The New Yorker:

The year resounded with large, loud, and costly films—some of which were so poorly conceived they led me to wonder, why not get A.I. to write them?

By Anthony Lane

As yet, we cannot tell whether 2023 will be remembered for the movies that we saw or for the movies that were hobbled and hog-tied by industrial action. The strikes called by sag-aftra and the Writers Guild of America caused productions to be paused and release dates to be pushed back. If you missed Jeff Nichols’s new film, “The Bikeriders,” with Austin Butler and Tom Hardy, when it kicked off the Telluride Film Festival, at the end of August, but hoped to see it when it opened in early December, tough. Having been passed from one studio to another—20th Century Studios to Focus Features—like a difficult foster child, the movie will now be sent forth into the world next year. (It’s worth the wait.) Amid this gloom, there were sparks of cheering news; not all artistic endeavors fell afoul of the strikes. I can’t be the only person who cried for joy upon learning that “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” as MovieWeb reports, “was able to continue filming without actors present.” The Union of Working Hedgehogs has declined to comment.

Of the many grievances that were voiced by striking actors and writers, the most notable—and the one that linked them most closely to practitioners in other trades—was a dread of artificial intelligence. Whether you’re a star or a background extra, it’s alarming (and vaguely insulting) to realize that your likeness, and your voice, could be cut and pasted from one movie to the next. In which case, will you even need to show up on set? Will you be paid for the pasting? And, should you be so clumsy as to die, will that not simply mean less paperwork for the studios, as they carry on copying you forever, and maybe for free? Ghosts get lousy residuals.

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