Disney Working on Script Generating Droids to Pen Future Star Wars Films
Disney Research is on fire! Earlier this month they debuted rooms that can charge phones wirelessly just by standing in them, and they’ve followed that up with something even more amazing – and probably much safer – unless you’re a screenwriter!
The think tank has announced it has made great strides in automating script writing, one of the most expensive and time-consuming jobs in the world. A team of bots powered by an algorithm (based on the top 100 films according to American Film Institute, Rotten Tomatoes Fresh ratings and the IMDb messageboards) has managed to generate a series of Star Wars scripts under laboratory conditions.
“Their world building skills are amazing. We gave them a sequence of canon materials and once they tapped into their existing algorithm, the bots managed to create an entirely new cinematic universe in under 2 hours,” said an anonymous source who works at Disney Research.
While automation is nothing new, since self-driving cars and Facebook bots have become commonplace, this is the first time a task typically associated with creativity has been replicated by robots.
The implications are enormous for Hollywood, where hot scripts often result in bidding wars between studios. Why pay a hot screenwriter a few million and deal with his or her ego and social media jibber jabbering – hi, Max Landis! – when you can automate the entire process and generate a quality shooting script in a fraction of the time?
Disney financing such technology should come as no surprise. As owners of multiple cinematic universes, including Star Wars and Marvel films, the company has been looking to shorten production times for years, and automating the script-writing process will shed at least three to six months from projected timelines.
“This is going to revolutionize the industry similar to when CG was introduced. These droids can even crank out rewrites and address studio notes in real-time. Let that sink in,” said our Disney Research source.
This major development is likely to have the Writer’s Guild of America up in arms. Rumors of a strike will only grow once this technological breakthrough is more widely reported. As for the output of the beta robo-writing droids? Apparently they penned an entire season’s worth of Knights of the Old Republic television series scripts that thoroughly impressed the notoriously difficult to please Lucasfilm Story Group.
According to our source, however, we’re unlikely to experience scripts written by droids for at least two to three years. Perhaps the rumored young Ben Kenobi spin-off? Time will tell. In the meantime, it’s been a helluva ride, Lawrence Kasdan!
Keep it locked to FaingStarWars.net for the latest on this and all other Star Wars news worth faking. We swear we are not automated droids… yet. Be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for updates and shenanigans as well!
-William “Willybobo” Bobo
