Wes Anderson’s aesthetic seems to have completely colonized the minds of people experimenting with AI art-making. Back in December, users of the AI artbot Midjourney took to social media with a long string of images from which they imagined movies extraterrestrial To The glow To gremlins, directed by Wes Anderson. Now the self-description “bunch of goofballs” In the Curious Refuge Course development websites have taken this idea to the next step by creating an entire trailer for a theoretical Wes Anderson Star Wars film. The Galactic Menagerie: A Star Wars Story.
The trailer itself is a pretty gross step up from the original images I’m imagining Wes Anderson’s Star Wars: Movement here is minimal, and it’s mostly just a collection of the same type of stills that started in December. Once again, Anderson’s visual style proves a perfect target for this sort of imitation, as indeed his own films often take this approach, with fixed images or lists of performers. (Just look at how many of the shots in the Trailer for his upcoming asteroid city are almost stills – although his trailers usually contain a lot more dialogue than the replacement Star Wars trailer.)
But the Curious Refuge trailer represents a step up in ambition for AI art creators and suggests the next steps in a rapidly changing field that seems to generate controversy and confusion on an almost daily basis. Significant legal issues have arisen related to AI art as a class action lawsuit has already been filed against AI artbot developers and the US Copyright Office states that AI art cannot be copyrighted – so anyone could potentially take these pastiches and claim or use them as their own. The move from single frames to movie trailers might be a different story, as a trailer’s editing and voiceover hint at the “human authorship” that the Copyright Office missed with single frames.
However, being able to copyright a video doesn’t necessarily mean benefiting from it. Reactions on social media to the Galactic Menagerie Trailers were decidedly mixed, with some responses praising the ideas, visuals, and particularly the fantasy casting, while others dismissed it as proof that AI isn’t going to replace real-life writers and directors any time soon.
This isn’t the first full Wes Anderson style trailer: YouTube creators have been making similar projects for years without the benefits of AI art. Anderson’s signature deadpan lines, pastel color palettes, signature bright yellow fonts, and precision-focused set decoration have made him a prime target for what-if film pastiches by re-edit artists over the past decade to original content creators too Saturday night live.
