This video proves that 20 years ago filmmakers read the original texts and respected them. Not just random "blind" choice, like it is now.

I love how an AI’s interpretation of Gandalf is LITERALLY Ian Mackellen.

So what you're saying is, the films were perfectly cast

I like how it got to Gandalf and just went, "Screw it, use Sir Ian"

Bloody hell, my skin already crawls looking at the normal Gollum. This version looks litteraly out of a horror movie.

If this video tells me anything, its that the casting of the Peter Jackson LotR films was spot on.

I’m pretty sure the AI used images from Peter Jackson’s film to “learn” some of the descriptions 😅

I find Liv Tyler as Arwen to be more accurate as a stunning elven beauty than the super model look that the AI made!!

It's amazing how well Jackson got the characters down - he respected the text and didn't try to warp it...for "Modern Audiences".

Didn't realize Aragorn was supposed to be 6'6. Guy was a tank.

Even AI can't make a fake person more beautiful and more ethereal than Liv Tyler. Truly one of the most beautiful woman in the world.

The cast of the movies is more than perfect, the way the characters were designed is so close to the description. The filmmakers really honored tolkiens vision

The problem with AI and how they are "trained" : they will not "read" the book, just create pictures that seem "right" for us. I think the informations the AI was trained with was heavily influenced by the movie and how "we" all imagine the characters perhaps not the way JRR Tolkien imagine them. There are very few descriptions in the book and they are often incomplete.

Gandalf was basically Ian McKellen again. About Eowyn I prefer Miranda Otto rather than AI version, she's so beautiful 😍😍.

AI did a better casting job than Amazon ever could 😂

How did it know Legolas and Gimli’s hair colours though? Gandalf is also stated to have a blue, not grey, hat, although that wasn’t mentioned in the prompt text here.. Still, I can’t help but think the AI based these partly on pictures of the actors tied to the names..

I remember my Mom always told me that this Film was a masterpiece way back and when The Two Towers was first release in Cinema, she brought me to watch it. I can't barely remember it cuz I was just 2 years old that time. Now, I still sometimes watch LOTR and Hobbits trilogy when I have a long weekend.

Contrary to the video, Eowyn's hair colour actually is described. In the chapter "The Steward and the King" in "Return of the King," Eowyn and Faramir, convalescing in Minas Tirith from their battle wounds, are standing together looking out over the city, when "a great wind rose and blew, and their hair, raven and golden, streamed out mingling in the air." So either Eowyn has dark hair and Faramir has light hair, or Eowyn has golden hair and Faramir has raven hair. 😄

I think the AI found previous artwork, perhaps with the descriptions listed, and used those as the basis rather than just the descriptions.

Gotta admit the AI depiction of Gandalf looks so much like Ian's Gandalf.

That awkward moment when Wizards of the Coast should’ve just gone with the AI rendering

Aside from the facial hair on the hobbits (not the AI's fault since it was never provided that information), these are all so freakin amazing and so spot on!

Fine as these are, I prefer the movie cast, they are perfect.

This video proves that Jackson and his team were faithful to the text and the results were a great and everlasting film series. Amazon could learn a thing or two.

The AI model is most likely trained on the images of the movies so this exercize is like a snake biting its own tail.

There is no way the AI made it better then Liv Tylers beauty lol

AI Eowyn is wife material

If an AI can do a more accurate design than an official card game, then AI is the future.

Can you please do Troy? Achilles, Hector, Priam, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Paris & Helen, etc. Bonus points if you do the full cast of characters from David Gemmel’s Troy series for character descriptions!

from this comparison I assume that it was made more based on fan illustrations and games than on book descriptions. :)

:D even AI knows, that Aragon is not black.

The casting for these movies was pretty spot on. Gotta love when the AI actually matches with some of the cast members.

Aragorn should be beardless, yes? Elves can have beards but only after they aged very much. Even Elrond who passed 5000 years old still didn't have beard. ... I mean, Elros and Elrond are twins. Aragorn is a descendant of King Elros, he was noted to have strong Numenor blood. And Numenor born from Elros are known for being beardless. I mean royal blood Numenor have really strong elven blood. I mean, super strength, super spiritual power, super eyes, can live much much longer than men (but still less than elves). Aragorn was around 80 in the movie, too young to have beards. ... I remember when Galadriel gave Aragorn elven clothes, people almost cannot distinguish Aragorn from elven lords.

These are mostly excellent. Aragorn I would argue should be even more masculine, rugged, bigger and with a veiled majesty and kingly nobility. He is taller than everyone in the Fellowship, a man of Numenorean blood, stern looking with grey eyes. Before the events of Fellowship he fights for 60 long years against the schemes of Sauron in Arnor, Gondor, Rohan and the far East/South, gaining much in wisdom, craft and lore. He has a kingly presence that comes out even when he walks as a Ranger and strength of character that is not necessary a physical one, although he has that in spades. Would also liked to have seen Boromir, Eomer, Theoden, Faramir and Denthor. Big guys, hardened warriors, men of wisdom, justice and nobility.

Legolas looks like Zac Efron

What I learned from the video : Thormund's GOT actor should play a Dwarf in LOTR, and Galadriel should have been portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer

Nice, but Tolkien said very plainly that hobbits had no beards except some few Stoors.

Eowyn’s hair colour was stated in The Steward and the King, where she and Faramir are standing on the wall together and their hair, raven and golden, mingles in the breeze.

In the book, Gandalf's hat is described as being Blue.

Liv's unbeatable as Arwen. Also, i think to recall aragorn having no facial hair.

Still way better than amazon.

We had perfect cast like 95%

Can you imagine if AI could read all of Tolkien writings and lore and make movies or tv series based off of it exactly as it is in the books it would be epic.

I think Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) were two AI versions close to the actor/actress looks. For Galadriel at least one of the images mimicks the area around the eyes for Cate Blanchett. As for The Legolas version that was also the most obvious fake version in that it is not an image of a real person.

Wow - a whole video created by AI, including narration. We are now in the machine.

I loved the LOTR casting and I think it was more accurate than the AI versions. Wasn't Aragorn described in the book as not very nice or trustworthy looking? Plus, the AI doesn't seem to handle the various fantasy races very well. The Hobbits didn't have facial hair, and since only their faces are shown in the video, you can't see that they're smaller than humans. They look like men, perhaps even a little too thin for members of their race. On the other hand, Gollum (ugh), Éowyn and Gandalf (a.k.a. Sir Ian McKellen, lol) were spot on.

So AI has Zac Efron as Legolas. Maybe one day AI will remake the whole movie series with these characters.

WOW they got galadriel right! This better than Amazon ROP

The AI still worked film aspects in. Frodo was “stout” or plump when the book started (all the hobbits were). In most of these images I could see movie influences. Legolas was unlikely to have been blonde either. And Sam with a beard? Hobbits were very unlikely to grown beards, according to the books. This shows how influenced by the films the AI is.

When AI gets it right than the rings of power castings you know Amazon F'"#ked up.

"Sam's plain, honest features" In the third photo he's actually quite good-looking.

Pretty sure Legolas had dark hair since he was from the woodland elves

please keep in mind that ai is not actually intelligent, but instead trained in an already existing database. These movies were very iconic, changing and shaping the fantasy genre and a lot of movies/games/series/artists took inspiration from them. So it stands to reason that the ai would produce images pretty close to the original casting (especially for Gandalf, who i think is the first person to pop up into most people's heads when they think of the word "Wizard")

The AI hasn’t been trained in a vacuum though, right? The sheer number of images on the web for these characters and these *kinds* of characters must be staggering, right? Is it showcasing the brilliance of the casting, or representing how ingrained these likenesses are in the internet’s DNA? For the record, the casting *was* brilliant and all credit where it’s due. I’m just musing on the horse-and-cartness of it all.

What app do you use for ai generated pics?

I like how Gandalf is literally Ian McKellen. LOTR casting is on point

I thought LOTR characters were all Sub-Saharan Africans. Artificial intelligence indeed...

Arwen and Galadriel here look much more like what I had imagined when I read the books. I also like how Gimili is pictured. Sam and Gollum - much better in the movie. It would have been nice to see one picture of Aragorn as king.

NICE, thank you Skynet. Well done.

Ohh!! I'll love to see how the characters from The Elf stones of Shannara are portrayed especially the magic tree The Ellcrys! Love the portrays!

Cant wait for the next great adaptation for modern audiences with Lizzo as Galadriel.

They’ve got cheek bones

These are close enough that it feels like the art was generated with a starting image of the actors.

just wow ! love all of them and of course the film cast

Hello Legolas, my long lost love. Don't judge me, aha.

Everyone forgets Aragorn was over 80+ years!😮

Love the video!

Lovely. Thank you.❤

After watching this video, I can say for certain that the casting was marvellous and perfect, they chose the right actors for each character within J. R. R. Tolkien's books with Gandalf being pretty much the most accurate. The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbits trilogy will always remain within my heart as one of my most favoured and beloved movies in which I grew up watching as a child and each character are like my role models. Sometimes when I see Sir Ian Mckellan in other movies I always be like "Look it's Gandalf" and I never refer to him as the character he's acting in that specific movie😂🤣😭

Where's Marry? Pippin? Boromir? Elrond? Celeborn? King Theoden? Theodred? Eomer? Faramir? Denethor? Rosie? 🤔😏

Huh. Aside from the height of the various characters and Frodo's relative lack of aging during the movie trilogy, Peter Jackson and company seem to have got most of these character spot on. That's pretty damned impressive.

I love how Gandalf still looks like he’s portrayed by Ian McKellen! 😂❤❤

I’d love to see them do Thranduil, Elven King of the Woodland Realm…you have to give his full title because he’s so fabulous…I don’t think that AI could make him any more gorgeous than he already is🤔. Haha.

Its a testament to the casting of the trilogy that these mostly seem like downgrades. Liv tyler as arwen in particular was perfect. I liked the ai galadriel and gollum, though. And ai legolas/gimli would have worked for a more serious tone.

Aside from the facial hair on the hobbits and Aragorn these are pretty darn good!

I never knew Aragorn was canonically 6’6”. Wow.

Hot take: the AI might have understood the context and took inspiration from the films' cast

I thought Aragorn shouldn't have any facial hair due to his Numenorian blood.

I’ll always remember Legolas as being the only time a film genuinely seemed to reach right into my head and make the character EXACTLY as I saw him when reading the book. Orlando Bloom was beyond perfect for that role.

Love how one of the first thing said about Sam is he has brown eyes but on every single image, he has blue eyes...

These are interesting, but a character is more than physical attributes. Female characters especially were so strongly portrayed in the films that it’s hard not to see the chosen actresses in those roles, a testimony to the thoughtful casting choices made then. AI threatens to become a crutch to support the most superficial choices in the future.

I would like to see the time when AI will make movies. You just have to tell the book's (or game's, or anything) name, and after a few minutes, you can watch it

Gangee in the video looks much closer to how I imagined him while reading the books for the first time than the movie’s adaptation of him

I love the fact that AI couldn't top Cate Blanchett's natural ethereal beauty. Also Liv Tyler's.

There are some problems here. For Frodo and Sam they give them a beard in one photo, which is impossible for a hobbit (at least of their lineage), and also Sam doesn't really look tan and brown eyed in any image either. The depictions of Aragorn don't show the grey flecks much except in one photo were they over do it, and his eyes don't look grey to me, as well as the fact that Tolkien unfortunately said Numenorian men couldn't grow beards (the rare case of me disagreeing with Tolkien on what should be in his world, though who am I to say it). Legolas is never said once to have blonde hair, and in fact it more than likely he has either silvery or brown hair, as only the Vanyar elves are blonde, and Galadriel inherits this from her partial Vanyar ancestry. Gimli hasn't really been depicted here with a mail shirt, so much as fantasy plating and leather. Gollum should have a few hairs left on his head, and his eyes probably don't glow so much as they reflect light like a dog, and he is described as being very frog like in build as well. Gandalf is described as having eyebrows that go past the brim of his hat, which means his eyebrows were very long, and his hat likely had a very short brim, unlike the movies, he is also said by Tolkien to be short, the shortest besides the hobbits and Gimli in the fellowship anyways.

I was a big fan of the books before the movies came out. I remember largely approving of the casting. No one was badly cast. Boromir wasn't quite dark and stern enough, Aragorn wasn't quite imposing enough, Frodo was just a little bit too pretty, Eowyn and Elrond weren't quite pretty enough, etc, but pretty much everyone looked more or less the way I'd been picturing them for years. There was nothing to get mad about.

I don't think this was generated as a text to image, but image to image and Lord of the Rings actors pictures from the movies is what was used to generate this.

I wonder what this would look like had the AI's training data not included footage and photos from the LotR films.

These images are so similar to the cast actors i don't believe it's coincidence. Like Gimli's hair color being red - that's not book canon, is it?

They are not black?!?! Smh

I love how the first picture of Legolas is literally a picture of Zack Efron with a blonde wig.

At this point, I'd trust AI more than Hollywood for stuff like this.

3:55 - books meanwhile amazon:

That face at 3:27 looks like the face he would give Saruman after Helm's Deep.

Wow, Frodo, Aragorn, Arwen, Legolas, and Gandalf were exactly how the movies looked. 6:56 is exactly Ian McKellan and 2:29 is almost dead-up Orlando Bloom.

The Arwen at 1:45 and Galadriel at 4:04 are so on point

Oh really. Is Ian McKellen now the definition of what a Wizard looks like! 🧙 Perfect casting of Orlando bloom 🧝 Cate blanchett. Liv Tyler. Seriously leave the AGI to the video games 🙋

They did pretty damn good with casting and wardrobe.

Cool video, it would be interesting to know if the original actors saw this and what they think.

Fantastic idea! Please do more of these! It is interesting to see how well the heroes were described by Tolkien! The AI depictions are much closer to how I had imagined them before seeing the films. I always thought that Eowyn should have looked different than the movie, much more like the AI's depiction; though with Gandalf I was disappointed a bit with the AI. I expected a more somber character. I suppose I felt that no actor could easily fill Gandalf's shoes.