Entertainment

See The 1st Totally Computer-Made Movie Trailer

by S. Atkinson

If sometimes you think that it's crazy how we're living in 2016, this wildly futuristic-sounding year, but we're not controlled by computers and robots yet like pop culture predicted, you're not alone. But now, with the release of the new Morgan trailer, it looks like we might actually be nearing that time. The new trailer is not just a thing of beauty, but one and a half minutes of pure goddamn science. Why, you ask? Because it is the world's first "cognitive movie" trailer. In layman's terms, this means that Fox partnered with IBM to create a technological system that analyzed tons of horror movie trailers to pinpoint what the common denominator was in creeping people out, and made a trailer for the new sci-fi thriller Morgan out of what it determined to be the movie's scariest moments.

Human editors spliced together the pieces to create a trailer that basically has you in a state of near-constant weirded out-ness. This was a pretty smart stunt, considering the film's content. Morgan , out Sept. 2, is about a girl created by scientists whose unnatural abilities seem to be growing at a startling rate. After she has a "tantrum" that results in one of the scientists being seriously injured, Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) is brought in to decide whether the experiment should continue or whether Morgan should be terminated.

The thing that really stood out to me on watching this new trailer, though, wasn't its artificial intelligence origins, but its reliance on that most traditional of methods to creep out an audience something special: terrifying music. You know the drill: haunting melodies, children singing, the occasional thudding reverb to juxtapose in a menacing way with aforementioned children singing. Even with a computer being responsible for the trailer, it's still just as scary as any regular horror movie trailer you'd watch made entirely by humans.

If you're a sensitive individual like myself who finds even the Harry Potter films a little jumpy, I must warn you: you may have vivid, AI-teen-girl-populated nightmares tonight after watching the trailer. Still, at least watching the trailer, and then Morgan itself, should cure you of your bad habit of sleeping with your smartphone under your pillow. Keep your friends close, but let's keep tech at a safe distance for now, right?

Images: Fox; 20th Century Fox