The best Star Wars film in years was released this week, but Disney and George Lucas had nothing to do with it. The film also didn’t feature any A-list actors, or any actors at all for that matter. On Tuesday evening, the visionary AI artist and filmmaker Kavan Cardoza, known professionally as Kavan the Kid, released an 11-minute short film set in the Star Wars universe. Entitled Star Wars: The Ghost’s Apprentice, Cardoza’s film tells the story of an exiled young Jedi in training and was created independently and exclusively with AI tools.
According to Cardoza, the film took 14 days to finish and was made with a range of AI tools, including Google’s Veo, Midjourney and Runway. Cardoza posted the video on reddit on Tuesday evening and Star Wars fans were quick to react in praise of the seamless visuals and compelling narrative, calling it better than previous Star Wars projects, including Disney’s cancelled Star Wars: Acolyte series. Viewers were also shocked by the magnitude of AI’s filmmaking capabilities.
While most feedback was positive, a few Redditors did point out the stiffness of the action sequence and dramatic "acting." One Redditor posted: “Really good visuals. Bad acting. They don't act like natural emotional humans. Steps in the right direction though. Upvote for attempt.”. Cardoza responded personally to the feedback, outlining a plan for his next project: “Thank you! Yea, the next one I do, I want to hire real actors, and start blending live action with AI.”.
Cardoza went into further detail about his future projects in another post, writing: “I have the actual story outlined for three films (full movies) would love to have the chance to bring this story to live action and expand on it. There was so much more I wanted to do, but had to work in the constraints of where we are at with the tools.”. Cardoza made headlines for a similar project last December when he released a 10-minute Batman short film, also AI-generated. The short film was so impressive that Warner Bros. issued Cardoza a takedown order.
