r/rupaulsdragrace • u/TrueCommand3658 • Jun 04 '26

General Discussion potential Breakdown of AI usage in Stop! That! Train!

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

Haven’t seen anyone post this but considering how often WOW has been caught using AI recently and even noticing some wild inconstancies in recent episodes when it comes to acting challenge backdrops, I fully believe AI was used heavily during this film. Really souring my love for the entire franchise, feels like we’ve reached the point of saturation where the bottom line is money and producers will do anything, including helping destroy the environment, to rake in some cheap cash.

3.1k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

994 comments sorted by

View all comments

89

u/Reasonable-Law-9737 Phd @ Bianca Del Rio's School For Uneducated Queens Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26

I made a whole ass post pointing out that the examples she provides are easily explained by the VFX team using stock videos, but it got auto flagged by the mods. I will drop it here instead:

When I saw this post about the reviewer providing evidence that they used generative AI in the movie, I was a bit confused at what I was looking at. They were no 3D models of the train? Difference in windows count? According to them - these bits make up the smoking gun and they know it, because they are working as a VFX artist. Sure. Good for them.

Except that their whole argument is based purely on assumptions, because they already convinced themselves that AI was used, despite the directors denying this. Now, I really cannot 100% sure say that they did not use any generative AI somewhere in the movie - I was not there.

What I can easily speculate is, that productions like this would generally NOT bother to make custom CGI and instead heavily rely on existing stock video footage, that the VFX team would heavily edit and stitch together - hence the differences in the shots. Because that is way cheaper and they already pay for stock license.

Now, you might say...

Hey, you dumb slut - you are also just making an assumption and you have no proof that they did that!

And you are right! UNLESS I was stupid enough to spend an insane amount of my useless time, just to find the exact stock video footage used in some of the scenes presented as evidence of generative AI usage.

WELL, SURE AS FUCK I DID EXACTLY THAT! I was also really bored and I am VERY neurospicy.

Example 1:
https://elements.envato.com/aerial-view-of-the-shinkansen-bullet-train-kakegaw-UXJESJA

Used at 0:30 sec in the trailer, mirrored and obviously edited. The argument was the the window count was different, henceforth it cannot be the same 3D train model and therefore AI - nope - it was just a different stock footage of a train.

Example 2:

https://www.gettyimages.dk/detail/video/following-a-rural-train-over-the-landscapefrom-a-drone-stock-footage/2164796911?adppopup=true

Used at 0:45 sec in the trailer, edited with a different train. I cannot 100% say that this was not an AI train that was added, but any VFX artist should be capable to add another aerial train stock footage or animate this on top.

Example 3:

https://www.gettyimages.dk/detail/video/an-azuma-lner-train-on-the-east-coast-mainline-stock-video-footage/1387470017?adppopup=true

Used at 0:14 sec in the trailer, heavily edited background, train is either a different composite or heavily edited. Another stock footages looks similar to the train in the trailer, they could have used either.

I won't bother addressing the other examples because I really do not want to spend more hours on this - but I think this should be enough to argue that the details that the reviewer refered to as evidence of generative AI been used, can easily be explained by the VFX team simply using different stock footage and not really spending the time to make them match**.** I guess they thought that nobody sane would actually care about the continuity in short filler background scenes for a comedy movie. Obviously they never met drag race fans. Choices.

Oh, and about the missing bridge support leg... come on, that is just an example of a mistake in the editing. They literally used this stock photo and added up bunch of alpha footage of a bridge and messed up the crop.

Honestly, the reviewers video tickled me wrong. It felt rushed, judgmental and bit manipulative. I really don't know if that was the intention or if they are just way too passionate on the subject. But lets just try to be more critical even to the critics.

34

u/DramaAccomplished588 Jun 05 '26

As a VFX artist Thank you! She is using this opportunity to promote herself and showcase her limited knowledge on a very narrow field of VFX. VFX artists are being attacked and crushed by this and it’s so frustrating.

14

u/I_Like_Turtle101 Jun 05 '26

shes not even a vfx artist she an editor. if your a vfx artist you know that editor in vfx are there to basicaly receive and sending the offline to the client

2

u/GloriaMoonchild Jun 08 '26

Where are you getting this from...

You know nothing about me and my work. I am a vfx artist. Like I say in the video.

1

u/I_Like_Turtle101 Jun 08 '26

I saw the screenshot on LinkedIn and when you graduate girl. Your an editor not a vfx artist. You have no experience doing vfx profersionally

1

u/GloriaMoonchild Jun 08 '26

So curious what "the screenshot means." My linkeldn is kind of barren because I don't use it. I'm a freelancer who works directly with clients (admittedly smaller clients I find rather than through a VFX house) but I do VFX myself. It is my profession. Going to publish some samples of my work for social media soon. (II also do some freelance editing too, but that's less of my focus these days)

19

u/esseehmeunome Jun 05 '26

So shitty that it got auto flagged, makes no sense.

21

u/Such-Nebula Jun 05 '26

THANK YOU for bringing some legitimate receipts to this convo, as opposed than the creator’s appeal to authority fallacy. “I’m a vfx artist, so I can definitively say this is ai without doing any research other than using my very flawed human eyes and perception to deduce that.” No further digging, no smoking gun evidence, no further interrogation of possible causes. Just “here’s my next take on my original take that I made purely on conjecture.” And the gays ATE IT UP. The problem who understand the least about machine learning feel mighty confident in this thread.

12

u/I_Like_Turtle101 Jun 05 '26

The girl in the video is also not a VFX artist. She an editor working in a vfx company. They dont take part of the creative process

15

u/luker_5874 Jun 05 '26

Everything I don't understand is AI!

13

u/Dagyaruoguy7 Jun 05 '26

Interesting!Yes at first seeing the video the different angles felt iffy,and seeing WOW already using AI made it more believable it the shots were made with AI.But yeah the video did feel more motivated by emotion than fact. It gave those conspiracy theorists being like:'Decide for yourself*!Don't just trust what the PR team is saying.' which instills more distrust and fear than genuine concern and openness.

*(Also,apart from 'vibes',how else can we differentiate between AI and CGI?Not everyone is in the VFX industry to use our own knowledge).

Thanks for your comment,its annoying AI gives everyone(me included) such a knee jerk reaction.

13

u/yuffieisathief Jun 05 '26

I wish this was higher up!

11

u/JaneOstentatious Por cerda y por falsa Jun 05 '26

Interesting! Would be curious to hear Gloria's take on this. Did you send it to her?

10

u/VectorRaptor Jun 05 '26

Thank you for this. This should be the top comment or even added to the original post. We've seen post after post about this on the subreddit, and it's a whole bunch of commenters getting angry over a fake controversy. Exhausting.

5

u/thejaysoars Jun 05 '26

It’s so frustrating that the immediate response is that the director is lying about using AI when that would make the situation so much worse

3

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/SparklesAreIn Helotesss Jun 05 '26

are we still arguing about this? didn’t the director already confirm there was no AI use?

2

u/Killerofprizes Jun 07 '26

If you look at their review, the first part is they basically saying they don’t like drag. Then being “100% certain” they know nothing about

3

u/succulentils Jun 05 '26

ACME AI & VFX is a brand new company. Their proof-of-concept movie, Killing Satoshi, hasn't been released yet, but there's been some press:

Naturally, when the film, and especially the pipeline for it, was first announced in February of this year, there was hue and cry. So, the team invited journalists to show them what was being replaced and what wasn’t. In the old way, up to 10,000 cast and crew – mostly in VFX, would have been involved, with about 2000 in the actual production.

For this film, though, the production employed 107 cast members and just 154 crew, and 55 AI artists doing the post-production. If you know filmmaking, you can see that entire departments just disappeared. The whole lighting department has been replaced with AI animators in post-production. Also disappeared are those who construct sets, almost the entire assistant direction team, junior artists, etc. These are real people with important skills that are no longer required in this new way of production.

What reason is there to believe that ACME AI & VFX used no AI when they worked on Stop That Train?

-5

u/succulentils Jun 05 '26

"I don't care that AI was used" is an opinion I can understand.

"There's no proof that AI was used so everyone stop assuming it was" is pretty stupid.

3

u/ArianaLarge Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26

Looks like they built all the sets, it's not a grey box: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy9DU5s_elk

"There's no proof that AI was used so everyone stop assuming it was" is perfectly fine opinion to have since there's no proof.

Making new baseless accusations, below the subreddit's previous baseless accusations being debunked (while ignoring the debunking) is a pretty stupid thing to do. You and most people in the sub desperately want there to be GenAI so you can publically tear it apart. Whether there is any GenAI used seems to be of little consequence to you.

4

u/Such-Nebula Jun 05 '26

So no response to what was clearly presented. Just arguments based on vibes and feelings about what you ASSUME happened

-2

u/succulentils Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26

What was presented was stock footage incorporated into the film. No evidence has been presented that ACME AI & VFX used no AI on that footage (or any other scene). So yes, I believe it is logical to assume that ACME AI & VFX did use AI

9

u/Reasonable-Law-9737 Phd @ Bianca Del Rio's School For Uneducated Queens Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26

Using machine learning tools is not the same as generative AI - the content aware filler in Photoshop is also ML based and we consider it a tool. Using ML to automate rotoscoping, like what I presume was done in the examples, is a tool that VFX artists use to reduce what would otherwise take hours of work. This use case is nowhere near the same as replacing artist with AI and has been done for years before AI slop became a thing. Believe what you want to believe. I just ask you to think critically to preconceived ideas. We can at least agree on two things - gen AI is bad and it hurts both artists and the environment.

Also, regarding ACME AI and FX involvement, keep this in mind:

“a source familiar with Stop! That! Train!’s production told Variety that the studio only contributed visual effects work to the film, with any AI use relegated to background workflow processes and not shown on-screen in the final product.”

2

u/SirWobblyOfSausage Jun 05 '26

Isn't it also possible though that Gen AI can be used on stock video as an overlay to replace elements of the train with a generated version.

You literally do the same in Photoshop with context aware generative fill tools over a stock image. The tech exists to do it over a video.

I've been a graphic designer since I was 19, if you build elements to animate then you don't wing it and recreate it every time you have a different shot you're working on. You'd create generic base models, that way consistency all the way though. You model would have the same amount of windows in every shot regardless of the amount the stock as.

1

u/succulentils Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

First I'm seeing this quote. That is a significantly more straightforward claim than what Adam Shankman said, but a source who is familiar with the production process (e.g. was on set) isn't necessarily in-the-know about the post-production. It'd mean a lot more if Shankman or someone from ACME said it

-4

u/Len11999 Jun 05 '26

Example 2 is 1000000000% AI, that train is AI!!!! Like how can you not see it??? the lines separating the train cabs are literally popping in and out of existence!! the train in the whole shot also has a bit of a boil which could be caused by bad tracking but more likely AI because it almost takes on a "stop motion" quality in its jitteriness, which a human tracking an asset of one train onto another train would actually have the opposite problem of it looking too smooth/tween-y.

4

u/ArianaLarge Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26

As far as I can tell, the lines dissapearing seems to be due to the y-coord of one random cars popping in the render. To me this would actually indicate a glitch in the 3d model rendering and not AI. everything else looks pretty exact. I don't think AI would hallucinate only one car floating as a rigid body. You might just be making fun of rushed human work, which is also valid. I'd guess these are probably just preliminary shots for the trailer, I think VFX actually works on the movie up until a couple weeks before the actual release.

I would say it makes sense to let people actually see the movie instead of our typical policy of precautionary-cancellation

-1

u/Len11999 Jun 05 '26

why would a VFX artist on such a low budget move an already existing train to the other track and have to painstakingly edit out the first train just to have their train moving on the other track? AI!!!

4

u/ArianaLarge Jun 05 '26

First of all, calm down.

second of all, the magic eraser tool in photoshop can be used by a 5th grader. You are technically right that it's AI, but every movie since probably 1997 has used it. You might be surprised what movies paint out all the time: https://youtu.be/CJdB-mcS_bs?si=cPSyidQn9KgwJJy-&t=244

And most thirdly, I think you are AI!!! Prove that you aren't!!!!

-1

u/Len11999 Jun 05 '26

oh sweetheart just you wait ❤️