So, apparently, James Cameron, the guy who brought you such cinematic masterpieces as blue cat people and the unsinkable Molly Brown, thinks AI replacing actors is “horrifying.” Horrifying! As if we didn’t already have enough to be horrified about in the world, like his Avatar sequels. 🙄
The Avatar: Fire and Ash director (yes, another one, because apparently blue cat people weren’t enough the first two times) who also moonlights as a board member for Stability AI (talk about a conflict of interest!), has some *opinions* about artificial intelligence. He’s all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to using AI to make movies, but draw the line somewhere, folks. The line is apparently drawn at replacing actors. Bless his heart.
Our dear James thinks motion capture is the “purest form” of performance. I’m sorry, what? Is he serious right now? So, actors in skin-tight suits covered in dots pretending to be aliens is the epitome of acting? Someone check this man’s hard drive ASAP. He even admitted it was a “mistake” to keep the CGI magic under wraps in 2009’s Avatar. Oh, the horror! The “magic unblemished”?! More like the audience un-traumatized by uncanny valley nightmares!
Cameron, in his infinite wisdom, wants to make it abundantly clear that motion capture and AI are like, totally different, you guys. It’s not like both involve computers and the manipulation of reality, right? Nooooo, motion capture is ART! AI is… well, it’s just *horrifying*, okay?
In a riveting interview on CBS Sunday Mornings, Cameron enlightened us with these profound words: “For years, there was this sense that, ‘Oh, they’re doing something strange with computers and they’re replacing actors,’ when in fact, once you really drill down and you see what we’re doing, it’s a celebration of the actor-director moment, and the actor-to-actor moment. It’s a celebration of, I call it, the sanctity of the actor’s performance moment. Now, go to the other end of the spectrum, and you’ve got generative AI, where they can make up a character, they can make up an actor. They can make up a performance from scratch with a text prompt. It’s like, no. That’s horrifying to me. That’s the opposite. That’s exactly what we’re not doing.” He says, while motion capturing Zoe Saldana. Someone get this man a dictionary. 🤣
The Titanic director, bless his heart, insists he would NEVER want to “replace” actors with technology. As if turning them into blue aliens via motion capture wasn’t close enough? 🙄
He further pontificates, “I don’t want a computer doing what I pride myself on being able to do with actors. I don’t want to replace actors, I love working with actors.” We believe you, James. We totally believe you. Especially after you’ve drowned Leo DiCaprio and made bank from it.
BUT (and there’s always a but), Cameron DOES see a place for AI in the industry. You see, it could be helpful in “making VFX cheaper.” Ah, there it is! So, it’s not about artistic integrity or the sanctity of acting, it’s about saving a few bucks. I knew there was a catch! 💰
According to Cameron, “Right now, imaginative films, fantastic films, science-fiction films — they’re starting to die off as a breed because they’re expensive and the theatrical marketplace has contracted, and now studios are only comfortable spending those kinds of dollar amounts with blue-chip IP, that which we’ve seen, that which we know. I mean, a movie like Avatar would never get made in that environment. That was brand-new IP; nobody had ever heard of it.” Brand new IP of space smurfs. Never seen before. Okay, James. Whatever you say. Maybe if he didn’t spend 10 years and $500 million on each movie, studios would be more willing to take a risk. Just a thought.
And, because he’s a giver, Cameron doesn’t think generative AI would undermine his work. No, no, no, it’ll just make filmmakers work harder! Because nothing inspires creativity like the threat of being replaced by a soulless algorithm, right? 🤖
He rambles on: “It might [undermine the work], but it also causes us to have to set our bar to a very disciplined level, and to continue to be out-of-the-box imaginative … what generative AI can’t do is create something new that’s never been seen.” Because, as we all know, James Cameron is the sole proprietor of “new” and “never seen before” in Hollywood. Just ask the blue cat people. 👽
“If you think about it, the models — it’s a magic trick, what they can do is quite astonishing. But the models are trained on everything that’s ever been done before that; it can’t be trained on that which has never been done.” In other words, AI can only create remixes, not original masterpieces. Only *real* artists like James Cameron can do that! Someone get this man a mirror! 🪞
“So you will innately see, essentially, all of human art and human experience put into a blender, and you’ll get something that is kind of an average of that. So what you can’t have is that individual screenwriter’s unique lived experience and their quirks. You won’t find the idiosyncrasies of a particular actor… the act of performance, the act of actually seeing an artist creating in real time will become sacred, more so.” So, according to St. James, AI can’t replicate the “quirks” and “idiosyncrasies” of an actor. So, we’re safe from AI Keanu Reeves, AI Nicholas Cage or AI… oh wait, James Cameron. 😰
Avatar: Fire and Ash, or whatever they’re calling it this week, opens in theaters on December 19. Get ready for more blue cat people, folks! 🎬
Finn McFrame, celebrated satirical mastermind and self-proclaimed “Emperor of Irony,” started his illustrious career as a cinematographer, where his expertise in capturing every single frame of a squirrel stealing a baguette earned him accolades at obscure film festivals.
Born in the glamorous town of Boring, Oregon, Finn grew up with dreams of being a Hollywood director until he realized that satire, not cinema, was his true calling—or at least the one that let him sleep until noon.
Finn McFrame: changing the world, one satirical lens flare at a time.
