A short AI-generated video built around a miniature movie set of Dubai has pulled in a like from Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, Dubai's Crown Prince, known widely as Fazza, and that alone has been enough to send it further round the internet.
The clip shows Steve Harvey's reaction as a wave crashes into a tiny scale model of the city, one built with unmistakable Dubai landmarks: the Ain Dubai Ferris wheel, the Burj Al Arab, and the Burj Khalifa all rendered in miniature before the water hits. It is a simple premise, but the execution has clearly struck a nerve. The video has picked up 97.6 million views, 1.2 million likes, 6,700 comments, and 20,000 shares.
Part of the appeal is the idea itself. The video plays with the notion that filmmakers could lean on physical miniature sets like this one instead of expensive CGI to pull off big, splashy visual moments, a nod to old-school movie magic dressed up in new AI tools. Watching a wave physically swallow tiny replicas of the Burj Al Arab and Ain Dubai has a tactile charm that a fully digital effect often lacks.
After the wave sequence, the video shifts gears and moves into footage of the real city, cutting to Palm Jumeirah, the Burj Khalifa, and the Museum of the Future, tying the miniature fantasy back to the actual skyline Dubai residents see every day.
That shift is part of why the video has resonated locally rather than just circulating as a novelty clip abroad. For people who actually live among these landmarks, seeing your own neighbourhood shrunk down and then swept by a digital wave, only to cut to the real thing moments later, hits differently. One Dubai resident summed up that feeling in the comments: "That feeling when my house is on the video, where I live 😂"
Not every reaction stayed light-hearted. Some comments took on a more defiant tone, pushing back against unspecified critics of the city. One Dubai resident wrote: "You can keep waiting. We stand firmly by our values, and we are very strong, for the rest of the world 🇦🇪"
What pushed the video from viral curiosity to local talking point, though, was Fazza's like. In a city where the Crown Prince's social media activity is watched closely, a single tap of approval on a clip built around Dubai's skyline was enough to validate it as more than just algorithm-driven internet content. It became, briefly, an official-feeling nod to a piece of fan-made AI creativity.
Whether the video's premise, tiny physical sets standing in for CGI, ever makes its way into an actual production is beside the point for now. What it has done is give Dubai's landmarks another moment in a global feed, wave, miniature model, and all, with the city's own residents recognising their skyline in both the fictional model and the real footage that follows it.
Reported by Lovin Dubai.