Warfare has existed as long as re-enactors have. The Ancient Romans staged naval battles in flooded amphitheaters; in the late 19th century, survivors of the Battle of the Little Bighorn recreated their own defeat. To this day, history enthusiasts around the world gather in communities to reenact skirmishes.
All these re-enactments share a common thread: people—typically experts or passionate fans—stepping into the shoes of those who came before. Yet for the 250th anniversary of 1776, America’s founding year, acclaimed director Darren Aronofsky is crafting a soulless, AI-generated recreation of the year that sounds lackluster, looks worse, and can’t even get basic facts right.
Primordial Soup, Aronofsky’s AI studio, recently announced “a series of short videos posted to Time’s YouTube channel that will recount the story of Revolutionary events 250 years to the day after they occurred. On the surface, this seems like a solid idea. A even did the same for WWI during the conflict’s centennial from 2014 to 2018. The series’ downfall lies in its method: none of the figures in these clips are real—they’re all AI-generated.
Even if you weren’t aware of the series’ creation method, it quickly becomes apparent. AI cinematic technology is still in its early stages, making it hard to produce clips longer than about 10 seconds or with any meaningful action. The result is a tedious montage of static scenes with soft pans or zooms, often limited to close-ups of a single person. Constant labels clarify who each figure is, because if tracking historical white men was tough before, these fake white men are nearly identical. In one of the more absurd moments, King George is shown snatching a paper from his aide’s hand, but due to AI tech limitations, the scene is pieced together with jump cuts like .
The series claims not everything is AI-generated, as real SAG member actors provide voices (though no credits are visible). But even if Meryl Streep were narrating, AI can’t generate a compelling actor. Since these images are created via prompts, there’s no subtlety. Faces display worry, anger, pride, or happiness with no variation, and wrinkles appear and vanish in the same shot, like instant Botox.
But at least AI generation ensures more historically accurate depictions, right? Wrong! In one clip, George Washington exits a house with what appear to be modern door hinges and vinyl siding. In another, a copy of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense warps the word “America” into something resembling “Aamerledd.”
Even the human-created element—the dialogue—has inaccuracies. In the January 1, 1776, episode, George Washington is shown telling his men, “It is not in the pages of history, perhaps, to furnish a case like ours. To maintain a post within musket shot of the enemy for six months, and at the same time, to disband one army and recruit another.” But Washington (as far as records show) never said this to his troops—he wrote it in , and even then, it wasn’t January 1—it was January 4.
Later, he states, “We are now the troops of the United Colonies of North America!” Yet the video itself contradicts this, as closed captions read “United Provinces of North America.” The captions are more accurate: that quote dates from July 4, 1775.
So if this series looks terrible and lacks historical accuracy, what’s the point? Likely the Salesforce sponsorship. For a truly compelling depiction of America’s founding, turn to Ken Burns’ recent PBS docuseries , which features voice actors like Tom Hanks and Morgan Freeman reading verbatim historical quotes, with input from real, living historians.
I don’t claim to know what the Founding Fathers fought for, but what they built cost real human lives. They deserve to be depicted accurately by real humans, at minimum—but that’s apparently too much to expect from this series.