Meet the Drydens from another planet
I take the dog for a long walk every morning but not today — it was pouring. What did I do with that extra hour? Experiment with AI, of course.
For the last year I’ve used it generate photo-realistic images for this blog. And over the past few months as I’ve become more familiar with its capabilities, I’ve used it to produce short videos from still photos, and to write music and generate studio-quality songs.
This morning I decided to use Google Gemini, my go-to AI program, to create a short video for my family, showing how we’ve changed and expanded over the last half-century. I envisioned a video starting with a photo from Judy’s and my wedding in December, 1975 … moving on to us with our two sons, Ben and Stuart, at various stages of their lives …. our first daughter-in-law, Heidi, in 2013 …. our two grandsons …. the marriage two months ago of Stuart and his wife, Sarah … and ending with a photo of my wife and me at a recent black-tie event.
I asked Gemini if I could upload 11 photos and designate the order in which I wanted them to appear in the video. It said “sure.” I knew I’d have fun working with Gemini, and hoped my family would enjoy the end result.
But what I got back wasn’t a video of my family. It was a video of another Dryden family that apparently lives on another planet in an alternative universe. Those Drydens are definitely related to us but Gemini made changes to my photos to create them — some subtle, some out-and-out bizarre. The finished video appears above but don’t watch it until you take a look at the photos I uploaded, and how AI altered those photos to create it. That’s not my family in those pictures. It’s a family that in many ways resembles mine, but resides far, far away from this world, as you are about to see for yourself.
PHOTO 1
Dec. 27, 1975: The Earth Drydens on their wedding day. It’s my favorite wedding picture. I love the way Judy’s nose crinkles when she smiles …. and the photographer captured it perfectly
The Dryden's from an Alternative Universe. (AU) on their wedding day. AU Tom isn’t wearing a cutaway, he’s in a suit. And AU Judy’s gown is completely different. They are holding Champagne flutes instead of the rounded old-fashioned glasses we held. AU Judy’s nose isn’t crinkled, darn it. And AU Tom’s nose is a wee bit longer than mine. (I like his better!) The subtle changes are weird. And as the video continues, they are about to become much much weirder.
PHOTO 2
1976: Earth Drydens visit Germany on their honeymoon.
The AU Drydens can obviously afford to go to a professional photo studio instead of having to pose for a photo taken by a family member. AU Judy, unlike Earth Judy, is wearing a cotton blouse. Earth Judy’s was shiny polyester. AU Tom is wearing a nicer shirt and jacket than Earth Tom’s.
PHOTO 3
Christmas 1982, New York: Earth Judy is holding our host’s dachshund. (We’d left our two at home.) Six weeks later we would become parents. We were excited.
Alternative Universe Drydens are for some reason wearing the same clothes they were wearing in 1976. The dachshund has turned into a Schnauzer. (Why?) AU Tom is wearing a wedding ring. (Earth Tom never did and isn’t even sure where his is.) His teeth are straight — Earth Tom’s aren’t. Whereas Earth Judy’s hair had turned brown because she wasn’t dyeing it while pregnant, AU Judy’s is as blonde as ever. Blondes must have more fun on her planet, too.
PHOTO 4
1989, St. Maarten: Earth Drydens with sons Stuart, 3, and Ben, 6.
AU Judy apparently had the nerve to ask another man to join them on their family vacation. He resembles Tom — that’s probably what attracted her to him — but this is a most troubling development. Their boys’ faces are similar to their Earth cousins Ben and Stuart, but definitely different, and there doesn’t look to be more than a year between them — they are around the same height.
PHOTO 5
2003, Wilton, CT: Standing on our front porch. Ben’s in college, Stuart is a high school junior.
The AU Drydens’ sons appear to be malnourished — they are teens by now but haven’t grown much since their last photo 14 years ago. (Someone should call Social Services on these parents if they have Social Services on their planet.) And the couple has had another kid — good for them, the Universe needs more Drydens. AU Judy is dressed exactly like the perfect housewives on 1950s TV shows. I envy AU Tom’s hair color.
PHOTO 6
Philadelphia, 2008: Earth Ben gets his law degree and is holding an envelope that says “Penn” (short for University of Pennsylvania). Earth Stuart had graduated from college the week before.
AU Ben is holding his new degree,. (AI obviously knew that the “Penn” on the envelope Earth Ben was holding meant “University of Pennsylvania” and went to the trouble of engraving that on the certificate.) AU Tom’s hair is the same color it was 33 years ago when he got married. The AU Dryden sons don’t look anything like their Earth cousins. (Earth Judy wants me to tell my readers that she never, not even once, wore anything sleeveless, as her AU counterpart is wearing here.
PHOTO 7
2013: Las Vegas, Ben and Heidi’s wedding.
They say men marry women like their mothers, and that must be true on the planet these Drydens live on. This Ben not only graduated from Penn, he got married the same day to a woman whose face is almost identical to his mother’s. Speaking of his mother, the woman standing beween AU Tom and Ben is certainly not the AU Judy in the previous pictures. Where is she? Off with the man she invited on their long-ago family vacation? The youngest son hasn’t grown at all since 2003. (What do they feed kids up there? Tofu?) On second examination, maybe that’s not Ben’s wife after all, it could be AU Stuart’s bride between him and Ben. Why are the AU Drydens standing in front of their house instead of a campus or wedding chapel? The AU Drydens’ front door has windows on either side. The Earth Dryden's home didn’t. (AI sure chooses insignificant things to add to pictures while overlooking important ones, like maintaining the facial and body continuity of its subjects.)
PHOTO 8
2018: The Earth Drydens go to Key Largo. Note the designer logo on his shirt. Oh wait — there isn’t one.
AU Tom is more fashion conscious than Earth Tom —he is wearing a shirt with the prestigious Polo logo. (Why, of all things, did AI feel the need to add that? Is Polo/Ralph Lauren a sponsor of Gemini?) His hair, again, is back to its original color. Glad to see he is aging well and could pass for a man in his twenties, as opposed to his Earth counterpart! He’s posing with the same woman who was standing beside him in the last AI family photo. Wait a minute — could it be —- has he hooked up with … Olivia Newton-John? Olivia’s sister, maybe? I can’t help but wonder what happened to Alternative Universe Judy. This sure as hell isn’t her. Did AU Tom and his new wife or gf leave their young son at home? Or is the kid building a sand castle just out of the picture?
PHOTO 9
2024, Sanibel Island, Florida: The Earth Drydens at the beach with their grandsons, Teddy (10) and Isaac (8).
AU Teddy and Isaac are growth-stunted — kids 8 and 10 should be larger than these two. Why did these AU Drydens dress like this to go to a beach? Why aren’t AU Tom and Judy wearing sunhats? Is it because their planet is so far from its sun that they don’t have to worry about sun damage? At the very least I hope they applied sunscreen to AU Teddy and Isaac.
PHOTO 10
May 2026: The Earth Drydens attend Stuart and Sarah’s wedding in Mexico.
The AU Drydens and their extended family who came from where? … gather on a beach for … what? Where’s the bride? Where’s the groom? The two men on the left and the one at the far right appear to be identical triplets. The gray-haired man holding the kid looks old enough to be a grandfather. Is he the man who came with Alternative Universe Judy on their family vacation in the 1980s? If so, is that his and her grandkid?
FINAL PHOTO
December, 2025 at our nephew’s wedding: This photo is out of sequence — the beach wedding was two months ago — but I thought it would nice to end the video with a photo of Earth Tom and Judy toasting, as we did on our wedding day.
Alternative Universe Tom and Judy have reunited after their long separation and, considering they have been married for 50 years, look damn good, don’t you agree? They are drinking beer, not wine. AU Tom has grown his mustache back since the last photo. (So did Earth Tom — last month in case you, like everyone else, think I look better with it. It’s here for the duration.) Earth Judy has ordered me to print this photo so she can frame it.
Postscript: Judy and I laughed and laughed about the video Google Gemini created using the photos of our family. Once we stopped, I asked Gemini why it didn’t simply create the video using my original photos. Here is the lame excuse it gave me.
I apologize for that! AI video generation models attempt to render and blend the visual content to create smooth transitions, which can sometimes alter or stylize face features and details rather than showing the exact original photos as a standard video slideshow would.
Because AI video generation recreates images from scratch rather than simply playing static image files in sequence, it can introduce unwanted changes to your actual photographs.
That’s all, folks! Have a great week.
