
One of the best performances in ‘Rogue One’ is by an actor who died in 1994 - ilamont
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/12/15/one-of-the-best-performances-in-rogue-one-is-by-an-actor-who-died-in-1994/
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NuSkooler
I can't disagree more. The CGI was bad and should have been kept to a minimum.
It was the ONLY thing I (and a few other's I talked to) didn't like about the
movie.

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crooked-v
Looking at a single frame at a time, it's nearly perfect. I think the problem
comes in how something about the lighting is just a little bit off compared to
the rest of the scene and how that shows up when the face starts moving.

It's something that works better for Leia at the end because, aside from the
shortness of that scene, the lighting is more indistinct and washed-out, so
the little giveaways of light on skin aren't as obvious.

~~~
Bedon292
Wow, I was wondering how they got Tarkin so wrong, while Leia was pretty darn
good. The lighting is what made the difference. The shine that was on Tarkin,
which didn't work in those dark scenes, worked perfectly fine in the super
bright lighting.

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rokosbasilisk
I thought leia was worse, when her mouth moved I got a horrible chill.

~~~
Bedon292
Glad I wasn't the only one. When it was just her face, it was fine. As soon as
she talked it bugged me.

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caseysoftware
So who got paid?

Crispin Glover went through a similar experience in Back to the Future 2 & 3
where they took old footage, added a stand in with prosthetics based on his
face mold, and didn't pay him.

Basically due to using the face mold, the argument became that the new actor
wasn't playing George McFly (a character) but Crispin Glover (an actor,
covered by the Screen Actors Guild). They settled out of court and supposedly
he got $750k so this one isn't settled.

Ref: [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/back-future-ii-a-
le...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/back-future-ii-a-legal-833705)

~~~
joeax
Disney/Lucasfilm signed an agreement with the estate of Peter Cushing. In the
case of Crispin Glover, they used his likeness without his consent, which
prompted him to sue and win.

~~~
caseysoftware
Sounds like a simple and reasonable approach. Thanks!

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joeax
This should win them an Oscar for visual effects. Unlike what they did with
Paul Walker in F&F7, Tarkin not only looked and spoke almost exactly like the
1977 Peter Cushing, the character had a substantial role in the movie. (note:
surprised there's no credit to Cushing at all on IMDB)

This is truly groundbreaking, and I would expect a new era in movies where
they bring back actors from the dead and/or sign actors to contracts to
license their likeness beyond a single movie.

~~~
Keyframe
Expect more of this. Facial scans of full FACS
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_Action_Coding_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_Action_Coding_System)
have already been and are done. I expect more comprehensive scans as well as
some advancement in audio synthesis (probably based on scans? I'm not
knowledgable about audio). On top of that, some legal and you will get full-
fledged synthespians soon enough.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_actor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_actor)

Animators, to an extent, already are actors. You have to be in order to be an
animator.

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issa
People seem to have a wide range of reactions to it. I thought Leia was
perfect, and Tarkin was in the uncanny valley. But I've spoken to people who
feel the exact opposite. Regardless, great movie and the days of CGI
characters are definitely upon us.

~~~
waterphone
Leia was played by Ingvild Deila [1] [2] [3] in Rogue One (at least in part,
there may have been CG involved too).

[1] [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm6488665/](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm6488665/)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/Ingvild_Deila/status/808730029203095556](https://twitter.com/Ingvild_Deila/status/808730029203095556)

[3]
[https://twitter.com/Ingvild_Deila/status/809666112820539392](https://twitter.com/Ingvild_Deila/status/809666112820539392)

~~~
tempestn
Obviously there was CG involved; she looked exactly like 70s Carrie Fisher.

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zitterbewegung
To be honest I think they did the best they could do given the technology and
given its tradeoffs a solution that wasn't as bad as other people think. Maybe
10 years from now they will do a remastered version where the CG is more
convincing. The issue I saw was that the skin was glassy possibly due to the
lack of translucency. If I were to do it I would have made it into a
holographic voice call for Tarkin and keep the reveal with Leia since there
was less lighting and screen time for her.

If they had recast Tarkin we would also probably still see complaints.

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JunkDNA
This thread is fascinating to me. I watched the whole movie thinking that they
had found an amazingly good Cushing look-alike. I had no clue it was CGI until
I came home to read the spoilers. Curious if the people that thought Tarkin
looked fake saw the movie in 3D?

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feld
I saw it in 3D (hated it, really want to see in non-3D) and couldn't tell he
was CGI either.

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Esau
It was _so_ obvious in 2D. I wonder if 3D somehow helped mask it.

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cjslep
I saw it in 3D and when I first saw his face, thought "Dobby!"

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feld
Ooooohhhhh now I see it. You're right there is an uncanny resemblance.

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EvenThisAcronym
I saw this in theatre and instantly knew something was off with his face. It
was such a disturbing feeling, made my brain question whether everyone else in
the movie was CG as well and it took awhile before I was able to see the other
actors as "real" again. The uncanny valley is deep and extremely disturbing.

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mozumder
Lot of the criticism of the CGI characters is due to the knowledge that they
were CGI. People that know Peter Cushing was dead and have seen Star Wars with
Carrie Fisher 40 years ago are going to be biased. That bias limits suspension
of disbelief.

People that have no idea Peter Cushing died or who Princess Leia is aren't
going to complain about the spot-on CGI.

~~~
slavik81
They recast Mon Martha. It's not inconceivable that they would have recast
Leia or Tarkin. In fact, that's what I had expected them to do. I was
surprised when Tarkin was revealed and was obviously CGI. It was very
distracting. Though, admittedly, computer graphics is my specialty.

On the other hand, I didn't notice Leia was CGI.

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pbw
Who got paid? Can they just rip any dead persons look for free?

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nicky0
The Estate of Peter Cushing

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Lazare
I personally found Leia a bit jarring, but thought Tarkin was perfect.

There's definitely a wide range of reactions.

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seastonATccs
I found on my second viewing the CGI tarkin and Leia were much more believable
to me. I wonder if the artists and directors brains filled in the gaps of the
uncanny valley as they were very familiar to them.

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jscheel
I went to school for animation. Granted, I'm not in that field now, but I
thought Tarkin was spot-on. The entire film, I was thinking how well they cast
a replacement.

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sssilver
Both were deep in the uncanny valley for me, Leia looked worse. To me,
animations/facial mimicry is what gives it away. Renders themselves are pretty
much perfect at this point, bar barely noticeable fakeness of subsurface
scattering.

