Opinion: Nothing sweet about AI-scripted wonky Wonka experience

Opinion: Nothing sweet about AI-scripted wonky Wonka experience

Opinion

What was supposed to be an “immersive” Willy Wonka experience boasting “giant mushrooms filled with sweets, colossal lollipops and candy canes that seem to touch the sky” ended in tears last weekend as children arrived at a depressingly decorated warehouse in Glasgow, Scotland, and at least one outraged parent called the police.

House of Illuminati, the organizer behind Willy’s Chocolate Experience (lol), apologized for the “very stressful and frustrating day” and promised refunds.

But the event has already gone down in internet infamy. It’s gone absolutely viral; Glasgow Willy and the Meme Factory, more like. Every major news outlet has picked up the story.

I genuinely feel bad that the children were disappointed — though I have some bad news about life in general, sweet lambs — and that some of them cried. I also feel bad that parents wasted money (and, in some cases, travel time) on this embarrassment.

I even feel vaguely bad for the organizers. Imagine putting on an event so poorly executed that people called the cops on it.

But the photos from Willy’s Chocolate Experience are, I’m sorry, among the funniest things I have ever seen.

The backdrops that are not only pixelated but way too small for the walls. The scattering of underwhelming prop lollipops. The world’s saddest bouncy castle. And, of course, the now-iconic photo of “Meth Lab Oompa Loompa”— an unimpressed actor clad in what appears to be the Sexy Chocolate Factory Worker Halloween costume working behind what very much looks like a set piece from Breaking Bad. (The poor actor’s name is Kirsty Paterson, and no, she does not love the candid snap of her everyone is joking about online.)

The creepy warehouse is a far cry from the promised “Imagination Lab TM,” where children were supposed to “encounter mind-expanding projections, optical marvels and exhibits that transport you into the realm of creativity” and instead encountered a Pinterest cake fail writ large. (I’m also a bit unclear on why all these “experience rooms” are trademarked when this entire event is a trademark violation.)

“Brace yourself for an adventure that will leave you spellbound!” the promotional website crows.

Brace yourself all right.

What the kids were promised: “cascading chocolate fountains.” What the kids received: two jellybeans apiece and a ¼ cup of lemonade. It appears there was a real dearth of chocolate at ol’ Willy’s Chocolate Experience, which, to be fair, sounds like it was at least An Experience.

i’m crying at the extended footage pic.twitter.com/KSaAMTBNkp

— Brooklyn (@bklynb4by) February 29, 2024

And I suppose if you’ve ever read the Roald Dahl book on which this bastardization is tangentially based (you know, for copyright reasons), you’d know that getting the golden ticket for that factory tour wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, either.

I will admit that I had a similar “Is this it?” sensation in the entrance of the recent Beyond Monet/Van Gogh immersive exhibition at the convention centre. Before you got to the good stuff, you had to pick your way through a pre-exhibit that looked like a bunch of school projects sparsely decorated with an arched garden bridge to nowhere and the occasional basket of polyester sunflowers from Michael’s.

I’ll tell you: the relief I felt when we entered the actual immersive space was real. But no sense of relief ever came for those poor Scottish children.

Not to blame the victims of Willy’s Chocolate Experience, but there were a few clues that this event was going to be precisely what it ended up being.

This entire event was definitely brought to us by AI, and I know this because the promotional materials extolling the “captivating entertainment” on offer included “catgacating,” “cartchy tuns,” “exarserdray lollipops” and “a pasadise of sweet teats.”

Similarly, the “Twilight Tunnel TM” promised it would treat patrons to “lightng,” “enigemic sounds” and “ukxepcted twits.”

Actors who have been interviewed in the days following have said that even their scripts were generated by AI and included stage directions that would have been impossible without incredibly elaborate — and not to mention wildly expensive — set pieces and props. Or just flat-out impossible.

It’s easy to dunk on this event, but Willy’s Chocolate Experience serves as a cautionary tale about what happens when people use AI to create things such as “immersive experiences” without paying any mind to how they’ll actually execute them in reality. I expect we’ll see more of these types of “events” in the future, which will end up being disappointing and lazy at best and full-on scams at worst.

As for the disappointed children and their parents, a few good teachable moments are buried within this whole mess: about expectations versus reality, resilience in the face of disappointment, and not believing everything you see online.

But honestly, if you attended, lucky you: when the eventual Netflix documentary about this fiasco comes out, you get to say you were there. I Survived Willy’s Chocolate Experience and All I Got Was a Coupla Jellybeans.

You gotta make your 1/4 cup of lemonade out of the situation somehow.

[email protected]