Critic’s Notebook: Darren Aronofsky’s ‘On This Day… 1776’ Demonstrates That High-End AI Slop Is Still AI Slop

“Soup not slop.” Such is Darren Aronofsky’s stated intention for On This Day… 1776, a shortform YouTube series recreating pivotal Revolutionary War-era moments with SAG voice actors and AI visuals courtesy of Google DeepMind — and were you to catch a thumbnail for its trailer on a social media scroll, you might initially presume he’s succeeded.

Its topic is respectably weighty — a far cry from the cruel and puerile jokes generative AI has so often been used for, like that 2025 video of Trump literally dropping shit on protesters. Its sets and costumes appear, from a distance, to evoke prestige projects like John Adams or Franklin. Its faces are realistic enough to pass muster, at least some of the time.

But keep watching for more than a few seconds, and it quickly becomes apparent that slop is slop, no matter how it’s gussied up. On This Day positions itself as a well-funded,…