Hacker Cinema
Suicide Squad
2016 · Film · 122 min
Part of Suicide Squad Collection
Directed by David Ayer
From DC Comics comes the Suicide Squad, an antihero team of incarcerated supervillains who act as deniable assets for the United States government, undertaking high-risk black ops missions in exchange for commuted prison sentences.
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15 comments on Hacker News
Someone wrote the following comment then deleted it. I spent 30 minutes on my response and wanted to post it anyway. Apologies if the original comment was deleted by a mod, I hope this is OK to post.
---QUOTE---
My "test" for video generation turning movie making on its head is when a model can add the missing Tom Bombadil chapters to Peter Jackson's LOTR movies.
Probably 20 - 30 minutes of HD, aesthetically synced, scripted etc with minimal editing after a detailed prompt and source material.
Qualifier - the AI just has to follow the book script, third party tools ok to use for lip syncing and audio :)
I said 5 years away last year.
Feels like it might be more like 1 - 2 years.
What do you think?
---END QUOTE---
My response:
I think we're getting into diminishing returns territory with this AI stuff. These video/image generators are impressive but they don't "understand" physical reality and probably never will without a breakthrough. You can see this in the demo videos, the best looking ones are glorified still images and the worst are whenever something physical happens, like the lemon being picked up or the guy eating cereal. These examples may get better, but I really doubt they'll ever look like real unaltered camera footage without adding an understanding of how our physical reality works into the model somehow.
For the script generation, Fellowship of the Ring is not a movie script and requires serious interpretation and planning to be converted into one. Especially if you want it to fit into Jackson's films at all. If nothing else the dialog and frequency of songs/poetry are very different. The current text generators aren't really capable of that kind of planning yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a screenwritten treatment of that chapter floating around on the internet somewhere, or at least bits of one. It has certainly ingested The Fellowship of the Rings, and plenty of screenplays plus the books they were based on. So maybe chatgpt can make a convincing script. I asked the free version and got some dialog that seems fine, but absolutely no scene direction at all. I'm willing to believe that was either an issue with my prompting or something that can be fixed in 5 years. So at least the script may be possible.
As for converting it into an actual piece of film, I don't think that's currently possible without a breakthrough on planning. There's a reason these video demos aren't usually very long, it's because they aren't good at scene changes. People's faces change, rooms change shape, etc. Maybe that can be fixed through engineering, but film editing is hard. It's not easy to plan and chain together shots in a way that gives a proper sense of physical reality while conveying everything a scene needs to.
Take a look at Dan Olsen's video analyzing the editing of Suicide Squad[1]. That movie was edited by a trailerhouse and it shows. A big issue is that the scenes and shots don't flow together very well - it's edited like a bunch of separate shots and scenes rather than a coherent whole. As a result it's generally considered one of the worst films big budget ever made. And from my (admittedly limited) understanding/playing around with these generators, they aren't even remotely close to being able to do the type of planning needed to pull that kind of editing off, much less something on the level of Jackson's adaptation. Again I could be wrong but it really seems like another "Attention is All You Need" level breakthrough to get there.
So I'd say no, I don't think we'll get what you describe, at least not at any level of quality, in 1-2 years. 5 years sounds more realistic but I really believe we'd need another huge breakthrough to get there, and those are hard to come by. Assuming one will happen in any given time period seems foolish. But a lot of smart people are working on that, so maybe we'll get it. But I don't think we'll even get there in 10 years with just engineering improvements on the current stuff. Scientific progress isn't linear.
Yours and a lot of other predictions about AI stuff really remind me of how all the futurists in the 50's thought we'd be able to freeze and unfreeze humans in a few short years. They thought that because it's actually really easy to do that with hamsters, but it turns out scaling the process up isn't so easy (Tom Scott has a good video tangentially related to this[2]). I think a lot of people are standing near the top of the steep part of a sigmoid curve and saying "Wow look how far we've come in just 3 years! The next 3 years are going to be insane!" When in reality we just have a long plateau of minor improvements in front of us. But who knows, maybe that next breakthrough is right around the corner.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDclQowcE9I [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y
> What does the article purport them to be? Right at the top I see:
It seems to imply a concerted effort to mention the title of the movie in the script in a meta, fourth wall breaking sort of way.
In some cases that's obviously true - Hot Tub Time Machine, Suicide Squad from their examples - but other times an untitled script just needs a title and it's plucked from the script.
I think there's a distinction there, because the latter is less of an Easter Egg sort of thing and more "ok now we need a title."
> How sure are we that these so-called title drops are what this article purports them to be
What does the article purport them to be? Right at the top I see:
> A title drop is when a character in a movie says the title of the movie they're in.
That makes no distinction if the title or the script came first. The article does call out movies who do that in a cringe or obvious way (like Suicide Squad, which had prior art) but also includes movies where that is unavoidable, such as Barbie.
More importantly, it doesn’t matter which came first. As soon as you make a line and a title the same, the line becomes a title drop. The audience sees the final product, not the process.
> An analogy
That analogy doesn’t work. Songs are typically repetitive and a few minutes long. Everyone expects them to name the title. A movie, on the other hand, is an experience that asks suspension of disbelief from you, it tries to engross you in its world over the course of multiple hours. When a character title drops, in a second you’re suddenly and forcefully pulled back from the illusion and reminded you’re watching a movie.
There's a little bit of gender role in there:
Male assholes (ex: Rick from Rick and Morty, Nolan's Batman, Downy's Iron Man) are fun and interesting to watch. Female assholes are much, much harder to write (Amanda Waller, Suicide Squad, seems to be the best written one in recent films?)
I guess there's explicitly "female" movies, like "Devil Wears Prada" where that kind of behavior is more acceptable (Miranda Priestly plays the role of asshole boss).
But maybe the "formula" for what audiences accept just hasn't really been figured out yet for female characters. You certainly can't just take male-oriented tropes and try to apply them to female-oriented characters.
Agreed - he has some other good content, like there's a take apart of the editing style of the movie Suicide Squad.
There are many types of videogames with many different audiences, similar to movies. You can argue that videogames aren't art by pointing to Call of Duty, just as I can argue that movies aren't art by pointing to Suicide Squad. If you argue that movies are art by pointing to Citizen Kane, I'll point to Spec Ops: The Line or the Stanley Parable.
I also think you're conflating "art" and "visual design".
I kind of agree and disagree. Yes we might be thinking of two different things. But I think it's not about the URL, but about the content. There's plenty YouTube videos that are intelligent, with intelligent responses to it.
But that was kind of my point; by looking at the way a response to a piece of content is written, you can judge its merit somewhat accurately.
For example, on a video about the way the Suicide Squad movie was edited, you might see:
- "BRILLIANT 100% agree!"
- "While I think you're right, there might be a couple of things you missed out on [...]"
- "FU M8 DA MOVIE WAS AWESUM!!!1@2"
Each of these comments tells you something different. And yes, some say more about the audience than the content ;)
"Not one of the top 10 highest grossing movies of 2016 was a live-action non-sequel/remake."
Actually 1 was: Suicide Squad. It was indeed a live-action non-sequel/remake.
This seems like pure difficulty for me. When I think of thumbs up / down metrics I think in terms of "would I endorse this?"
A movie like "Suicide Squad" was (to me at least) highly enjoyable, though I thought it objectively had many problems with plot and delivery. I would probably give it 3 stars, which is relatively neutral for me (or leave it altogether unrated). If it were thumbs up/down, I would probably have to leave it unrated completely.
Maybe that's an improvement, but the more discussion I see around this, the more I realize the futility of single-axis metrics for things like this, until and unless you're asking a single question "Did you enjoy this movie" is a much different question from "is this a good movie" -- and I don't really know which one I've been answering on Netflix all these years past.
Consider 8 had a $306,000,000 budget, 9 had a $200,000,000 budget. I have no problem saying it was profitable, but so was The Land Before Time 9. When a movie pulls in ~1/2 has much as the previous film it's a sign.
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2016/top-grossing-movies
Just looking domestically we have Finding Dory (squeal), Rogue One (franchise), Captain America: Civil War (squeal), The Secret Life of Pets (kids movie), The Jungle Book (kids movie), Deadpool (franchise), Zootopia (kids movie), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (franchise), Suicide Squad (franchise), Doctor Strange (franchise), Moana (kids movie) etc. Down at #14 The Revenant was at least nominally an original movie, though very similar to several other films.
I don't think any of these where bad for what they where, but there was nothing new for the 14-40 group. 2015 had #6 American Sniper, #9 The Martian, but was again mostly rehashed movies until #17.
YMMV. For me the attempts at a serious story fall flat due to the amount of plot holes and asspulls. I've enjoyed suicide squad a lot more - it wasn't trying to be taken seriously, so the absurdity didn't clash. Same with the previous star wars - it went for a very simple story, so it was harder to mess up
Rogue One is pretty, sure. But the story is a chain of coincidences. No character, except maybe for Vader - who's mostly a cameo, actually tries to act according to its presented motivation, or tries to solve any of their presented problems. Throughout the movie character motivations are at best tertiary to firstly doing whatever is flashiest, or secondarily executing whatever morality cliche the movie is currently on.
Basically, every character in rogue one is unbelievably stupid. And then you get to the 'science fiction' setting where battles between capital ships happen at 200m (but the bad guys only start shooting after the obligatory 5 minutes of tactical discussions), shooting at a force field that just destroyed multiple ships that rammed into it is a thing that makes sense, etc. Etc.
Rogue One is still as much of a fairy tale as previous star wars moves; but it tries to pretend it's not. And that completely destroys any immersion the viewer might have.
To anyone who hasn't seen Rogue One yet... I think it's the best Star Wars movie since Empire. Worth your time. Amazing fast-paced character development and arcs (compare Star Wars to Suicide Squad if you really want to be impressed or see how badly it could have turned out), wonderful little cameos, rich visuals that show what the prequels could have been, and paramount a superbly written and acted story.
(Spoilers)
The ambiguous ethics of sending an assassin to kill Galen because The Rebellion didn't believe how he could leak truthful information (and keep this mission secret from Jyn in order to get her help locating her father) was especially well done. The concept of sides, Empire or Rebellion, being unclear to people until they join one was also woven in nicely -- normal people just want to go about their lives free from conflict.
The most hotly debated topic between me and my friends though wasn't about ethics, it was about if Donnie Yen's character was using The Force or not. (Of course he was, and in prior movies plenty of characters used The Force before becoming Jedis.)
https://dorksideoftheforce.com/2016/04/08/rogue-one-a-star-wars-story-who-is-the-staff-wielder/
Rogue One's story certainly muddies the waters a bit, but the fact Star Wars is willing to embrace more complexity and a blurring of the lines is great for the franchise and mature fan base. Someone woke up and realized that the value of the Star Wars ins't just how many lunch boxes it can sell, they can make a buck telling compelling stories as well. #NoEwoks #NoGungan
> If they don't like the final product they'll rip it apart and do it again.
WB dies that too, but they can't seem to do it right. In the aftermath of Batman v Superman flopping, WB panicked and asked Ayer to "punch up" Suicide Squad adding more humor and faster pacing - this included reshoots. SS wasn't originally meant to be a blockbuster, but an end of summer fun movie
To throw things in a greek setting, Marvel is traditionally comedy and DC is tragedy. Iron Man is a drunken, womanizing asshole. Robert Downey Jr was is brilliant because he's still likeable. Sure, he's rich, but his life is a mess. You can look down on him. He's a fun guy, you want him to make it, but he's still kind of a scumbag. Christopher Nolan's Batman is the opposite. Sure, he's rich, but he's facing some big demons. There's a note of sadness, because in spite of his advantages, he faces some terrible challenges. You feel for the guy, because he suffers so much. Marvel is relatable, at least i'm handling my life better than that guy. DC is aspirational, i wish i was strong enough to handle what they handle. This is a sweeping generalization, but i think it's generally true.
I've seen most of the movies the author called out, and i enjoyed them. I can't say i enjoyed them enough to see in a theater, but they're fun. I think of them as Saturday afternoon matinee movies. I like movies. I don't mind flaws, but those popcorn movies are something i'll wait to watch on a Tuesday night with a couple of beers.
I think warner's big problem is they're spending 100+ million dollars to produce something that's in the 20-60 million range. I'll watch them, independent of production value, because i like movies. But i'm going to get the $2.99 SD itunes version, i'm not going to spend the 12 bucks to see that in the theater. (i did see suicide squad opening night, but the ticket was free)
I hope they figure it out. WB made some great stuff, and some fun stuff. They're just not quite calibrated right. If you're going to blow 100M+ on a movie, you really need the details right. Calling back to Suicide squad, it was fun. I really enjoyed it, and i'd be happy to pay 3-5 dollars on a weeknight to watch it. If i had to pay $12 for the ticket, and another $10 for the popcorn and soda (how can you not get popcorn and soda?!? it completes the experience!) I'd be annoyed.
I feel like the DC movies are stepping in the right direction. I enjoyed Suicide Squad.