Antony Starr recently came out in support of Backrooms director Kane Parsons regarding AI. He admitted that recent movies have shown that audiences value real storytelling over big VFX-driven productions. These comments come shortly after Parsons expressed his disinterest in AI, claiming that such technology takes away the creative satisfaction.
Starr took to his Instagram Story to repost a post about Parsons’ comments on AI while penning his own thoughts on the matter. He wrote, “Yes, yes. It’s coming NMW bla bla. But recent movies have proven that people want human stories. Not big, ridiculous VFX-driven nonsense.” Hypothetically questioning further if anyone has ever been to AI premieres, he added, “The cast are horrible, and they hate their human fans.”
These remarks come after Parsons shared his take on artificial intelligence in conversation with The Australian. He revealed that he’s on the same page as other “well-adjusted” people and doesn’t want AI to strip the essence of real movies. He claimed that if he had the superpower to snap away generative AI, he would have happily made it disappear. “Creatively, I get no enjoyment from using those tools. It defeats the purpose entirely for me,” he elaborated.
While he’s against AI taking over creativity, he does see the positive side of using it. He thinks that the technology could make difficult and repetitive VFX tasks less time-consuming. However, he refused to view the positives objectively, as he believes, “There’s so much at stake and so many genuinely harmful consequences already happening.” However, Parsons wishes to explore AI as a theme in movies.
“To me, generative AI feels less like innovation than a symptom of a broader cultural and economic rot. I’m interested in using that iconography in art – not using AI to make the art itself, but examining what it represents. I definitely want to explore it further in future projects,” the filmmaker stated.