After Nintendo announced the live-action Legend of Zelda movie earlier this week, many fans were excited to see their favourite characters brought to life on the big screen. Hyrule's inhabitants have seen many iterations since the 8-bit original in 1986, but fans are wondering how the beloved characters will look in full live-action glory.
Well, AI might just have the answer. A recent experiment used Midjourney to generate live-action renditions of the Hyrule crew and the results are interesting, to say the least – I predict it might cause some disagreement among fans. (If you want to learn how to create your own AI art, check out our collection of the best AI art tutorials).
The project is the work of tech retailer Currys, which prompted the AI to create a host of beloved characters from the franchise. While the humanoid Hylin characters like Link and Zelda are a little easier to transform into 'live-action' characters, the AI struggled with more abstract designs. I'd like to give it the benefit of the doubt since art is very subjective but come on, Ganondorf isn't even green.
It's always fun to see how AI will imagine fantasy characters but I have to admit that this motley crew is a little tame for my liking. Lady Riju's live-action design, for instance, is not nearly as ornate as the game as her iconic headpiece is replaced by a simple gold headband – not exactly fit for the Chief of the Gerudo.
The AI also generated renditions of some common enemies like the Chuchus (which were actually surprisingly accurate, but then again they are just blobs). Interestingly, when asked to generate the Bokoblins, the AI produced a sort of pig-like creature that looked like an extra from The Lion King – let's hope the movie is a little more faithful to the games, or we could be getting an unintentional NintenDisney crossover.
While I'm not the biggest fan of these live-action renditions, I'm glad that we have the capability to generate AI art like this and it'll certainly be fun to see how they match up once the official cast is announced. For more AI silliness, check out how AI imagines the average American person by state.
