The controversial, AI-enhanced version of Victor Fleming's 1939 fantasy classic "The Wizard of Oz" finally premiered last night at the Sphere in Las Vegas, and early reactions indicate that this truncated presentation (it's been cut down from 102 minutes to 75 minutes) will be wildly divisive. And those who have been opposed to this seeming desecration of a beloved movie from the time it was announced have a new reason to curse its existence.
During his introduction for the premiere screening, Sphere
Entertainment Co. honcho James Dolan revealed that he'd taken the liberty of ordering the AI techs in his employ to replace two Munchkin faces with the vile visages of himself and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. This is nothing short of vandalism, and serves as a reminder that we simply cannot trust these contemptible billionaires to do right by the many treasures in their film and television libraries.
According to Dolan, the media execs only appear in the movie for two seconds. Visual FX supervisor Ben Grossman, clearly anticipating the F5 social media tornado this disclosure would whip up, hopped in to assure viewers that the faces in question were "uncredited characters who were too blurry to be identified," so no recognizable faces were actually replaced. Still, those bodies belong to two extras who might've been able to point out to their family and friends where they briefly turned up in "The Wizard of Oz," and now their presence in the film has been turned into an inside joke that few will get and those that do will find horribly unfunny.
Alas, according to some people who've seen the Sphere-iphied version of the movie, there are more atrocities tucked away in this 75-minute abomination.
Read more: The 10 Best Movies Of All Time, According To IMDb
Judy Garland's Face Is Also Mangled In The Sphere's Wizard Of Oz
While I haven't seen the Sphere version of "The Wizard of Oz," I object to it on moral grounds as a piece of propaganda for an environmentally ruinous technology that our planet simply cannot support. Generative AI is also a plagiarism machine, which, as a writer, disgusts me on every level.
Variety film critic Peter Debruge, who is as well-versed in cinema history as any of my colleagues, gave the presentation a fair shot, and his review isn't a full-on pan. He was knocked out by immersiveness of the experience (the tornado sequence sounds like it's the highlight), and got a kick out of the flying monkeys (which swirl around the sphere via drones), but it sounds like the AI process has bled the film of its humanity. Per Debruge:
"The actors' appearance and expressions are limited by the original footage, and the most troubling change to me was whatever strange AI technique was used to replace Judy Garland's face with a poreless plastic sheen (where film grain and delicate lighting gave her skin a certain softness before). Dorothy's once-glistening eyes now look almost cow-like, framed by fine CG eyelashes, while her makeup and freckles vary from shot to shot."
A screen legend like Judy Garland deserves so much better than this.
That AI is not an ethically viable tool when used to create art is a no-brainer to me, but it seems like most studio executives are dead set on using AI rampantly and, certainly in the case of "The Wizard of Oz," irresponsibly. I want to say Dolan and Zaslav are trolling here, but they're so clueless and arrogant that I can't be sure. Regardless, they deserve to be dragged to The Bad Place and back for this heinous mistreatment of a masterpiece that has been enchanting moviegoers of all ages for 86 years. What they've done is akin to drawing a mustache on the "Mona Lisa."
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