CGI Tarkin was so distracting that I couldn’t take a single second that he was on screen seriously. They either should’ve recast him or had a different character. They absolutely will do this with Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford a decade or two down the line.
I found CGI Tarkin to be a lot better in the cinema - than watching it at home on blu ray, and the opposite for Leia in R1. Hang on, did I? Was it the other way around? Sounds like a good excuse to go watch R1 again 😃
As some people have likely mentioned about watching R1, the people I associate with who don’t know who Peter Cushing was don’t seem to have realised or voiced concerns that it looked off or was CGI at all. A couple expressed surprised he was still alive as he’s been ‘around for ages’ (though they are not Hammer / Star Wars fans).
The Leia scene they did notice - likely because of they are more aware of Carrie/Leia, as well as the promo material releases of how they’d acheived it.
I thought a reflection shot of Leia in the ‘windscreen’ of the ship’s bridge saying the word ‘Hope’, and then have the camera shot swing around to show her face fully may have been pulled it all off a better (just my two penneth) - yet I still think it was done quite well.
A viewing of some of the R1 threads on here (and likely elsewhere) should conjure us up with the stolen data tapes provide some more info/insight.