Seinfeld Was Never Meant to Be Pulp Fiction, Until This Deepfake Happened
The ever-growing focus on AI and its capabilities seems to be at the forefront of new and exciting technology.
No one likely predicted its use for creating deepfakes of movies just for the fun of it. And yet the YouTube channel DesiFakes has done exactly that. Based on a renowned joke of one of Quentin Tarantino 's most famous scenes.
This edited scene used is from Pulp Fiction, which most fans reference as 'the hand cannon scene'. It features a flashback to earlier in the movie, but instead from the perspective of the 'fourth guy' (played by Alexis Arquette) hiding in the bathroom.
While Vincent and Jules are interrogating Brett in the adjacent room, he can be seen cowering behind the door with a large pistol. After Jules shoots Brett, the fourth guy bursts out of the bathroom and shoots at Jules and Vincent, only to laughably miss every shot.
Even when the movie was first released, fans could not help but compare the fourth guy to looking strikingly like Jerry Seinfeld. Considering his show Seinfeld was reaching its peak at the time, he was a recognisable face to many. As both the film and the series have aged and become classics in their own right, the joke to Seinfeld's resemblance has persevered.
This inspired DesiFakes, using some advanced editing skills, to replace the fourth guy's face with Seinfeld's for good. And what's more, make it look like a scene from the show itself.
Watching the edited scene, it is difficult to tell that Seinfeld was not actually in it for real at all. It possibly helped that Arquette, at the time, had a passing resemblance to the sitcom actor to begin with. Plus, to make the clip more evocative, the original Seinfeld title and music plays as if it was a scene from the series.
Playing on the comical aspect of the scene, the fake Seinfeld portrays the role as it is in the original, all to the backing of a typical 90s-style laugh track. As Jules and Vincent go to shoot him at the end, it jumps to a freeze-frame. And the credits roll with Seinfeld's executive producers Larry David, George Shapiro, and Howard West.
Fans seemed to love this edited masterpiece, praising its attention to detail and hilarious concept. This isn't the only scene that has been modified by DesiFakes either. Other prominent scenes from movies and well-known faces have been swapped in their videos. Including Leonardo DiCaprio as Spider-Man, Bruce Lee in 500 Days of Summer, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Rambo, and many more.
With this deepfake technology, it seems anyone can almost appear in any film now. Maybe Seinfeld will get the opposite treatment itself next. Could Sacha Baron Cohen make a convincing-looking Jerry Seinfeld?