AI-Generated Alternate Endings: Fans Reimagine 'Squid Game' Finale with Google's Veo 3

People Hated the 'Squid Game' Ending, so They’re Using AI to Make New Ones

Pissing people off with your series finale is practically a rite of passage for beloved TV shows at this point. Just ask fans of The Sopranos, or Dexter, or Game of Thrones. And if you're feeling butt hurt by your favorite TV show's subpar ending, you may be tempted to imagine a whole new oneâ€"an ending where Tony gets whacked, or survives some kind of epic John Wick-style shootout, or, I don't know, assembles all the Infinity Stones and becomes the supreme ruler of mobsters across the universe. Or better yet, if you live in 2025, you can simply just generate a whole new ending with a few words and the click of a button. In case you haven't been paying attention, Squid Game finally dropped its third and final season, and the reaction to the series finale has been... mixed. For several reasons (one being I haven't watched the finale myself), I won't tell you what happens in the end, but it's clear that things go off the rails and not to every fan's satisfaction. In yesteryear, that would mean we're relegated to bitching about the outcome to our friends or on Reddit, or to our poor therapists, but now we have video generators like Google's slop machine, Veo 3, and people are obviously taking full advantage. You can watch Player 456 battle a CGI baby with a knife, or kick a CGI baby into the abyss, or even toss the CGI baby in! Or how about watching Player 222's baby grow up. Yeah... really. The fact that there are so many variations out thereâ€"seriously, go look on Instagram or TikTokâ€"is a testament to how easy it is to go from zero to "here's what I think happened" and then actually sort of see that play out realistically. And yes, most of these are also half-joking, but that doesn't mean that someone with a little more patience and maybe a better understanding of how to prompt AI couldn't make a more serious one. Where are the real AI slop gurus at? I want to see the BAFTA-worthy version of these amateur AI endings, though making that ending may be a lot more effort than most are willing to put in. I've previously covered the amount of prompting that actually goes into making a serviceable AI video, and it's probably a lot more than you think. According to PJ Ace, who recently generated an AI commercial with Veo 3 that aired during the NBA finals, his 30-second ad spot took about "300 to 400" generations with Veo 3, which is hard to equate into hours, I guess, but still sounds like a lot more bullshit than just typing, "make me an ad inspired by GTA" and then cashing your check. If there's one thing I've noticed in the wild world of video generation, it's that trends tend to catch on quickly and explode way past the ceiling you thought they would, so I'm going to go ahead and guess that we haven't seen the last of AI-generated endings for shows we know and love. And yes, that means a happy ending for Squid Game, a show about desperate people murdering each other for money.

AI slop artists are redoing the 'Squid Game' series finale

Was the series finale of the hit South Korean Netflix show Squid Game a good one? Depending on who you ask, not really. Judging by the endless online chatter, many viewers found the ending unsatisfying -- not necessarily because it didn't tie up loose ends (although it arguably did not), but because it left the characters in an especially grim place. For others -- particularly those with some extra time on their hands -- it became the perfect excuse to fire up Google's Veo 3 and craft an entirely new ending. Spoilers ahead, but the ending of Squid Game Season 3 is bleak. Both this season and the one before it explored the clash of ideals between Gi-hun, the show's protagonist, and the Frontman (Lee Byung-hun), with Season 3 ultimately siding with the latter's nihilistic view of humanity. In the finale, Gi-hun faces an impossible choice: save himself, or sacrifice everything to protect Player 222's newborn child during the last game. He chooses the latter, giving up his life so the baby -- an unsettlingly CGI-rendered creation -- can live. Viewers didn't love it. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. Of course, fanfiction and alternate endings are nothing new. But using AI to visualize those endings is still relatively novel -- and, frankly, strange to watch. On TikTok and Instagram, creators using Google Veo 3 have been generating new versions of the finale. Some feature Gi-hun kicking the CGI baby off a platform; others depict Player 222 surviving the Jump Rope game and going on to raise her child. There's also the one where Gi-hun has a knife fight with the baby. It's definitely disturbing stuff. There's plenty to say about Squid Game's ending itself -- like how extending the series beyond its first season arguably undermines the show's original critique of capitalism. But there's something else at play here: the growing urge to use AI to "fix" stories that were intentionally written to leave viewers unsettled. Are these AI-generated videos meant to be taken seriously? Not really. But they're also a glimpse of where things are heading -- toward a future where anyone can easily remake or reshape a story to fit their own preferred version of events. Whether that's exciting or unsettling depends on how you feel about the game itself.