The teaser trailer for "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" has earned nearly universal praise, but the same can't be said about the film's new posters...and you can probably guess why
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00:00The teaser trailer for the Fantastic Four first steps has earned nearly universal praise,
00:05but the same can't be said about the film's new posters.
00:07Four images released on the upcoming Marvel movies' social media pages attracted criticism
00:12for noteworthy visual errors and speculation about the usage of generative AI in their
00:17production.
00:18A studio spokesperson claimed to The Hollywood Reporter that AI was not used for these posters,
00:22but many remain unconvinced.
00:24One common strategy to identify if an image is AI-generated or not involves counting the
00:29fingers on people's hands, as image generators are notoriously bad at recreating them accurately.
00:34Someone having extra or missing fingers is a major red flag for AI, and sure enough,
00:38a hand waving a flag in support of the Fantastic Four on one of the posters has only three
00:43fingers and a thumb.
00:44In that same poster, one glasses-wearing woman appears multiple times, although that's more
00:49likely to be the result of a Photoshop artist cutting corners than an AI duplicating a face.
00:54Other odd details, like a nonsensical sign that reads,
00:57"'WE FOR YOU'", and an off-model tiny head on a thing toy, have also raised alarm bells
01:02about something being just a bit off.
01:04"...the best pilot in the world right here."
01:06"...yeah.
01:07Best looking, he means."
01:09If one was to take the Marvel representative at their word, the number of fingers could
01:13be just another photo-editing mistake.
01:15However, The Hollywood Reporter piece doesn't include the reps' exact wording, and sometimes
01:20specific language is everything in knowing if or how AI has been used.
01:24Look at the controversy over The Brutalist, which allegedly used AI to generate some architectural
01:29images and enhance Adrian Brody's Hungarian speech.
01:32Different sources involved in the production have described the process in different ways.
01:36There's also the possibility that AI-generated elements made it into the posters without
01:40the studio knowing.
01:41Adobe has been adding AI features to traditional editing software like Photoshop, so some combination
01:46of photography, human artistry, and AI generation could easily result in images like these.
01:52If you keep up to date with all things Marvel Studios, then you'll know that this is not
01:56the first time the Hollywood powerhouse has been caught up in an AI controversy.
02:00The studio used AI animation for the highly divisive title sequence of Secret Invasion,
02:04which didn't go down well with a lot of fans.
02:07Method Studios, a visual effects company behind the intro, was quick to point out to The Hollywood
02:11Reporter,
02:12"...no artist jobs were replaced by incorporating these new tools."
02:15Secret Invasion director and executive producer Ali Saleem claimed that they went down the
02:20AI route simply because it fit with the themes of the show.
02:22He told Polygon,
02:23"...when we reached out to the AI vendors, that was part of it.
02:26It just came right out of the shape-shifting, Skrull world identity, you know?
02:30Who did this?
02:31Who is this?"
02:32He continued,
02:33"...we would talk to them about ideas and themes and words, and then the computer would go
02:36off and do something, and then we could change it a little bit by using words, and it would
02:40change."
02:41Nobody from Marvel spoke out when fans identified probable use of an AI-generated stock image
02:46in a poster for Loki season 2.
02:48Some believe that the poster for Thunderbolts also used AI, citing what appears to be an
02:52extra finger on Lewis Pullman's character Bob.
02:54The latter might just be an optical illusion because of how the image was cropped, but
02:58the four-fingered hand on the First Steps poster is nowhere near the edge.
03:02Whether or not the posters for the new Fantastic Four were made with AI, it's clear that they
03:05took aesthetic inspiration from the artwork of Alex Ross.
03:08Ross has celebrated for his realistic gouache paintings of classic superheroes, with some
03:13of his most famous comics being the 1994 Marvel Comics miniseries Marvels and the 1996 DC
03:20miniseries Kingdom Come.
03:22More recently, Ross was a writer and illustrator of the 2022 graphic novel Fantastic Four Full
03:27Circle.
03:28If the First Steps posters were indeed generated with AI, as people believe, it's likely that
03:32Alex Ross was one of the prompts used for its creation.
03:35The Ross connection might even go further than just a visual style, as some fans are
03:39speculating that one of the photographers in the crowd poster is Philip Sheldon from
03:43Marvels.
03:44Whether or not it turns out these posters used AI, one thing the fans criticizing their
03:47McCreon is that an actual Alex Ross-painted poster would've looked much better than homages
03:52of questionable quality.
03:53TV editor Jonathan Kramer said what many people were thinking when he posted on Blue Sky.
03:58Alex Ross is out there doing some of his best work in years on Fantastic Four covers, and
04:02they churn out this boring-ass AI s**t so that five levels of lazy creative directors
04:07and VPs can note it to f**king death.
04:09Despite the controversy, the Fantastic Four First Steps is still set to launch on July
04:1325th, 2025.
04:15Hopefully the only AI included in the movie itself is the lovable robot, Herbie.
04:19Okay, okay, is this guy good or what?