TCL’s AI-Animated Short Films: A Mixed Bag
Earlier this year, TCL released a trailer for Next Stop Paris, an AI-animated short film that resembled a Lifetime movie on steroids. The trailer had all the hallmarks of AI: characters with lifeless expressions, animation that made scenes appear to vibrate, and voice acting that didn’t quite sync up with mouth movements. Given the healthy dose of criticism it received online, I thought this might be the extent of TCL’s experimentation with AI films. But boy, was I wrong.
TCL debuted five new AI-generated short films, all destined for its TCLtv Plus free streaming platform. While these films look a little better than Next Stop Paris, they serve as yet another reminder that AI-generated videos aren’t quite there yet. In TCL’s case, it’s not just the AI that makes these films bad – it’s also the storytelling and production quality.
Here are all five of them, ranked from tolerable (5) to ‘I wish I could unsee this’ (1).
5. Sun Day
This futuristic short film has a concept similar to Ray Bradbury’s "All Summer in a Day." It follows a young girl who lives on a planet where the sun only comes out every seven years, but just ten people can see it at a time from the top of a building called the ‘Citadel.’ The AI-generated sequences become pretty hard to follow as she tries to navigate her way out through the sewers beneath the school.
The voice acting in Sun Day isn’t bad, but the lack of facial expression is pretty laughable. For example, check out this scene where she’s trying to escape from her bullies. It’s clear that TCL has some work to do in terms of creating believable characters.
4. Project Nexus
Project Nexus is more like a five-minute trailer than a short film, and unlike TCL’s other AI movies, this one is meant to depict animated characters rather than attempting to make them look as human as possible. It starts with a man finding what looks like a radioactive rock and then coordinating the arrest of four teens who get supernatural powers after the rock explodes beneath their prison.
The story in Project Nexus is probably the most compelling out of the bunch, but the AI-generated animation and questionable voice acting make it hard to watch. You’d think that since the characters aren’t meant to look fully human, the facial expressions would be better. But that definitely wasn’t the case here.
3. The Best Day of My Life
This is a docufiction-style short film, where an actor plays Dr. Warren Brown and uses AI to retell the harrowing story of how he lost his leg after getting trapped in an avalanche atop Chile’s Cerro Castillo mountain – and it’s hard to tell which parts of the story (if any) actually happened.
The majority of the film is an AI flashback, showing clips of Brown and his friend traversing the snowy mountaintop. It cuts between scenes with the real, human actor who plays Brown and narrates the story. It’s basically like watching an Investigation Discovery show, but with all the ‘dramatic recreations’ made with AI.
The story starts to lose me after it shows an AI-generated image of a severed leg, followed by a trippy sequence of Brown’s ‘life flashing before his eyes,’ which includes a zebra morphing into a lion. I visibly cringed at the ending when Brown called this the ‘best day’ of his life.
2. The Slug
Okay, I really hate this. It’s like if Franz Kafka had access to AI and generated The Metamorphosis. The gist of it is that a woman is suffering from a bad case of arthritis, and she tries to reach out to family members and her doctor by phone, but they don’t pick up. She looks so longingly out the window when she places a slug outside.
Things get real weird after this. Her hands and feet become covered in slime, until her body gradually morphs into a full-on slug. Viewer discretion is advised, because it’s honestly kind of disturbing. Once the metamorphosis is complete, she inches her way out of the house in slug form, and someone finally returns her call.
1. The Slug (Again)
I’ll just say this: if you haven’t seen The Slug, don’t bother. It’s a mess from start to finish, with cringe-worthy dialogue and awkward transitions between scenes. It’s like TCL took every bad idea they had for an AI film and mashed them all together into one incoherent disaster.
Comments
- "I didn’t think it was possible to make AI-generated films look this bad." – @AI_Animated_Fails
- "TCL should stick to making TVs, not movies." – @Not_Into_AI
- "I’m still trying to figure out what the plot of The Slug is supposed to be." – @Confused_Watcher
Rating: 2/5
While TCL’s AI-generated short films show promise in some areas, they fall flat in terms of storytelling and production quality. With a little more work and attention to detail, these films could have been something special. But as it stands, they’re a mixed bag at best.
I hope you enjoyed this review of TCL’s AI-animated short films! Let me know if you have any questions or comments below.
