Instagram has been suggesting accounts that post AI “upscaled” 4k video of old tokusatsu. No one can argue against the picture clarity, but by way of machine only means no one can argue this doesn’t look like a fake image. I had seen stills from that now infamous re-release of True Lies, but my god is it horrifying even in toku form. Its much stranger in motion, and dispiriting in the comments.
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Work in a set lighting warehouse. ADHD man. All about B movies, media crit, and the odd video game. Active on Letterboxd
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in reply to @DeathBecomesDavid's post:
I guess I really don't understand the appeal of doing this sort of thing. To me anyway, part of the fun of being into media from past decades is seeing what that media actually looked like. I want to see the grains on the old film stock and so forth. What's the appeal of trying to filter literally every fucking thing so it looks vaguely the same?
The best I got is for many access to these shows and movies were thru grainy bootlegs and these AI travesties fool folks into believing “this is how it really looked”. Because a lot of old media simply wasn’t readily available, there’s a feeling of missing out due to stupid IP holders and piracy stigma. Its wild to think we can see Ed Wood movies in HD today.
Like, I remember an old video of Rob Zombie in the early 2000s showing off his VHS collection and bemoaning how he feels compelled to buy everything all over again on DVD. Little reason to hope physical media dealers won’t jump on the bandwagon in the hops they can resell their libraries again.
ugh, that's a good point. refiltering everything can always be construed as "adding value" and I feel like there's always bound to be a certain fraction of people who will always fall for the sales pitch and feel like they're getting something fresh and new (and yet familiar)
The small audience of physical media buyers have a hard time saying no to boutique labels in particular. If those outfits get into this there will be money to be made.