Fuck AI

Last year I saw a stage play about Gene Wilder. The actor playing Wilder, Jonathan Randell Silver, bore a passing visual resemblance to him, helped along by a good hair and makeup job, but also sounded and behaved very like him. Silver had obviously studied Wilder's mannerisms and choices, both in Wilder's iconic roles and in Wilder's own persona from interviews and such, and Silver's performance in the play really evoked Wilder on a very effective level whether it was recreating some of Wilder's famous comedy bits and characters or portraying the real Wilder behind the scenes. This was an actor who understood the role, and used real human choices and talent to create his performance.

There are countless talented actors and impressionists who could have recreated Wilder's Wonka on a human level and given a genuine performance with a real soul behind it. The use of low-effort AI slop instead was a deliberate choice here, and it falls to the viewing public to accept this or not.

Also, this is a fucking game show. They are digitally defiling a beloved corpse for a fucking game show.