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Harrison Ford in "Solo: A Star Wars Story" - Amazing deepfake (up on youtube)

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I’m amazed and terrified at how good this stuff is getting.

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Where were you in '77?

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Only a matter of time before video evidence is inadmissible in trials.

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Rodney-2187 said:

Only a matter of time before video evidence is inadmissible in trials.

One would have to have a lot of footage to deepfake a non famous person though?

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Where were you in '77?

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NFBisms said:

i am both thoroughly impressed and absolutely hating the progression of this technology

Yeah me too! Just had a big discussion on facebook who wrote:

"For Walt Disney, and companies like it, that own so much intellectual property that is built around the likenesses of human actors, in addition to animated characters, this kind of digital mask has the potential of extending the ability to keep much of this property alive even as the actors age or die.

“Solo” and “Mary Poppins Returns” both underperformed commercially, and I think one of the main reasons the two films did so is because the look of the characters is not consistent with the original visualizations.

Not every character can be a James Bond."

I can’t tell you how abhorrent this concept is to me, the idea that the artistry of great actors is reduced to someone doing their best impression of a much more talented person with some digital makeup.

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I think it boils down to whether an actor or their family/estate gives permission or not. Disney has rights to Mary Poppins, but they don’t own Julie Andrews’ face.

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Where were you in '77?

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 (Edited)

I feel that using deepfakes is more in the way of filming of George Lucas than Disney: Lucas has always tried to do without “living” actors in his films, and to replace them with image banks or CGI-characters that he could assemble at will during the film editing (IIRC, he speaks frankly about this wish in the bonuses of AotC).

I believe that he would probably use these deepfakes extensively in his new films if he had kept the license of SW. And the result wouldn’t be as ugly as CGI-Leia and CGI-Tarkin, nor as rambling as using Carrie Fisher’s old takes in TRoS and trying to make a story around them.

It’s certainly both scary and revolutionary, but IMHO, that’s the direction cinema will take, as inevitably as the arrival of DV twenty years ago.

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Wow, that is pretty good. Imagine the hell this will play with politics and things like #metoo accusations.

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This is really good for the most part. Would watch this.

For seventeen years the renegade Pfhor scoutship jumped between the closely packed stars of the galactic core. And all over the ship, dancing through the wreckage of the Pfhor computer core, Durandal was laughing…

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ZigZig said:

I feel that using deepfakes is more in the way of filming of George Lucas than Disney: Lucas has always tried to do without “living” actors in his films, and to replace them with image banks or CGI-characters that he could assemble at will during the film editing (IIRC, he speaks frankly about this wish in the bonuses of AotC).

I believe that he would probably use these deepfakes extensively in his new films if he had kept the license of SW. And the result wouldn’t be as ugly as CGI-Leia and CGI-Tarkin, nor as rambling as using Carrie Fisher’s old takes in TRoS and trying to make a story around them.

This chimes with a quote from the late Mel Smith, director of ‘Radioland Murders’ and a well-loved member of the British comedy anti-establishment.

In a December 2010 interview with the Daily Mail, he is quoted as saying:

"George doesn’t understand comedy, so the movie [Radioland Murders] flopped. At least it taught me how to use CGI. George is obsessed with it and used too much in the last two Star Wars films — which I thought were ghastly.

“He’s been buying up the film rights to dead movie stars in the hope of using computer trickery to put them all together in a movie, so you’d have Orson Welles and Barbara Stanwyck appear alongside today’s stars.”

Lucasfilm denied this was the case afterwards, but it has stuck in my mind since I first read it.

“If it ain’t workin’, eat sugar.”

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I just discovered this and now I want it to become standard practice for all recasts. I hate recasts, it’s one of the main reasons I still haven’t gotten around to watching Solo. But if we ever get to a point where someone can deepfake Ford’s face into the entire movie, I’ll definitely give it a shot.

And someone should add Mark Ruffalo into The Incredible Hulk while they’re at it.

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Sorry but that’s just dumb. Why not give the actors who actually portrayed the character for the film a chance? The new casting of Han, Lando, and Chewie (ok so he’d played chewie already in a few films but it’s not Mayhew) is one of the highlights of Solo imo. The new actors really do a phenomenal job nailing the old familiar characters without being just impersonations of previous actors.

Did I buy them as Harrison Ford or Billy Dee Williams? Of course not. But did I buy them as authentic Han Solo and Lando Calrissian? Absolutely 1000%!

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Buzz Lightyear said:

canofhumdingers said:

Sorry but that’s just dumb.

From my point of view, recasting Han Solo is dumb.

Friend, you are crazy!

The actors in Solo will obviously never be the same as the originals, but they still portray the characters really well. I highly recommend checking Solo out, what could you possibly lose from watching it?

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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To me, it seems ethical as long as the credit for the performance is given to the person acting, not the person whose face is being used. There are plenty of people in real life who have extremely similar faces to one another, and movie studios already look for that sort of thing when re-casting an existing role. It’s about visual continuity; they’re not actually trying to make the audience think they’re the same person. Deepfakes are similar - Rogue One replaced the faces of Guy Henry and Ingvild Deila, in order to make them look like Tarkin and Leia in a New Hope, but they were still the ones listed in the credits. They didn’t claim to have magically de-aged Carrie Fisher or brought Peter Cushing back to life. It should be about the consistency of the character, not the appeal of the actor; which also means an actor’s face should only be used for a role they’ve already played. Otherwise, it’ll end up feeling like those 1970’s movies that cast Bruce Lee lookalikes to make them more appealing to audiences who didn’t know Bruce Lee was dead (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruceploitation).

You’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Am I making Carrie Fisher’s ghost proud?”
Well, are ya, punk?

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I didn’t have a major issue with it when it was for brief cameos or minor roles such as Rogue One (though I’d have been perfectly happy with them using actual actors to portray those roles instead of CGI recreations).

But when it comes to doing it for the main character of an entire film, no thanks. I’d rather have a new actor who looks enough like the established character and does a great job playing that character than have some Orwellian digital facsimile anachronistically inserting a younger (or dead) actor into a modern film. And with Solo, that’s what we got so I guess I win!* 😛

*that last part about me winning was tongue in cheek if it wasn’t obvious

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Can someone do this to the briefing room Wedge and the entire Jabba scene in ANH.

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yotsuya said:

Can someone do this to the briefing room Wedge and the entire Jabba scene in ANH.

Could it be possible to replace Jabba by Jar Jar ?

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To me the logical endpoint is to have hand-crafted faces for characters. Instead of just having an actor use their own face, they have a face created by the art department superimposed on them through this process. For example, instead of Harry Potter looking like Daniel Radcliffe, his face would be something carefully designed by a committee referencing the books’ illustrations and drawing up concept art before coming up with the finished product. That way you don’t have to question the ethics of resurrecting dead actors, and if an actor just can’t be bothered with another sequel, they can easily be replaced.

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That just sounds like animation with extra steps…
(not saying it’s a bad idea though.)

You’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Am I making Carrie Fisher’s ghost proud?”
Well, are ya, punk?