Comment by AIPedant | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AIPedant | Hacker News Reader

> Take the moment where the Cowardly Lion first pounces on his soon-to-be companions. The camera pans back and forth between the Scarecrow and Tin Man, with cuts to Dorothy hiding behind a tree in the distance. The experience at Sphere called for keeping all these elements together, in hyper-realistic detail.

This sounds awful, as if Google thinks direction and editing are technological limitations rather than artistic choices. This entire project seems fit for a culture that loves content and hates art. If these tasteless jokers ever do this to Stalker I will probably riot. (“Carefully composed shots is for anachronistic dweebs, our society demands an Experience Like No Other.”)

> Every change, Hays notes, was made in close collaboration with Warner Bros., to ensure continuity with the spirit of the original.

Considering Warner Bros. Discovery’s track record is 3 years of selling out their own directors and writers, I would be more confident if Google were left to their own devices! DeepMind likely has more respect for the film than Warner Bros. management.

> in hyper-realistic detail

Last time I heard this kind of talk, they butchered Lion King with the CGI remake. Getting similar vibes here.

Or when DVDs introduced that feature where you could switch camera angles. Well, turns out you don't want to do that because selecting the angle is part of the storytelling. So the feature basically died.

The "bottleneck" for movies is not so much the realism. There are strongly diminishing returns going from filmstrips* to movies to color films to HD to 4K to 3D, at each step you gain less and less. The core is still the story, the characters, the worldbuilding etc.

We see the same thing with video games. Until sometime in the 2000s, we would always ask about a new game "how is the graphics?", and we'd marvel at the new graphics capabilities. This is not really that big of a thing any more. Going from GTA 3 to 4 to 5 didn't increase the fun in proportion to the graphics quality. I mean, just look at the popularity of minecraft.

The real problem is that the entertainment industry is bankrupt creativity-wise. They have no idea how to make really new stuff. Everything is a remake. Note that they aren't introducing this new medium with a new story, they are refurbishing an old movie.

*filmstrips used to be kinda like a slideshow where you'd insert film into a projector and manually twist a knob to go to the next one, each slide showing a still frame and some text, telling a story. Fun times as a kid, not sure if it was as big in places other than the Eastern Bloc countries. Like here https://kultura.hu/uploads/media/default/0003/04/thumb_20396...

> The real problem is that the entertainment industry is bankrupt creativity-wise. They have no idea how to make really new stuff.

It's about financial risk calculation. They aren't willing to take a bath on a flop. They're doing these things because it's financially less risky.

> There are strongly diminishing returns going from filmstrips* to movies to color films to HD to 4K to 3D, at each step you gain less and less.

I agree. For cinematic content viewed in a theater or in a living room couch context, going from analog SD to digital HD was huge. Going from HD (2K) to 4K can be good but the quality is mostly from more bits being devoted to the compression than from the extra pixels. Most theatrical digital presentation is in DCP format and still 2k and people think it looks great.

Other video engineering things most people don't know:

* Well done HDR10 (or Dolbyvision) can contribute hugely to image quality. For example, I'd choose a 2K movie in HDR10 every time over the same movie in 4K without HDR.

* Theatrical 3D presentation is generally pretty bad and should be avoided if you care about visual quality. It's often around half the brightness and half the resolution and yet costs more. Even if done ideally, the end effect doesn't deliver anything like how your eyes actually see a real environment. The details get technical but theatrical 3D projection is an unnatural artificially constructed effect that's just weird. People claiming "It looked just like reality!" just shows the power of the placebo effect and suggestion, because objectively measured, it's just not. Famous directors don't usually come out against theatrical 3D the way they do against some other things. The reason is 3D is a pricey up sell that's mostly all margin, so it generates serious money but, privately, they despise 3D from both a quality and aesthetic viewpoint.

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I didn’t say they shouldn’t be allowed to do it, and the only thing I said about “the theater experience” was sneering at the idea. I am talking about the film itself, and saying that these edits to the film are tasteless trash. Claiming I’m “clutching at pearls” is a bad faith insult - my point is this shit fucking sucks!

David Lynch used ML to remaster Inland Empire, which was shot on a digital camcorder and was simply too dark and blurry. This was an excellent use of the technology. Blowing up The Wizard of Oz for the sake of tech bros and tourists is a terrible use of the technology.

> as if Google thinks direction and editing are technological limitations

“Google” isn’t making the artistic decisions here - there’s a full production staff from the studio doing that. Google is making what they ask for.

>I am … saying that these edits to the film are tasteless trash

Making such a claim with zero knowledge or experience is a pretty bold move - how are you so confident here?

While I didn’t get to see the private preview shown at the sphere this week, I’ve spoken to about a dozen people who did and they were all very positive about it.

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