Hideo Kojima and filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn have teamed up again after Death Stranding 2, but they aren’t working on a new game or movie. Instead, they’ve released a short made with the help of AI tools for Prada.
The “teaser film” – which you can (partially) watch here – was revealed this week at the 79th Cannes Film Festival by Prada. It’s meant to promote an upcoming mode event in New York next month even if the setting and vibes are purely sci-fi and retro-inspired. The full thing runs for six minutes and shows Refn and Kojima themselves travelling through space and crashing on a hostile planet, but the teaser released online is much shorter.
Though the creative process hasn’t been fully explained, this “artistic experiment” was “a playful exploration of new creative possibilities through AI technology” because getting two people in a couple of old-fashioned sets was probably too expensive for Prada. At some point in the video, Kojima subtly morphs into a guy that’s clearly not him.
In any case, Refn sounds quite proud about the duo’s Satellites II short, calling it “a space odyssey following us as we traverse a sci-fi dreamscape”. At the time of writing, it’s unclear what Kojima has to say about the endeavour, but Refn has also added they “have shared the feeling that we were somehow split from the same consciousness moving through different lives while orbiting the same obsessions”, which forced me to do a double take.
Unsurprisingly, the online reactions are mostly negative: “All right then, Mr. Kojima, have fun in the festering slop pit with the rest of the AI weirdos,” a ResetEra user commented. “First Kojima shot is 50 percent Kojima, 50 percent Pedro Pascal,” another post pointed out. Even the folks over at X are feeling bad about this: “Heartbreaking to see such great artists resort to generative AI slop.”
