With audiences being loud and clear on their opinion on companies using AI, directing the first ever AI Feature Film could be
a controversial move by someone seemingly hoping to stay in the filmmaking business.
Despite this, Tom Paton created the first ever animated film which includes AI in all its elements.
The work in question aired three months ago on the 17th of October 2024, on his newly founded YouTube channel AiMation Studios. As of writing this, it currently sits at 93.000 views, with the like-to-dislike scale leaning towards the negatives: 200 people have shown their support against the over 1000 dislikes.
So, what is it that makes this indie project a failure? Could it just be a marketing problem, a lack of funds, or perhaps just bad quality?
It is an amalgamation of all those points.
To find out the source of the failure, watching the movie was necessary. During my watch, I noticed how my phone never quite left my hand, and my eyes frequently drifted to previously uninteresting items around my room. Replying to messages I put off dealing with later was suddenly an achievable task, despite it usually being a one-in-a-lifetime miracle.
There is no other way to put it, the film is lacking in multiple aspects.
First, the plot: It is quite simple when summarized. It portrays a futuristic world, where humans are planning to move to a new planet called Oracle. To make sure the new environment is ready for their arrival, they send out robots to prepare the land and resources.
With food being one of the main concerns, the story introduces the protagonist: A fifth-generation Farming robot. He, however, does not feel satisfied with his assigned work, and so renames himself to Cru, and tries to break free from his man-made purpose of farming day and night. However, as the story progresses, he slowly learns to accept his future as he must take care of a pod containing a baby human, while shielding it from the antagonistic fourth-generation robot who wishes to harm the child.
The message of the story could be interpreted in many ways: A struggle of accepting adulthood, rebellion against capitalist exploitation, or even a metaphor for accepting parenthood, as the characters mention caretaking a good number of times.
But sadly, learning a lesson from it does not automatically make any story entertaining. And the writing here is lacking in several ways.
Our protagonist, Cru, goes through a faux character development, where the reason given for his change is nothing else except for blind compliance to humans. If the plot aimed to include combatting exploitation as a plot point, it missed the execution, as this would not be a cathartic ending at all.
The antagonist, named Number 4, starts off as a promising rebel type of character, but slowly loses his charm as his lines become repetitive and his actions less convincing as he never takes the leap to be a real threat.
There are multiple plot holes and weird world building choices that left me and others feeling dull and uninspired.
But perhaps the visuals make up for the parts where it’s lacking.
Despite the 4K resolution, aside from the crisp edges of the elements, the blending of the 3D models and the sometimes 3D sometimes 2D backgrounds is a choice that makes the final product seem hastily made. The differing art styles pull the audience back to reality, especially when the mentor character named “Pop” is on screen: A low-poly model of a man that looks like it was pulled from an early 2000’s PlayStation 1 game, with no better quality than Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.
The mix of 2D and 3D is not at fault here: Disney pulled it off in Treasure Planet in their Post-Renaissance era.
The clipping and rendering issues are also relevant. The robots often disappear into not only the ground but also each other. Footsteps are never left behind in the sand, and there are never any traces left of either farm work or fights. As if the world of Oracle always stood perfectly still and sterile.
As it is at the moment, this is clearly a first attempt type of project, made by someone with high ambitions regardless of the downfalls. Let’s learn a bit about the creative behind the world of Oracle.
Tom Paton is a British Feature Film Director and Producer with over a decade of vast experience in working on films. While most of his works have not garnered much attention, he is best known for his directing live-action movies. His biggest success, Redwood (2017), even won the title of Best Thriller in the 2018 National Film Awards in the UK.
All this is to say, he is a man who not only loves what he is doing but also puts all his heart and soul into it. The fact that he was able to put out at least one film each year since he started just adds to show his efforts. With these facts combined, it is hard to imagine his use of Generative AI in his newest work “Where the Robots Grow” could come from a place of laziness.
In an interview with Haydn Rushworth, he expressed his interest in making animated movies due to the fact that the number of tools available have grown in number in the last few years. He also believes that the trickle-down effect of Hollywood is a system which is fundamentally broken, but perhaps AI tools could be the solution to fixing the ruined hierarchy.
Here is what he has to say about those who believe that AI tools don’t belong in the creative field:
“I’m pretty sure that you’ve got a sort of Stockholm syndrome to an industry that does not care about your wellbeing” -Tom Paton
But even if he has the best intentions, giving each Friday off to his crew of nine people, there is a more uncomfortable part to AI which must be addressed when discussing it.
It was never made to be a tool for artists and creatives in the industry. If that would have been the original plan, to make the process of art easier, then millions of art pieces would not have been used without permission and compensation during the development. Tools like Midjourney and the likes are all digital machines that illegally use works they scraped off the internet, just so one day they may become powerful enough not to need any employees while still being able to pump out content.
“The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth.” -Jeffowski
Those who use such tools must tread carefully, as saving ourselves might not be a good enough reason to leave others in the trenches.
Photo: Reddit, 2024
