Modern Movies Fall as AI Rises

2023 was a big year for movies, from the sensational ‘Barbie-Heimer’ to animations such as ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,’ but many people still wonder if new movies will stick it up or falter to the old Hollywood standards. 

Junior Isaac Hulgan-Hicks thinks not.

“Movies today could never top the 80s-90s era of movies. The creativity in the stories of these movies and originality was at an all-time high,” He says.

Movies nowadays lack a sense of creativity within their stories, and with new artificial intelligence to write scripts and answer questions for us, the need for writers is declining.

“It seems like movies recently are just reboots of old movies or the same plot with different characters or themes,” Hulgan-Hicks says. 

With fewer writers comes fewer interesting and unique ideas, as AI compiles and steals ideas from others to base its production on. 

Junior Luka Jenkin says, “When looking at writing, especially for animated films, there has been a decrease in meaningful stories in recent memories. I think this is particularly clear when looking at the battle between AI and writers that has been going [on].”

Jenkin also disliked the movie “Our Drawings” which parodies the faults of AI.

“The entire film was made by either AI or using assets people already made. The film is clearly not up to par [with] anything that has been written by a human being. The age of AI is changing how the film industry is operating, but I think that it is only making it clearer that the stories people create will never be able to be recreated by a machine whether that is for writing, acting, animation and voice work,” he says.

The film was received badly by the public, the plot is repeated many times before the movie starts and the dialogue is wacky and confusing.

It is clear the battle writers are having with AI when you look at the recent strikes, movements and protests against AI. 

On April 18, 2023, the Writers Guild of America, or WGA, went on strike to protest against the mistreatment and underappreciation of writers. 

Actors also went on strike to protest against AI and mispayment during this time. Lower and lesser-known actors/actresses were not given their rightful salary due to their lesser-known status. 

This strike, which is more formally known as the SAG-AFTRA strike lasted 118 days and ended in justice for SAG-AFTRA members.

During this time, movies were at an all-time low. AI proved to be unfit for the creativity and minds of humans.

But now, AI has presented itself, which can create realistic videos of people that are difficult to distinguish from real videos.

With this technology, fears of accusations or fraud arise. 

Freshman Clementine Pearce says, “Sora AI is a platform that has been on topic recently, as it is incredibly advanced. Many artists and average people alike see no good reason for this AI to be available to the public for the damages it can cause to art and life itself. Many see AI as an easy way out to pretend they have talents, but in reality it takes little to no effort to replicate a very detailed piece of artwork.”

So how can films improve? What can you do to help make better cinema for the future? Pursuing young creative and passionate writers, artists, or people with a knack for theater, to better understand and cooperate with new developments.

In doing so, people will be getting a more enjoyable experience through movies, and more classics can be sought in the future.