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PaperclipPerfector  13hr ago (text post)   347 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 28, 2025

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Posting less as a question and mostly for self-accountability.

I made a prediction that we might see a feature length film produced by a small team using AI by the end of this year.

Well, the year has ended and I can't find any such releases that have been made publicly available. So comfortable saying my specific call is a bust.

But.

In the 11th hour, one of the creators (Gossip Goblin) I've been tracking since like July published something that at least validates my logic.

Woodnuts

If it were 80 minutes instead of 10, I'd argue it adequately fulfills prediction. Instead, I'll just argue that it proves my point that in principle a small team could have built out a feature film, insofar as its just a matter of repeating the efforts that produced the original 10 minutes to add to the length.

It avoids the standard AI 'tells.' The character's appearances are consistent throughout. There's no weird physics or physical deformities (that aren't intentional), the SFX quality is arguably a step above modern CGI in many cases (Avatar movies notwithstanding). There are some truly impressive cinematic shots in there.

Now the main hints are the short length of the individual shots, the lack of 'action' scenes to speak of, the general surreality of the environment, and the fact that they relied on narration rather than characters actually speaking dialogue. Don't think that dialogue isn't mostly solved, though.

The previous top contender was Kira (still extremely impressive on its own).

So I'm still betting on us seeing that first feature-lengther in fairly short order. And not TOO far after that, the ability to produce feature-length films from a single, fairly-detailed prompt.

Anyone else have a guess as to when such a film drops? (again, I don't say it has to be released on streaming or broadly viewed, just that it has to exist and be released in a publicly-reachable way)

Bonus Question:

When will we see an existing movie completely reworked via AI? Or perhaps just a couple of characters recast.

P.S. My other longer term prediction about AI replacing newly minted lawyers is still in play, and I did get some validation on that one.

I've been spending a lot of time with my father recently. Because of the cancer, he's not as energetic as he was, and he's watching football as a comfort and a way to pass the time.

I've noticed that a surprising amount of the advertising is using AI animation. I'm not exactly an anti-AI, "it's killing art" type, but there's something about it that's absolutely revolting when I see it in action. It's like everything is a worm-ridden mass of semi-biological matter that writhes and wriggles across every single frame. It's an aesthetic that would be more fitting in a particularly unpleasant horror short than a commercial trying to sell me Coca-Cola.

The crazy thing to me is that nobody else in the room even seems to notice it. Maybe I'm just some kind of freak, but it occurred to me when you said this:

The character's appearances are consistent throughout. There's no weird physics or physical deformities

Is that actually true, or is it just that you aren't bothered by it?

I've noticed that a surprising amount of the advertising is using AI animation. I'm not exactly an anti-AI, "it's killing art" type, but there's something about it that's absolutely revolting when I see it in action. It's like everything is a worm-ridden mass of semi-biological matter that writhes and wriggles across every single frame. It's an aesthetic that would be more fitting in a particularly unpleasant horror short than a commercial trying to sell me Coca-Cola.

I want you to ask yourself the difficult question:

Are you only picking those ones out because they were noticeable and thus you peg them as AI.

And is it possible you've been watching other ads with AI that simply didn't trigger that response, and thus you haven't registered them.

I don't really consume a lot of ads in my daily life, so it's hard to tell. I don't really watch much TV, and my computer is pretty locked down with both ad blockers and a pi hole

All of the ads I've been seeing are gross and off-putting, but the few that are clearly AI are especially bad.

Hahah fair enough. I'm similarly locked down and I usually only see actual ads when I'm at a restaurant these days.

But I know I've been momentarily fooled by some videos I come across online... which leads me to worry about whether I've been completely fooled already.

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