AI Reimagines Lord Of The Rings Characters As Described In Book
A week ago, I published a story about AI reimagining Harry Potter Characters Based on Book Descriptions.
The story has since gotten over 20K views and a lot of people shared how they love it and want more similar stories.
So I thought, how about Lord Of The Rings characters?
Perfect. I love the LOTR movie series.
But before we dive into the results, let’s talk about what Dall-E2 AI is all about.
DALL·E 2 is a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from textual descriptions written in natural language.
It uses a process called “diffusion,” which starts with a pattern of random dots and gradually alters that pattern towards an image when it recognizes specific aspects of that image.
It operates with more than 3 billion parameters so it can generate pretty realistic and accurate images.
Okay, setting all the technical stuff aside, let’s make portraits!
Frodo Baggins
Stout fellow with red cheeks, taller than some, and fairer than most. He is also said to have a cleft chin and bright hopeful eyes. 50 Years old.
For starters, Frodo in the movies is played by actor Elijah Wood, who is significantly younger than the character is supposed to be.
In the books, Frodo is 50 years old at the start of The Fellowship of the Ring, but Wood was only 22 when the first movie was released.
This difference in age is most noticeable in the physical appearance of the character, with Wood looking significantly more youthful than the Frodo described in the books.
Samwise Gamgee
Shorter and rounder than most hobbits with curly brown hair and worn hands from working in his garden.
One of the most notable differences in the way that Sam looks in the movies compared to the books. In the books, Sam is described as being “short and stocky,” with dark hair and a “thatched” complexion. He’s also said to have “large, dark brown eyes.”
In the movies, however, Sam looks quite different. He’s played by Sean Astin, who is tall and a little thin, with light brown hair and blue eyes. Astin doesn’t exactly fit the description of Sam in the books, but he does a great job of portraying the character.
Gandalf The White
Strongly built, but somewhat shorter than mortal men, considering his stooped back. His hair was long and white, with a silver beard to match.
Gandalf the Grey (or, as he’s known in the movies, Gandalf the White) is one of the most iconic characters in literature and film. And yet, despite being such a well-known figure, he looks quite different in the Lord of the Rings movies compared to how he’s described in the books.
For starters, in the movies, Gandalf is played by the great Sir Ian McKellen, who is a tall, imposing figure. In the books, however, Gandalf is described as being much shorter, and not nearly as physically imposing.
Another difference is in the way Gandalf dresses. In the movies, he always looks very regal and dignified, wearing robes of white and grey. In the books, however, his clothing is described as being much more simple and down-to-earth.
Aragorn
Lean and tall, with dark shaggy hair speckled with gray strands. His eyes match that of these strands, piercingly silver. The books describe him as the tallest member of the company standing at over 6 1/2 feet tall.
The looks of Viggo Mortensen who portrayed Aragorn in the movie pretty much match the Aragorn in the books. Fans however noticed a huge difference in terms of the overall personality of the character.
Legolas
Elf-like lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war bow. Legolas’ tall thin figure was offset by his speed and lightness.
In the movies, Legolas is portrayed as having long, blonde hair and blue eyes, the books aren’t very clear about what he looks like at all.
This is somewhat strange for Tolkien who did often spend more time describing his elvish characters, but Legolas is only said to be “lithe” and “fair of face beyond the measure of Men.”.
AI assumed by default that the hair should be dark. Nevertheless, Orlando Bloom portrayed the character pretty well in the movie.
That’s it.
What do you think?
Did the AI do justice to these famous characters?
Try It Yourself
Go ahead and sign up for OpenAI’s Dall-E2 which is only accessible via private invite.
Inside the web tool, you input the text description in the prompt field and hit Generate. It takes around 20 seconds or so to generate six images.
Note that I had to put “Realistic portrait” at the beginning of the text prompt. Not doing so will produce cartoon-like images instead of real ones.
That’s it. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I had fun writing it. Watching Dall-E2 generate realistic portraits is also super fun. I’ll definitely be doing other characters in the future.
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