A new AI-generated image turns The Lord of the Rings into a horror movie, and the result is pure nightmare fuel. Based on J. R. R. Tolkien's beloved fantasy novels, Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is widely regarded as one of the most iconic film trilogies of all time. Starting with The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the films tell the story of Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), a Hobbit, as he sets out across Middle-earth to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom.
Throughout his journey, Frodo and his companion, Sam (Sean Astin), encounter all manner of dark creatures looking to impede their journey. In the first film, for example, the Fellowship faces off against a cave troll in the bowels of the Mines of Moria before then fleeing from a fiery Balrog. While The Lord of the Rings franchise features many larger monsters the heroes must contend with, Orcs and Uruk Hai are also an ever-present threat. In addition to Frodo and Sam, The Lord of the Rings movies feature a host of other main characters, including Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), and Gandalf (Ian McKellan).
In a new image created using the AI-powered DALL-E Mini, The Lord of the Rings trilogy is imagined as a horror movie. The image grid, which looks like it's straight out of a horrible nightmare, turns beloved characters like Frodo and Sam into truly monstrous beings. One particularly frightening image even features a screaming Gandalf with sunken eyes and a black mouth. Check out the AI-generated image grid below:
While not exactly frightening movies, the images above hint that it wouldn't take much to turn Jackson's trilogy into a horror franchise. The Lord of the Rings actually does feature at least one scene that looks like it could belong with the images above, with Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) briefly becoming a Gollum-like creature as he attempts to take the ring from Frodo in the first film. The trilogy also features a number of dimly-lit scenes, which serves only to make the AI-generated images even more nightmarish.
Amazon's upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series seems to have a generally lighter tone, judging from the trailers released thus far, meaning combining it with a horror movie tone using the DALL-E Mini tool may not yield the same scary results. While most of the hero characters in The Lord of the Rings trilogy appear to be relatively normal-looking, it's evident that the movies quickly become much darker and more nightmarish when their faces are distorted. Thankfully, Jackson's trilogy, although not without its moments of darkness and despair, keeps the tone firmly out of nightmare range.
Source: DALL-E Mini