# *Civil War*'s Environmental Storytelling I didn't plan for this to become a *Civil War* [[Civil War is a Certifiable Banger|blog]], but [[What Civil War said to Me|here]] we are. Being [[Bye Bye Birdie – Leaving Twitter|off social media]] means I am often out of the loop on the cutting edge of marketing and controversy, but this article by James Hibberd for *The Hollywood Reporter* crossed my path yesterday: [A24’s New AI-Generated ‘Civil War’ Ads Generate Controversy](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/a24-civil-war-posters-controversy-1235876340/). The title sort of says it all, but I wanted to see the fuss nonetheless. The usual suspects seemed to be playing their parts; company uses generative AI tools to whip up art for some media property, folks find out and protest the use of computers over humans. The comments, both quoted and on this [Instagram post](https://www.instagram.com/p/C53sqodLqeT/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D), splay out the vocal disdain. I kind of shrug this public, faceless outcry off. I'm [[S5 - Resident Evil Behind the Scenes#Art|no stranger]] to using tools like DALL-E 2 for my creative work. I think the boon of generative AI reaps benefits when paired with transparency and a *human* touch. I find it more tasteful when things like this are done by hand, especially when things like "a shot of wreckage in Miami shows a car with three doors" happen. That sort of stuff can be avoided when made from the ground up by folks or more carefully combed over in post. Then I saw the posters.  Come on! That's a good poster. I [like](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/438891204_427894123162764_8237800152480568241_n-EMBED-2024.jpg?w=1000) most of them! And anyone that A24 is hiring could have made these. This AI "controversy" isn't what compelled me to write about these: the posters compelled me. Why? Because they got me thinking. As both the article and the comments point out, these scenes aren't in the movie. > Except … none of these scenes are actually in the movie. They’ve caused some to wonder if the campaign is giving potential moviegoers a false expectation of what they’ll see in the film. I knew that though, because I happened to see it on opening night. These posters were depictions of what was going on in this fictional version of the country; perhaps even taken by fictional photojournalist. The movie takes place from New York City to Charlottesville to The White House. They got my gears turning. While thinking about them today, I remembered that I glanced across a fictional map of these her non-United States and wonder how the posters correlated with the [map](https://twitter.com/A24/status/1775236915723202923/photo/1). All but one take place outside of the "Loyalist States."[^1] This is all a form of environmental storytelling. These posters are offering a deeper look into the world the team has cooked up for this movie. When taking in the art on the whole and not pixel peeping for generative anomalies, you are taken to a place where your imagination fills in the details. So is a movie *just* the movie or does the marketing surrounding it become a part of the film? When done well, marketing can become a part of and elevate a project. Look at [*The Dark Knight*](https://www.ign.com/articles/the-dark-knight-why-so-serious-viral-movie-marketing-arg), *[The Blair Witch Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project#Marketing)*, or even the absurdity of "[Barbenheimer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbenheimer)." The marketing reached the masses and asked them to participate in the film through action and thought. > “These are AI images inspired by the movie,” a source said. “The entire movie is a big ‘what if’ and so we wanted to continue that thought on social — powerful imagery of iconic landmarks with that dystopian realism.” I'd say A24 succeeded, generative AI or not. The real story is the one we imagine ourselves, not the one the graphics cards whip up. [^1]: [Las Vegas](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/438864751_788415253351553_3882761211184887117_n-EMBED-2024.jpg?w=1000) is the only one I could say is definitively inside the boundaries of the Loyalist States, but it is on the front lines of California aka half of the Western Forces aka Texas' ally. The swan boat, I couldn't identify as any place more than "a warm spot with palm trees."