Thanks to Dall-E, Star Wars fans can now envision the epic lightsaber matchup they never knew they needed: Sith Lord Darth Vader versus porgs.
The Last Jedi’s porgs wield lightsabers against Darth Vader in a hysterical piece of AI-generated Star Wars art. Following Disney/Lucasfilm’s The Force Awakens, Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi took the franchise in directions that have proven more than divisive. Perhaps the least controversial aspect of the film was the introduction of porgs, the species of sea-dwelling, beak-less birds that are native to the planet Ahch-To. Similar to Return of the Jedi’s Ewoks or The Mandalorian’s Grogu, porgs both helped to sell toys and permeated popular culture during The Last Jedi’s theatrical run.
George Lucas introduced audiences to a galaxy far, far away with 1977’s A New Hope. The original Star Wars changed cinema forever and Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker swiftly became one of the most iconic villains of all time, appearing in The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and the prequel trilogy. Following Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, 2016’s Rogue One marked the first time Vader appeared in live-action since 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. Recently, Hayden Christensen returned in Obi-Wan Kenobi, which saw Vader wield his lightsaber against his old master. Now, Vader has found a new opponent who will do what they must.
A new piece of AI-generated art imagines porgs wielding a lightsaber against the Galactic Empire’s Darth Vader. The art was created by the program Dall-E mini, which uses artificial intelligence to generate a grid of images based on a given prompt. In this case, “porgs fight darth vader” resulted in a delightful array of images with varying degrees of distortion. Check out the images below:
While Darth Vader and his latest opponents don’t exactly look their best, warped distortion has been a hallmark of the Dall-E mini meme trend. However, the AI did manage to create a somewhat believable depiction of what this type of encounter might look like, minus what would’ve likely been a blood bath. A couple of the images don’t feature Vader at all, and in another, there are two of him.
Since the release of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Disney/Lucasfilm has shifted its focus to the small screen with Disney+ projects like The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, which take place decades before the events of The Last Jedi. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has said that future Star Wars films will look beyond the sequels. While audiences may not see porgs again for quite some time, Christensen is set to star in the upcoming Ahsoka series and Vader could appear in everything from Andor to a rumored Lando series. If Vader never faces off with a pair of porgs, at least fans will have this AI-generated art.
- Rogue Squadron (2023)Release date: Dec 22, 2023
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