A brief post at Wired‘s Underwire blog seeks to quash rumours that George Lucas has plans to digitally reanimate the dead movie stars of years gone by for use in his productions. Given that the story started at notorious lie-stuffed UK hate-rag The Daily Mail, you’d think it would have been written off as bunk much earlier…
That said, there is a precedent for the Lucas story lurking in the Futurismic archives – back in January, James Cameron was talking about how CGI can be used to restore the vigour of youth to ageing stars, and pointed out that the same technology could permit Tom Cruise to keep making Impossible Mission sequels long after his eventual death. If that’s not a deeply dystopian misuse of technological progress, I don’t know what is.
Surely it’s only a matter of time before all movie stars are virtual anyway and real acting is the preserve of live theatre? Much cheaper than paying real ones (plus stuntmen, body-doubles etc.) After that, isn’t is just a question of licensing image rights?
Watch the first ten minutes or so of Space Cowboys to see this in action.