The speculation comes from a handful of social media posts, questioning the film’s stylized special effects, which, at least from the trailer, seem intentionally janky for camp reasons. Nevertheless, a couple of X and Letterboxd posts accuse the film of “conspicuous AI usage.” Letterboxd user and freelance VFX artist Gloria Cook writes, “It’s one of the most conspicuous uses of AI I’ve seen in a film, with a lot of VFX looking like gen AI and doubt about how much of the obvious stock footage might also be. (Confirmed in the end credits that Acme AI was the top billed VFX company on the film).” On X, she takes credit for starting the speculation, pointing to the official trailer, which features inconsistencies in the size and number of windows on the titular train. “These shots clearly look like they’re (at least imitating) CGI, but no CG artists are credited on IMDb while 26 compositors are,” she writes. “That means no one is credited for the creation of these assets, only combining assets.”
“I can’t say for sure that Stop! That! Train! is using genAI,” she continues. “But they credit a studio specializing in using AI for cost cutting measures, don’t credit any 3D artists, World of Wonder has had no issue using genAI in the past, and the shots look a lot like AI.”
It’s certainly possible for the RuPaul movie to be using AI. After all, its star has been known to allow fracking on his Wyoming property. However, it’s also possible that the film’s stylized usage of CGI makes it look more in line with the kind of slop many associate with AI.
“We employed hundreds of VFX artists who all killed themselves getting this out for release, and not one job was taken out of human hands,” Shankman continues. The movie is a fully human made piece of joy and laughter.”
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