A “Princess Mononoke” film created using so-called generative AI was slammed by fans on social media after its release earlier this week.
“One day we’ll wake up, and there won’t be any more Princess Mononoke, Gravity Falls, Avatar or animated films like Wolf Children or Arcane… just AI-generated soulless garbage,” wrote @goroweko on X, formerly Twitter. “I don’t want that so bad.”
The AI-generated remake goes up against the original “shot-for-shot” and was created by AI entrepreneur PJ Acetturo, combining AI-generated CGI shots that match the fim. The result is a “crime” that turns “a 15-year-old Japanese girl into a white woman with a smoky eye and bikini tan lines” and “‘is enough for me to think we should bring back tarring and feathering,” literary agent Roma Panganiban wrote on X.
Acetturo has made it clear he’s proud of his production, no matter what reaction it’s received. “I’ve wanted to make a live action version of Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke for 20+ years now. I spent $745 in Kling credits to show you a glimpse of the future of filmmaking,” he wrote on X.
The AI filmmaker added that he was “being interviewed on the BBC today about my films” and “Clients are reaching out like crazy.”
He was challenged in the BBC segment, with one of the British network’s contributors noting that it seemed that there was something lacking in AI-created content.
“I’m sure there will be some criticism of this. I’ve heard Miyazaki is anti-AI. That’s okay,” the filmmaker wrote online. “I made this adaptation mostly for myself, because his work makes me want to create new worlds. We should look for ethical ways to explore AI tools to help empower artists to create.”
He posted a side-by-side comparison of his trailer with the beautifully crafted original:
His statements were called out as problematic by actor Swann Grey, who tweeted in response, “‘I’ve heard Miyazaki is anti-AI. That’s okay.’ … Excuse you? To say that in the same breath as the word ‘ethical’? And to call a shot-for-shot remake ‘creating a new world’? Zero creativity, zero respect, and zero concept of what art is. You’re not an artist — you’re a fraud.”
Miyazaki himself has stated, when presented with an example of the use of AI in animation, that “I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.”
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