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I’ve been obsessed with Darren Aronofsky’s AI-infused video project On this day…1776 Since it suddenly landed on YouTube in late January.
As a narrative, the ongoing series of short videos traces selected events throughout the year of the United States’ birth, when the outcome of the looming revolution was truly perilous. As a Hollywood-adjacent initiative, it’s also meant to serve as a proving ground for what creative professionals might be able to achieve with the creative AI tools that are evolving by leaps and bounds.
During the first half of 2026, and especially as we approach the country’s 250th anniversary on July 4, what has emerged has been an increasingly surreal mix of artistic ambition, rapid-fire patriotism and a penchant for the eccentric.
It’s that TV show that you’re sure is the worst thing ever, but you can’t stop watching it you hate because you want to see what weird twist will happen next. And some of them are really crazy.
Produced by Aronofsky’s Primordial Soup studio and promoted by Time Studios, “On This Day” in 1776 attracted a wave of media attention — and backlash — with the simultaneous debut of its first two episodes. People hated it simply because it was largely created by artificial intelligence. the Defects in implementation They were all very clear. It was a betrayal On the humanity of Aronofsky’s films. As much as I tried to be open, I can only sum it up As a “machine-driven hellish broth.” Ai slope “Bad human choices.”
For a while, it seemed as if the criticism was too much to bear and the project was shelved. Time Studios had promised weekly episodes, but it was almost a month before the third episode dropped. (Without confusion, it simply appeared on the YouTube page, as it has every episode since.)
On this day… 1776 offers many meetings with the distinguished General George Washington. His dream sequence isn’t one of them.
It seems to have fallen off everyone’s radar. The first episode had 199,000 views, which isn’t a huge buzz, but it’s not nothing. The four episodes from mid-May to mid-June have less than 2,000 views as of this writing.
For every episode since the beginning — 11 episodes so far, most of them under five minutes — a handful of those views are mine.
Like I said, I’m obsessed. My compulsive viewing focused on three things: whether the series was able to meet the weekly schedule (a miserable failure), how it presented the history (wacky, and getting sillier), and what the AI looked like (often impressive, often questionable).
In May, we talked about Project 1776 at the AI Summit at the Cannes Film Festival, Aronofsky said This: “I encourage you to watch it because it’s an experiment to see how you’ll progress.”
challenge accepted.
Before I get into those details, let me also say that regardless of my judgment on this series, this is not it A referendum on artificial intelligence video as cinema Or its general standing in the arts. Like it or not, generative AI is about to become a staple of filmmaking Storyboard To provide Settings and landscapes About human actors to create a complete feature films.
I’m here to see whether “On This Day…” in 1776 succeeds or fails on its own terms. The series is a given, and I’m here to review it as I would any other series, e.g. Widow’s Bay. What story does it tell? Does it tell this story well?
Artificial intelligence meets the theory of the great man of history
On this day… 1776 is not high school American history class. It’s not a textbook, even if it has more than a few dull and tired moments.
It works—as promised—to 1776 in chronological order, arriving at some of the most successful moments, including the nascent Continental Army that scared the British fleet out of Boston Harbor, while often digging deep cuts that have no specific dates attached to them, such as the forced conscription of German villagers into the Army of Hesse. However, it cheats a little on the calendar. The March 5 episode: Day of the Massacre focuses on the Boston Massacre, even though that bloody event occurred six years earlier. (It also didn’t appear on YouTube until March 17, a date that was actually significant in 1776 because it marked the fleet’s departure.)
Talk about jump cuts. One moment, these 18th century French government ministers and their table and chairs are in the stately drawing room. The next day, they were at sea among the fishing crew and their catch.
There is a global perspective woven into the series. We see developments throughout that year from multiple angles: American revolutionaries, British soldiers, French kings, and Hessian mercenaries. Extended sequences are spoken in French and German – with subtitles – or with a refreshing Scottish accent. (The production goes to great lengths to point out that SAG-certified voice actors handle the dialogue. Other humans involved include the writer, director, editor, and composer, all of whom are credited at the end of each episode, starting with episode four.)
It features a cast that is very much a showcase for history’s great men: Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George III, John Adams. If there is a major character, it is George Washington, who was a prominent and central figure in 1776. A rare exception is the bizarre two-episode epic depicting an unfortunate and little-known German conscripted into the ranks of Hesse just after his wedding.
We spend some time with Betsy Ross in the Flag Day episode (which arrived a few days late), but she doesn’t have any lines. She is very busy sewing.
“The improvements are amazing,” Aronofsky says.
In his May comments at Cannes, Aronofsky described the production’s progress from January to the April 29 episode (the sixth episode, and the latest at that point) as “amazing.” Not only are the AI models improving, he said, but so is Primordial Soup’s pipeline and the unspecified artists working on the project.
I’m not convinced. Maybe it’s more of a back-end thing, as the production team becomes more comfortable with the tools. But on the business side, where do I watch? Sorry, no.
Faces remain inconsistent from scene to scene and frame to frame within the same scene. Ben Franklin seems a little more doughy, then less so; A little bigger, then a little smaller. The lip-sync is also insanely off almost all the time, like a poorly dubbed foreign film. The historical figures still seem largely like props: Washington’s entry into the room feels staged, rather than lived. There is often a plasticky quality to the images.
A frustrated and stressed John Adams vents his anger in a bowl of water. The historical record is silent on his feelings about the use of generative AI tools in the creative process.
There’s always a feeling that Primordial Soup is showing off: look at the total detail in this canvas! Watch someone blow the picture perfect bubbles! It’s technically impressive, but it’s also distracting. Time Studios refers to On This Day…1776 as an “animated series,” which seems like an odd description given its relentless pursuit of realism.
However, the newer episodes somehow seem to have improved in a way that’s hard to pinpoint.
Episode 10, Betsy Ross, features a dramatic montage of red, white and blue flag strings forming and transforming into Uncle Sam, Amelia Earhart and her plane, the moon landing, the flag raising at Iwo Jima, an elephant and a donkey facing off against Jimi Hendrix, and Arlington Cemetery. It looks like something you might see on the Jumbotron at a political rally. It’s one of the most impressive sequences in the series so far.
I think it’s trust. Looks like the Primordial Soup team is feeling more empowered to get weird. To indulge their inner David Lynch. To move beyond the history of the diorama and towards a specific vision, no matter how crazy.
In one of the first episodes, we saw George Washington having a bad dream, highlighting the suspicions he had already recorded in his private correspondence. As he prepares for bed, we get a clear look at his false teeth. In an extended dream sequence, a musket ball hits him directly in the forehead, lingers for a moment and falls.
That Boston Massacre callback? This is done in a vertical video format, as if someone recorded the episode on a smartphone. This is not the only historical irony. In later episodes, we get glimpses of the “Join or Die!” It was spray-painted on a statue, and on another a call to “No more kings.”
Trippy and becomes trippier
The April 29 episode was a tough one from start to finish. It is an account of the debates within France’s ruling class over whether to aid the American colonists, and begins with a tracking shot of a housefly scurrying through the palace rooms before finally being swatted against the map with grisly comic flourishes. In another scene, a fish flops on a table in front of a terrified member of the royal family. Suddenly the arrogant ministers discussing in the palace room find themselves on a ship in a stormy sea, including the table and chairs. (The episode ends with a guillotine decapitation. Oh!)
The June 5 episode introduces us to an uptight John Adams who comes dangerously close to being a version of Larry from the Three Stooges.
It’s a touch-and-go moment in an animated battle between Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson and England’s King George III. When Jefferson—and the Declaration—ultimately won, the crowds chanted “USA! USA! USA!”
But nothing prepared me for the latest episode, which came out on June 30 as I was finishing this review. It’s, I kid you not, presented in a very 21st century cartoon style, complete with a flashy WWE-style showdown between Thomas Jefferson and George III as Jefferson grapples with the soul-stirring phrases that would make the Declaration of Independence the defining document of the American experiment. Your high school history teacher probably never paired the phrase “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” with:
George III: “Kneel before your king!”
Jefferson: “On your knees before that, bitch.”
In this episode, as in true events of history, Jefferson got the last word, and W.
On This Day… 1776 is less a history lesson than a work of historical fiction, remaining largely faithful to real people and events without ever hesitating to deviate in service of the story it wants to tell. It’s a costume drama that remains comfortable in its trousers, buckled boots and tricorn hat, an antique item keen to prove its relevance to this day.
Aronofsky described On This Day…1776 as “an experience“It is implemented using generative AI models and tools that”Their potential as storytelling tools has become undeniable“.
Unfortunately, there are many, many unanswered questions about how much of what we see is the explicit product of the AI tools themselves (how accurate are the claims!) and how much is the work of the human artists and technicians who use them. Is the episode director an author or a spectator? What goes into the post-production process? Where is the line between human creativity and AI automation? Will it be more than just a glorious decline?
On this day… 1776 stumbles and stumbles again and again. And while it may never win over the “AI is not art” camp, its better moments aren’t half bad.
Not every experiment is successful. But maybe, hopefully, we’ll learn something along the way.
