Pixar Animation Studios is suddenly trending across social media as fans realize they can utilize simple AI tools to turn their own pets into the kind of Disneyfied CGI animals one sees in movies.
Pixar first kicked off things with the titanic success of Toy Story (1995), the first-ever fully computer-animated film, launching a huge multimedia franchise that covers everything from movies to shows to weird Disney+ spinoffs that nobody can quite make heads or tails of.
The studio’s Golden Age lasted through genre-defining, critically adored films like Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), and Inside Out (2015), but in recent years, things have slowed down for Pixar.
At this point, even Pixar chief and frequent director Pete Docter has admitted that releases like Luca (2021), Turning Red (2021), and the aforementioned Lightyear (2022) are not hitting audiences the way they used to. Clearly, the Disney-owned production company needs some fresh blood.
Related: Pixar Overhauls Future Projects, New Films in Doubt
Frankly, the studio could do a whole lot worse than take a look at what its fans are doing online by utilizing AI tools to turn images of their family pets into adorable Pixar movie posters.
The trend seems to have started when Instagram user that.dood.knox shared a picture of their Goldendoodle as a Pixar movie poster. Naturally, the rest of the Internet quickly caught on and started imitating them with any number of very cute dogs and cats (though not a lot of fish or lizards as of yet).
For example, Twitter user @ServerHaven AI-generated a movie poster for an as-of-yet unrealized movie titled Boris the Brussel. Their caption reads “The Pixar AI pet poster trend is cuteness overload
The Pixar AI pet poster trend is cuteness overload https://t.co/F6JvIlCVuI pic.twitter.com/CYUWyNxhCI
— Server Haven (@ServerHaven) October 29, 2023
@emiquinzel created a movie about (apparently) one grumpy cat and one happy one, saying, “Essas trend dos nossos pets em um filma da Pixar é a melhor 💓💓💓”
Essas trend dos nossos pets em um filma da Pixar é a melhor 💓💓💓 pic.twitter.com/p6Coonhc0M
— girl sem power (@emiquinzel) October 26, 2023
@excelenciaSTE actually showed off a small image of the actual cat along with the cartoon version, saying, “vai ter chuva de pixar dos pets sim”
vai ter chuva de pixar dos pets sim pic.twitter.com/q6C2t5mm8s
— Juíza do STE 👩🏻⚖️ (@excelenciaSTE) October 29, 2023
This faux-Pixar movie art seems to be the creation of Bing Image Creator, Microsoft’s newly launched AI tool. Microsoft partnered with OpenAI and its DALL E-3 system to create remarkable images through even a single prompt though the results might not always be what users expect.
Related: How Artificial Intelligence May Save Disney
But all adorableness aside, Hollywood is currently at a standstill in large part because writers and performers are concerned about AI art and studio desire to cut out pesky human needs like “pay” and “residuals.” AI art like this can be very amusing but does raise a lot of concerns about legality and authorship that have yet to be answered.
And then there’s the very real possibility of people using Bing Image Creator and similar AI tools to create bizarre, offensive images like…well, like these ones of Mickey Mouse.
Could your pet be a Pixar star? Are you concerned about AI in Hollywood? Tell us your opinions in the comments below!