TCL’s new AI short films range from bad comedy to existential horror

A screenshot from TCL’s The Audition — *A screenshot from TCL’s* The Audition. | Screenshot: TCLtv Plus

Earlier this year, TCL released a trailer for Next Stop Paris — an AI-animated short film that seems like a Lifetime movie on steroids. The trailer had all the hallmarks of AI: characters that don’t move their mouths when they talk, lifeless expressions, and weird animation that makes it look like scenes are constantly vibrating.

I thought this might be the extent of TCL’s experimentation with AI films, given the healthy dose of criticism it received online. But boy, was I wrong. TCL debuted five new AI-generated short films that are also destined for its TCLtv Plus free streaming platform, and after the Next Stop Paris debacle, I just had to see what else it cooked up.

Though the new films do look a little better than Next Stop Paris, they serve as yet another reminder that AI-generated videos aren’t quite there yet, something we’ve seen with many of the video generation tools cropping up, like OpenAI’s Sora. But in TCL’s case, it’s not just the AI that makes these films bad.

Here are all five of them, ranked from tolerable (5) to “I wish I could unsee this” (1).

5. Sun Day

This futuristic short film basically has the same concept as Ray Bradbury’s short story “All Summer in...

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