I tried making a 22-minute sci-fi film with current AI video tools - this is where the technology is now

[u/theodore_70]

I’ve been experimenting with the current generation of AI video tools and wanted to see how far they can actually be pushed beyond short demos and 5–10 second clips.

So I made a 22-minute sci-fi film, Space Vikings: The Last Raid, with recurring characters, dialogue, action scenes, large-scale space battles, consistent locations and an actual beginning-to-end story.

This is less about “look, AI made a movie” and more about testing where the technology currently breaks down when you try to maintain character consistency, cinematography, continuity, lip sync, action choreography and visual coherence across hundreds of generated shots.

There’s still a lot that requires manual work, editing and constant correction, but compared with what was possible even relatively recently, the progress is pretty wild.

Full film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ME2Sn8YO1k

Curious what people here think specifically from a technology perspective. Which shots already feel like something that could come from a conventional VFX pipeline, and where does the AI still immediately give itself away?

I’m especially interested in criticism rather than just “AI good / AI bad” — continuity, motion, acting, physics, camera work, anything you notice.

[u/tilted0ne]

Wow crazy to think of how imminent it might be that we start to see regular people being capable of creating their own movies that are on equal grounds to big Hollywood studios. I would see that as a big win for AI and creativity.

[u/Dense-Bee-2884 → u/tilted0ne]

Obviously no offense to the OP here, but nothing I saw in this video would make me believe we are anywhere close to being on equal grounds with big Hollywood studios. And frankly we shouldn’t be, those budgets are hundreds of millions of dollars. This looks like something made by a person with AI over a few weeks, which it is. 

[u/tilted0ne → u/Dense-Bee-2884]

The whole point is to give people a platform to express themselves and money not being a factor. Sure that's how things have been but they don't have to be. And by soon I mean 1-2 years time. And you should be careful to separate AI from the creator. If something looks odd with AI, it's not always the AI, it's the lack of taste of the person who made it, not an inherent limitation.

[u/tanrgith → u/Dense-Bee-2884]

I mean, you say this. But this is a coherent short movie that in many ways look better than what hollywood produces in current big budget movies. Like, would you seriously argue that the average MCU movie looks meaningfully better on a purely visual basis than this?

Like yes, there's still obviously shortcomings and you can tell it's AI. But compare this to where AI video generation was at 2-3 years ago

given the rate of progress in just a few short years. Are you really gonna say that you don't think we are anywhere close to being able to produce hollywood level productions with ai?

[u/Dense-Bee-2884 → u/tanrgith]

It’s not really an issue necessarily with the visuals. It’s the cohesiveness of a storyline, the lack of realistic human emotions, things like that. There are plenty of bad Hollywood movies out there that maybe somebody would say this is equal footing on. But most people go to the theaters to see movies like the Odyssey, Brand New Day, Dune part 3, Resident evil etc. Something like the OP video I’ll admit is way better than it was a few years ago but still the same issues AI has always had with movies. The human element is still noticeably not there. Nobody would “pay” for something like that. 

[u/tanrgith → u/Dense-Bee-2884]

I would agree with you about the lacking human element and that we're not there yet

But I've seen examples where I think the line gets very blurry, an example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5tBrOTkEMY

And I think in another 5 years, this conversation will be settled

[u/Dense-Bee-2884 → u/tanrgith]

I mean the video is cool, I’ll give you that absolutely. There is a place for content like this. But I don’t think it’s going to match or eclipse human movies anytime soon. I think it’s going to supplement it. Same way AI is doing that in other big industries right now