Nic Cage calls AI “inhumane,” but thinks The Flash was okay
"AI is a nightmare to me," Cage said. "It’s inhumane. You can’t get more inhumane than artificial intelligence. But I don’t think it [was] AI [in The Flash].
Aux News The Flash
Nic Cage is, of course, no stranger to having his image used, often stripped almost completely of context, to promote a film. There are many movies, indeed, that exist solely because Cage agreed to appear in them, and thus allowed the creators to put his beautifully brooding mug on their box art so it could glare at you from a streaming service’s big list of action-thrillers. In that light, it’s interesting to hear Cage talk about his recent sojourn in the world of blockbuster superhero cinema, when he appeared for a few moments in Andy Muschietti’s The Flash, in a late-movie reference to to his and Tim Burton’s abortive Superman Lives adaptation from the 1990s.
Cage has talked about the cameo before—joking a few months back that he was glad he “didn’t blink” and miss the appearance—but he’s talking about the movie again lately as he promotes his latest film, Dream Scenario. And also in light of comments that his old pal Burton made back in September, when the director notably did not drag Muschietti’s film—but still expressed some pretty clear unhappiness at seeing his old ideas and work be dropped into the industrial movie-making thresher. (“They can take what you did, Batman or whatever, and culturally misappropriate it, or whatever you want to call it,” Burton said in a recent interview, saying he was in “quiet revolt” against the studios.)
Cage is a bit more equanimous about the whole thing, noting that he doesn’t consider the work Muschietti did on the movie—de-aging him, and showing him fighting a giant spider when all Cage actually did on the set was basically stand there in the suit, “bearing witness [to] the end of a universe”—as AI, but just “CGI.” “I know Tim is upset about AI, as I am,” Cage told Yahoo! Entertainment. “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.” Cage is also quick to praise Muschietti, calling him a “terrific director,” while also noting his own dismay at the idea of AI being used on actors’ performances:
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.
25 Comments
I’m a strict materialist, but I believe that when Nic Cage chooses to leave this mortal coil, it will not be because he died, but because he chose to travel to another dimension.
Or he’s pulling a Hotblack, and spending a year dead for tax reasons.
Cage does buy a lot of star systems.
Flashpoint was just too large to be contained in one film like that anyway. I suppose, much like many Stephen King books. (Yet, differently as well.)
I mean obviously Nic Cage isn’t entirely against AI, as they used deepfakes to de-age him in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
(NSFW audio)
That’s a very different application of AI than the one Cage is obviously referring to. Underneath the deepfake in that movie is still a real performance that Cage actually gave on a real set. It’s basically just software doing the job of a very advanced makeup artist. I would not think of that in the same category as using AI to generate a new performance from a completely digital Cage-copy. That’s the thing actors (and recently and famously, screenwriters) are afraid of–that the human core of making movies will be entirely replaced, because it will be cheaper and easier to have AI do it, and most moviegoers won’t notice the difference.
It would be nice if people would be clearer about such distinctions. Demanding no AI at all is ridiculous and will never get artists what they want.
It might also help if we stopped using the term “AI” for something that isn’t really artificial intelligence. Generative text and image creation is impressive in its own soulless way, but it’s not AI, and neither is CGI-ing someone’s face younger.
It’s basically just software doing the job of a very advanced makeup artist.I don’t have any problem with digital de-aging, but you basically just described software taking away a job from a human worker.
Not true at all. For one thing, there is no makeup artist on Earth who can actually de-age someone to the extent done in that movie, or the various summer blockbusters that have pulled the same trick. It is the same sort of thing, but the technology is necessary because actual makeup can’t pull that off.And for another, it takes one or more technicians to actually do and fine -tune that kind of deepfake. The job has shifted from literal makeup to digital, but there is no net loss of employment. Your argument is akin to saying that CGI cost FX guys their jobs, which is literally true I suppose, but new jobs in front of computers were created at the same time. And the forward march of technology in the industry will always replace one kind of work with another. Unless and until you can just feed text prompts into an AI so advanced that it will spit out a movie for you.
I’m sorry if my tone seemed combative, but the way you phrased it – “software doing the job of a very advanced makeup artist” – does describe the fear artists are experiencing in the face of A.I. Like I said, I don’t have a problem with digital de-aging for the same reasons you just gave, and I agree with you about the distinction between the applications of A.I. that Nicolas Cage was referring to and things like de-aging. I also think it’s worth pointing out a few things (just for the sake of discussion, not to be argumentative): 1) When CGI was still in its infancy, many proponents of practical FX argued that CG would also replace the human core of visual effects. I do think that was the case for a lot of early-2000 films, which were often criticized for “over-using” CGI and feeling soulless as a result. But the solution was never to stop using CGI; it was to use it as a tool and learn its limitations. Frankly, I think we are headed that way with generative A.I. too. I don’t think it’s going to be able to spit out a completed movie anytime soon, but I think it will find a place as part of the post-production pipeline at some point.2) I agree with what you’re saying about there not being a net loss of employment, but I also recognize that that’s cold comfort to make-up artists who have devoted a significant amount of their life to honing their craft, and who may feel they don’t have the time or patience to retrain and learn an entirely new craft. Don’t get me wrong; there are still plenty of make-up artists, but it’s not hard to wonder how long before some producer calculates the cost of how much time it takes to apply prosthetics and other forms of make-up, and determines that it would be faster to paint dots on the actors and add everything in post, even for make-up effects that are already convincing without CG.3) Make-up artists are unionized; most VFX workers aren’t yet. Hopefully that changes soon, but that’s another factor that makes me worry that producers may someday replace make-up artists with VFX artists that don’t have the same protections.
You know you’ve had a charmed life when you think that AI is the most inhumane thing to exist.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hyperbole
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sarcasm
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hello_how_is_your_thursday_Joe?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lovely_a_bit_chilly_and_yourself?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/now_this_is_the_kind_of_friendly_banter_i’d_like_to_see_more_of_on_the_internet
This reminds me of a game I used to play called “Duelling Dictionaries”, where you take two dictionaries published by different companies, look up the same word in each one, and then decide who defined it better.I am a person of simple tastes.
It’s literally inhumane in that it is something that is produced not by humans
Wait… does he mean inhuman?
“HOW AM I NOT IN THIS MOVIE!? Oh wait, there I am.”
Burton hasn’t had an original idea in 30 years. His movies might as well be ai created. “Chatgpt, make me a movie in the style of tim Burton.” “Okay, here’s Johnny Depp a in a ‘funny’ wig, with neo gothic sets and ‘quirky’ costumes, also, don’t worry about character depth, plotting, or any sense of pacing or editing, just bombard the viewer nonstop with vaguely gothy imagery.”
That’s an early cut off. 30 years ago is 1993, which would edge our Ed Wood and Mars Attacks. It’s all deck after that though. Big Fish is fine though.
“They can take what you did, Batman or whatever, and culturally misappropriate it, or whatever you want to call it”
I want to call it Planet of the Apes, Willy Wonka, and Dark Shadows.
At no point does he say he thought The Flash was okay. He did say he likes the director and the two IT movies though.