In Paramount Picture’s animated short, a mysterious company run by an AI Robot, Chrome Dome, seeks to profit off the boy’s new hero status… with cheap, twisted, and lame looking toys that barely resemble the team.
There’s a war being fought between artists and AI.Anyone will tell you.
But on the animation battlefield, the best weapon appears to be comedy. “I think the use of comedy and satire or parody to create effective social commentary is sometimes overlooked or dismissed as less sophisticated,” says Kent Seki, director of Paramount Pictures’ all-new short film, , releasing in theaters Friday, December 19 in front of .“But, with comedy, the message is very clear.What we’re trying to do within this short is point out the shortcomings of AI.” Pun intended.
In the short, produced by Nickelodeon and Paramount Animation with Point Grey Pictures, a mysterious toy company – Authentic Imitations (AI) – looks to profit off the mutant turtles’ new hero status.While brothers Leo, Donnie, Raph and Mikey are out Christmas shopping for their adopted mutant rat dad Splinter, they see a window ad for AI’s new turtle toys which bear a disturbing, twisted and only slightly recognizable resemblance to the heroes. “I don’t know,” says Seki.“Tortoise Karate Warriors really rolls off the tongue.
It's so natural.” Determined to stop the copyright madness, the turtle brothers make a trip to AI’s headquarters in New Jersey only to come face to face with a shocking new foe. Check out the teaser: Based on the characters created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman and set after the events of the film, the short is directed by Seki, written by Andrew Joustra and produced by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Jeff Rowe, and Ramsay McBean.The voice cast includes Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, Brady Noon, Beck Bennett, and Zach Woods. “It took a little bit of time for us to really hone in on the central message of the short,” shared Joustra.“There was always a little bit of commentary on consumerism and capitalism.
That's always something holiday shorts like this are great for making conversations about.It got to a point where we were thinking of this toy company taking shortcuts and making these really cheap, blasphemous toys, and probably using AI to do that.Everything started to focus on that and that's where Chrome Dome entered as a character.” The original design of Chrome Dome, a long-time franchise villain, straddled the line somewhere between a shogun warrior and Egyptian pharaoh.
But, in Seki’s short, Chrome Dome’s boxy figure looks like someone tried to 3D print TARS from Interstellar and then added a vector graphics screen for a face.“He's very shiny and looks very high-tech and fancy,” shares Joustra.“But when you get a little bit closer, you start to ask questions like, ‘Why does this robot have abs?’” Because of a very creative brainstorming session.
That’s how. “We had a three-hour window where we all locked ourselves in a room,” says Seki.“Tiffany Lam, the production designer for the feature sequel, started sketching this trapezoid face on a whiteboard and that became the basis of Chrome Dome.And then character designer Woodrow White drew ideas on top of it.
We all drew on top of each other's ideas until we had the basis for this design.And I loved this design.It’s like Patrick Nagel meets the original Chrome Dome.” He adds, “Then Zach Woods comes in with the voice and presents Chrome Dome like a tech bro.
He comes off as unassuming.Even though the physicality of the robot is big and bad, Zach’s voice comes out of it and it’s totally disarming.He even says the words, ‘I'm a benign AI.’ It’s like the way that technology is presented to us from Silicon Valley as benign.” But this wasn’t always the vision for Chrome Dome. “He started out as a one-dimensional security robot that fights the turtles once they arrive at the toy factory,” says Seki.
“And we had this very successful first screening for the executives, but we knew it wasn't good enough.It felt like we could do better on the AI commentary.Jeff Rowe said, in the kindest way, ‘It’s like a sculpture of a car.
It's a very good sculpture.But when you get in and put the key in, it doesn't drive.’” Joustra adds, “I wrote the first draft in late January and the second draft in August.I had just gotten back from San Diego Comic Con and had this idea of, ‘What if Chrome Dome was an AI robot that created an AI-generated backstory for himself that ripped off all of these major franchises?’” Chrome Dome’s backstory spans , and more.
And it’s told in an old, 80s video game style format on Chrome Dome’s face screen. “There was a lot of exploration with earlier tools like MS Paint and dithering tools to give his backstory montage the vintage look,” explains art director Garrett Lee.“We worked with the studio Wiz and they implemented all the animation.They're just wizards over there.” As the name would suggest.
Lee continues, “It's really magic and was exactly what we were looking for in the end.” The animation is colorful and beautiful, juxtaposed with the backstory narrative that’s degrading.And genius. “As the backstory is going, it starts off a little bit silly and then it gets more ridiculous and more ridiculous,” shares Joustra.“We tried giving Chrome Dome an actual, authentic backstory and explain how the company was started.
But then we were like, ‘Does anyone really care? Is this really adding anything to the story?’ All that matters is that it got to this point.” The point being that AI is dumb… but also ripe for satirical commentary. “It’s the crazy cycle of how a joke can turn into a snake eating itself,” says McBean. “Because you know that kids are going to want real toy versions of these ridiculous robots and rip-off AI turtle toys.” Luckily, toy companies wanted to get in on the fun.The ad in the short is live-action and the team got the help of Playmates Toys to make their vision come to life. “The toy partners were super excited about the whole thing and jumped on board and wanted to do all of it,” shares McBean.“Even though it was kind of sick and making fun of their world.” An ugly, hand-crafted Splinter mug also makes an appearance in the film and, as janky as it looks, is not generated by AI. “Sean Sevestre designed that in a day,” shares Seki.
“They designed like 10 mugs and that’s the one we picked.It’s weird but looks like a kid made it.It doesn’t look programmed.
I’m very pro ugly mug culture." McBean adds, “I think comedy is a way to deal with the things we either don't understand or have to just cope with in our day to day lives.Even if it's mundane things or complex things like AI.We humans use comedy as a way of talking about it and engaging with subjects.
I think ultimately that's what we are as filmmakers as well.Whatever we're doing, whether it's emotional stories, comedy stories, anything like that, we're just trying to reflect the society that we live in and that we see in front of us.And when that's successful, you see the audience reciprocate that engagement and be involved in it.
So far, for the people who've seen it, it's been very much like that.What happens with good things is that it kind of just picks up a life of its own, but there’s no cheat code on a story like this.It takes time to get right.” And it takes patience. “It's sometimes frustrating,” notes Lee.
“It's very challenging.But it was a precedent we set on the first movie and what we get in return are these really incredible last-minute pivots of true ingenuity and creativity that you wouldn't have without the pressure of being up against a deadline.There's a certain clarity that comes with that.” McBean adds, “Another last-minute change was the laser hair removal quote one of the boys says when talking about what to get Splinter for Christmas.
It was one of those jokes we didn’t feel was good enough.There must have been 50 different punch lines as to what a dad rat could want for Christmas and this one felt like a long shot, but it landed well.” Deadlines as well as voice performances are big players in how Rowe’s stories play out.And that was also a precedent set during . “Jeff has such a knack for pulling out the best of everything,” says Joustra.
“Even during our recording sessions with the boys, he's able to get them in a space where they were really comfortable and spoke authentically, like teenagers, and then take all of that and use it to go back and change certain things in the script and animation to make it feel as natural as those performances.And I think it really shines through.” While ensemble recording is becoming a method of the past, the team is determined to keep it alive… like human-made art. “We record the four of them together and allow them to riff off of each other,” says Joustra.“And that version always stands out so much.
That's how we're doing it for the second movie, too.You can tell when recordings have been done separately.So, we like to get the boys recording together as much as possible because it’s super fun and informative.” Looking ahead, Seki and the team are optimistic about the creativity of artists outlasting and outperforming AI on any stage.
But, in the meantime, might as well use the AI narrative to make some hilarious films. “We're being presented with this false choice: either use AI or be replaced by it,” says Seki.“And I don't think it's a binary choice that we're being presented with.I think that is one of the faults of where we are right now as a society and as an industry.
We, as artists, want to choose our tools.We want to have that choice as craftspeople.Choosing the way to express ourselves is part of who we are.
And when it feels like someone's taking that choice away, that doesn't feel good.You can have the debate, but when you're not including the artists, that's one reason why it feels so unsettling.We're turning it into a zero-sum game and that's not why we're in it.
We’re in it to tell very personal, deeply connected, and ultimately very funny stories.”
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime.She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment.Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
‘Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Brings Mutant Teen Mayhem to 2D
R-Rated Live-Action ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Feature in Development
Paramount+ Drops ‘Tales of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Series Teaser
Letting Turtle Kids Be Kids in ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’
Exclusive Clip: ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem – 3D with 2D Elements’
Jeff Rowe Talks ‘TMNT: Mutant Mayhem’ Teen Boy Tussles
