AI has now made a full ‘Wes Anderson directs Star Wars’ trailer
Wes Anderson’s aesthetic seems to have completely colonized the minds of people experimenting with AI art generation. In December, users of the AI artbot Midjourney went viral on social media with a long string of images from movies going out Alien Unpleasant The shining Unpleasant Gremlins, as directed by Wes Anderson. Now, self-described “bunch of goofballs” at the Curious hideout course development website have taken that idea to the next step by creating a full trailer for a theoretical Wes Anderson Star Wars movie, The Galactic Menagerie: A Star Wars Story.
The trailer itself is a pretty gross step up from the original images presenting Wes Anderson’s Star Wars: The movement here is minimal, and it’s mostly just a collection of the same kind of stills that kicked off in December. But again, Anderson’s visual style proves to be a perfect target for this kind of pastiche, as his own films often take this kind of approach, with set images or lists of cast members. (Just look at how many of the shots in the trailer for his forthcoming Asteroid City are almost still images – although his trailers typically contain a lot more dialogue than the ersatz Star Wars trailer.)
But the Curious Refuge trailer does represent a step up in ambition for AI art makers, and it suggests the next steps in a rapidly changing field that seems to generate almost daily controversy and confusion. Significant legal questions have been raised around AI art, with a class action lawsuit already filed against developers of AI artbots, and the US Copyright Office stating that AI art cannot be copyrighted – so anyone could take these pastiches and claim or use them as their own. Moving from individual images to movie trailers may be a different story, as the editing and voiceover involved in a trailer suggest the “human authorship” that the Copyright Office lacked in individual images.
However, just being able to own the copyright on a video doesn’t necessarily mean you benefit from it. Social media reactions to the Galactic menagerie trailer are decidedly mixed, with some comments praising the ideas, graphics, and especially the fantasy casting, while others dismissed it as proof that AI won’t replace real writers and directors any time soon.
This isn’t the first full-length “Wes Anderson-style” trailer: YouTube creators have been making similar projects for years, without the benefit of AI art. Anderson’s signature stroke rendering, pastel color palettes, specific fonts in a signature bright yellow, and precision-focused set decoration have made him a favorite target for “what if” movie pasties over the past decade, from reworked artists to original content creators to Saturday Night Live.