Inside the Backlash: How an AI Zombie Film for Singapore’s National Day Reignited the Debate on Human vs. Machine Creativity

Imagine watching your country’s most patriotic celebration—the National Day Parade—and seeing a zombie apocalypse unfold with citizens turning into mindless infected. That was the controversial premise of Bersama Majulah (Malay for "Together Onwards"), a four-minute AI-assisted short film released by Singapore-based studio Edenstone on August 9, 2026 . The film triggered an immediate and fierce online debate, with critics calling it "AI slop" and questioning whether generative AI could ever produce culturally meaningful work .

Yet the creators were ready for the backlash. They positioned the film as a "human-written, AI-realised" project, arguing that AI enhanced the visuals but did not replace human storytelling . The incident has become a revealing case study in where audiences draw the line between human creativity and machine assistance.

What Happened: A National Day Surprise

Bersama Majulah is set in Lionara, a fictional country that strongly resembles Singapore . In the film, a deadly spore outbreak during the National Day Parade turns citizens into zombies . The film was released on Edenstone’s website sporefall.com on National Day itself .

Critics were not prepared for a dystopian zombie narrative on what is normally a celebratory, patriotic occasion. Many viewers found the premise "tone-deaf" and disrespectful, given the timing . Online comments described the film as low-quality AI-generated content that lacked the craft and emotional resonance expected of a National Day production .

Why the Backlash Was So Intense

Four main factors drove the public outcry:

1. Tone-deaf timing on a national occasion

The film premiered during Singapore’s most patriotic event of the year, making its dystopian zombie-apocalypse premise feel jarring and even disrespectful to some viewers .

2. Quality criticism ("AI slop")

Many online commenters called the film low-quality AI-generated content that lacked the craft and emotional resonance expected of a National Day production . Podcasts like Yah Lah But and industry commentators framed the backlash as "a reality check" for AI in culturally significant campaigns .

3. Existential questions about filmmaking’s future

The incident prompted wider public and industry discussion about where generative AI belongs in creative work, whether it can ever produce genuine storytelling, and whether audiences will accept AI-made content for emotionally charged cultural events .

4. Comparison with other AI National Day content

A song and a public banner that also used AI that year received mixed but less harsh reactions, suggesting the backlash was tied not just to AI itself but to whether the work felt authentic and well-crafted .

The Creator’s Defense: "Human-Written, AI-Realised"

Edenstone’s core framing throughout the controversy has been consistent: the script, story, and narrative soul came from human writers, while AI was used only as a tool to generate and enhance the visuals .

Executive producer Chan Gin Kai, a Golden Horse Award winner in 2025, stressed that "the soul of the work is written by humans" and that AI is merely a production layer directed by people . Showrunner Joel Boh led the creative direction, and the film also featured a theme song by local musician Dharma Sadasivan, underscoring the human elements beyond the AI-generated imagery .

Boh acknowledged the "sense of revulsion towards 'AI slop'" but denied the film was low-quality content, insisting that "the soul of the work is entirely the result of human touch" . The creators acknowledged the backlash was expected but argued the project was intended to spark conversation about AI's role as an assistive technology, not a replacement for human creativity .

What This Means for the Future of Filmmaking

The Bersama Majulah incident is not an isolated case. Singapore’s 2026 National Day creative work has become a revealing test of where generative AI belongs in culturally significant campaigns . A song by filmmaker Jack Neo and a public banner that also used AI that year received mixed reactions, but the pattern was consistent: audiences responded to whether the work felt accurate, considered, and recognizably human .

Globally, similar debates are unfolding. Copyright authorities in the US and elsewhere have ruled that material generated wholly by AI cannot be copyrighted, while work produced with AI assistance—where human authorship is dominant—can still be protected . The question of attribution in creative fields mirrors the tension at the heart of Bersama Majulah.

The film may have been derided as "AI slop," but the debate it ignited says more about human anxiety around authorship and authenticity than it does about any single piece of software. If the Bersama Majulah backlash has a single lesson, it is that audiences will tolerate AI tools only when the human heart of a story remains unmistakably visible.