It’s really disappointing to see a visionary like Aronofsky put his name on this garbage.
Same. His auteur sensibilities are a pretty perfect match for my taste. I am incredibly fond of all his output (with the exception of Caught Stealing, which I haven’t seen yet), including his most polarizing films - Noah and mother! Even the blemishes on those imperfect projects just make them more interesting.
I watched a minute or two of the first “episode” and it reeked of an artless studio hack misguidedly copying an early-aughts editing style that is as poorly executed as it as an unfit complement to the subject matter. And that’s beside the plastic sheen and evident soullessness that just comes with AI-generated video. This feels like an aging filmmaker experimenting with new technology because he’s more afraid of being left behind than he is able to understand the thing he’s being pressured to engage with.
One actor, alone in a black box theater, performing this as a monologue would be more interesting.
I regret paying money to watch Caught Stealing last year. Not seeing any of his movies in the theater again.
I was SO disappointed by this film.
I thought it was a good Guy Ritchie pastiche, but it’s no Pi or The Fountain. Overall, his best seems to be behind him.
Agreed, if this was a Guy Richie flick I would have enjoyed it more; but Aronofski set such a high bar in the past that I expected a lot more. Or at least, a lot smarter
As an aside, I’d highly recommend the new Ken Burns documentary instead. And show it to everyone you know.
It’s basically the opposite; just famous actors reading primary historical sources like letters, interviews of historians, paintings from the time, things like that.
I mean, even besides the whole AI angle, why the hell is this “series” a bunch of 3 minute video clips? It seems like the design around the idea was trying to appeal to “those dumb Gen Z kids who doomscroll TikTok all day”, instead of trying to actually make art.
This is marketing for GenAI video creation, and it can’t do more than 3 minutes without melting the data center.
I can do 20-30 seconds using a WAN video model on a home PC. The length isn’t the problem.
Besides, it’s not like a movie is just a two-hour scene. But, it needs coherence and the tech is not there yet.
Video generation models can’t make very long individual scenes, and need special tools to maintain any kind of consistency between them (if they bother to do that at all). Shorter scenes are easier.
That, and I think it’s supposed to be more “feel good” depictions rather than something educational… otherwise you’d just watch the Ken Burns series.
Whoa what’s up with casually throwing Ken Burns’ name in there at the end? I had to re-skim the article to make sure he wasn’t involved in this pile of crap
It’s so weird to see these obviously awful-looking AI clips and know that somehow lots of people think they’re just fine. To the point where an actual film director thought using them would be a good idea!
These are vital pieces of American history, and could have been interesting and good - if done well. Too bad.
Is Benjamin Franklin holding the One Ring?
Looks to me like Bob Newhart portrayed Franklin.
