By The other month filmmaker Tim Burton, who gave us some of his own disturbing CG creations in films like 2010’s “Alice in Wonderland,” criticised A.I. (artificial intelligence) recreations of Disney characters.
Speaking with The Independent at the time, he said: “I can’t describe the feeling it gives you. It reminded me of when other cultures say, ‘Don’t take my picture because it is taking away your soul.’… I’m in quiet revolt against all this.”
Burton also spoke about Nicolas Cage’s brief several-second cameo as an alternate universe Superman in “The Flash” which he says “goes into another AI thing”. Burton and Cage were slated to work together on “Superman Lives” until that project collapsed early in pre-production back in the late 1990s.
Now, Cage himself this week has shared his thoughts with Yahoo! Entertainment on the use of A.I. in films and discussed his cameo as Superman in “The Flash”. He says he physically did film a bit for the production.
“They did put a lot of time into building the suit … and I think [Andy] is a terrific director, he is a great guy and a great director, and I loved his two ‘IT’ movies. What I was supposed to do was literally just be standing in an alternate dimension, if you will, and witnessing the destruction of the universe… I had no dialogue [so had to] convey with my eyes the emotion. So that’s what I did. I was on set for maybe three hours.”
Of course, what ended up on the screen was a fully CG animated sequence of his character fighting a giant spider before an actual shot of Cage’s face, looking badly distorted by poor quality CG, doing what Cage described. Cage talks watching the film screne:
“When I went to the picture, it was me fighting a giant spider. I did not do that. That was not what I did. I don’t think it was [created by] AI. I know Tim is upset about AI, as I am.
It was CGI, OK, so that they could de-age me, and I’m fighting a spider. I didn’t do any of that, so I don’t know what happened there… But I get where Tim’s coming from. I know what he means.
I would be very unhappy if people were taking my art… and appropriating them. I get it. I mean, I’m with him in that regard. AI is a nightmare to me. It’s inhumane. You can’t get more inhumane than artificial intelligence.
But I don’t think it [was] AI [in The Flash]. I just think that they did something with it, and again, it’s out of my control. I literally went to shoot a scene for maybe an hour in the suit, looking at the destruction of a universe and trying to convey the feelings of loss and sadness and terror in my eyes. That’s all I did.”
The film itself has gone down as a major flop, pulling in just $270.6 million from a $200 million budget and snagging mixed reviews. For now, there are no plans for any further “The Flash” films in the near future.
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