Like many creative types, I really hate AI. In the right context, this technology can be a great productivity tool, and its loudest evangelists are correct that creators can accomplish awesome things with AI. Nonetheless, it’s an open secret that places like movie studios care more about using this tech to save money. They don’t want to give you bigger and better movies; they want to charge you full price for something that they cut every corner to make. If this technology is left fully unchecked, the result will be a glut of Hollywood movies that are even crappier and even more bereft of originality than ever before.
Because of this, I always breathe a sigh of relief when I see big, successful directors pushing back against AI. That happened recently with one of the most beloved moviemakers in the world: Christopher Nolan. Ahead of The Odyssey‘s premiere, he recently gave an interview with a very blunt assessment of this technology. He not only named what is created by this tech as “AI slop” but pointed out that young people have almost completely rejected AI in film. The message is clear: movies can’t survive without appealing to the youth market, and if Hollywood wants to survive, it needs to keep AI out of film altogether.
Welcome To Nolan’s Land
In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Christopher Nolan offered his thoughts on what he sees as the modern state of Hollywood. He praised Curry Barker and Kane Parsons, whose success with (respectively) Obsession and Backrooms proves that “things are on the right track” for cinema. He pointed out that “young people can’t get enough” of films like this, which are “so mysterious and ruminative.” From there, he launched into an unexpected (but certainly not unwelcome) rant against the use of AI in film, something that both Barker and Parsons have spoken out against.
“I’ve never seen a more rapid wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational jump in technology in my lifetime. So much energy has been expended on bringing in AI, but if you look at that generation’s reaction, they’re utterly rejecting it.” The Odyssey director went on to reference his own children and how they see this technology. “Their judgment of AI slop has been immediate and harsh. They see it for what it is very quickly—and it’s much easier for them to identify it, because it grew out of an online world they know really well.”
Like many, Nolan himself isn’t someone who has wholly rejected AI or who thinks there is never any purpose to using it. However, he thinks it’s bad to use it for filmmaking because it impacts the creativity of these works while potentially harming box office potential. “While that doesn’t mean that every aspect of [AI] is useless or meaningless, in filmmaking it’s hitting at exactly the wrong time. After years of driving towards heavily virtual environments, we’re seeing a renewed interest in more tactile, more real forms of storytelling.” The practical effects and locations are, of course, a large part of what young people enjoyed about Obsession and Backrooms.
Regarding AI, Christopher Nolan is speaking a language that various Hollywood studios and directors can finally understand. The powers that be won’t care about using this tech as long as the films they create make money. But the Odyssey director is pointing out that the coveted youth demographic effectively votes with their wallets and avoids movies made with AI; instead, they favor movies made with the human touch. The reason moviegoers complain about the endless sequels, prequels, and reboots is that they crave something genuinely original. Now, Nolan is here to not-so-gently remind studios that AI is the opposite of originality, and studios who embrace it may very well ultimately be signing their death warrant.
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