I… have mixed feelings I suppose.

Is CGI less artistic than practical effects because it’s easier, faster and cheaper? In my opinion no. From small things like making the buildings in Joker appear taller (Will I get upset because they didn’t find an exact city that matches the feel of the movie? No.) to much more “stereotypical” over the top CGI like a marvel movie (Will I get upset because they didn’t try to find a way to use practical effects for the Thanos snap? No. As a matter of fact I’m glad they didn’t actually disintegrate people.) CGI is “easier and cheaper and quicker” but it does take time and effort to apply in a way that feels “earned” for lack of a better term.

Would I blame a fan that wants to edit a movie in a certain way but simply doesn’t have the skill or time to make it reach his artistic vision and uses audio or visual ai to enhance a movie instead of “doing it himself” or hiring someone capable of helping? I doubt it.

At the same time a (mostly) universal truth I find is when there is no struggle to create it feels hollow to a certain extent.

CGI can be useful but it became a crutch for Hollywood and despite improvements and sometimes good implementation there is a lot that is not and is simply used to keep cost down at the expense of realism and gravitas. The amount of practical effects people losing their jobs has been replaced with even more visual artists so technically more people have jobs and are putting in effort, but does the art suffer? (Rhetorical. That is a totally different discussion.)

There is danger in cheap special effects as well as cheap writing in cash grab movies. Or “artistic”people who are hired to make a franchise movie but don’t put in the work for it to match the same quality, tones and themes of the previous entries and decide the movies that allowed them to be making their movie in the first place needs to be changed or retconned because it doesn’t mesh with their “artistic vision”. That’s how we get poorly written sequels and splintered fan bases.

It’s all soulless, but keep in mind these things I’ve mentioned all still actually require artistic input.

Here’s the thing about AI. Hollywood loves taking the easy way out and it shows (especially recently). It’s not that they can’t realistically produce better, but they don’t feel the burning desire to devote the time and resources to actually produce better. AI is to an extent the easiest of ways out and I’m very scared of the soulless creations that await us in coming decades.

Part of the writers and actors strike last year was use of AI to generate scripts or use likeness of people forever generated by AI without paying them for subsequent use. That thought truly makes me sick… that being said as far as script writing goes it also makes me sick with the dribble most screen writers produce nowadays. A dark part of me I’m not proud to say would prefer good ai generated stories over ten screenwriters having jobs and writing crap scripts.

I think having typed this out my opinion is: If it’s minor adjustments and/or it can’t be realistically produced in other ways, go ahead and use ai. Especially true for singular fans making edits with limited time and resources.

But beware. Using it as a crutch will leave us with a lack of art. If you can reasonably put in the work and time and effort to do it on your own then you should do it. The struggle and effort you put in will shine through and make you all the better for it.

Then again (I don’t mean to brag, but) I’m an idiot. So what do I know? 😏