🎬 AI Is Transforming the Film Industry—Just Like Star Wars Once Did
At TED2025, Rob Bredow—head of visual effects at Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic—took the stage to share his vision of the future of filmmaking. Bredow, who has worked on Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and The Mandalorian, presented a world where AI isn't the enemy—it's a creative partner.
Why does he believe that?
1️⃣ AI expands imagination. Bredow showcased a demo of a short film about the wildlife of a new Star Wars planet, created by a single artist in just two weeks ⤴️. Still, he notes, filmmaking remains a collaborative craft.
2️⃣ AI can de-age actors (like Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones), generate real-time environments (The Mandalorian), and speed up production. But without human creativity and oversight, the results fall flat.
3️⃣ The future lies in hybrid workflows. The most powerful results emerge when traditional techniques meet modern tools. Just as CGI once became an extension of stop-motion animation, AI today enhances—rather than replaces—current technologies.
🦖 In 1993, when director Steven Spielberg and animator Phil Tippett were shown the first CGI T. rex test for Jurassic Park, Tippett famously said: "I feel extinct." (Spielberg liked the line so much that he put it in the film.) Tippett's team won the Visual Effects Oscar for the digital T. rex a year later.
📱 You can watch the full talk here.
