds his purpose under the tutelage of an eccentric hotel concierge. In The French Dispatch, it's the collection of writers for the titular magazine. In The Life Aquatic, it's the boat. In The Royal Tenenbaums, a dysfunctional family reunites in their childhood home.

The AI parodies could pick up on these themes, but they don't. In the Star Wars parody, the AI systems don't have Luke Skywalker grieving the deaths of his aunt and uncle, then finding a new purpose on the Millennium Falcon with an eccentric bunch of rebels. The AI is incapable of going any deeper than, "Bill Murray is in a lot of Wes Anderson movies, and he's an old man. Gandalf is an old man. So here, nightmarishly, is Bill Murray's face pasted on Gandalf's head." Wes Anderson makes comedies, but none of the AI parodies are remotely funny.

How might Wes Anderson actually do X-Men? He talks about how a human would do it. Actually he already did it, so he describes how he did it. He and a bunch of friends. His friends made the costumes, shopped for props at thrift stores, built the sets, and played the characters.

AI filmmaking is not the future, it's a grift - Patrick (H) Willems

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