Disney Star Wars Trial Should Mean The End Of Dead Actor Resurrections

If you’ve seen Rogue One, you may recall that the film actually features two virtual performances. The first—and the reason Disney now has to go to trial—was the late Peter Cushing reprising his role of Grand Moff Tarkin from the first Star Wars. Rogue One also features a digital marionette painted to look like a 19-year-old Carrie Fisher.

Unlike Cushing, Fisher was alive during Rogue One‘s production, but at 60, too old to portray her younger self. She’d shed her teenage baby face—the one Lucasfilm creepily stretched and contorted to fit their AI mannequin—decades prior. So no, Disney won’t face a second Star Wars trial over their CGI Leia, but I wish they would.

A crime against nature is still a crime in my book.

Maybe I wouldn’t be so bitter about all of Disney’s digital de-aging and corpse puppeteering if they had a reason for doing it. I don’t need a good reason, just a reason. Just some justification that would help me understand why Disney would risk going to trial just to recreate a classic Star Wars character. It’s not for the money.

Nobody, not one person on Earth, went to see Rogue One for the Polar Express versions of Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher. Indiana Jones fans didn’t rush out and buy tickets to Dial of Destiny because the movie wrapped current-day Harrison Ford in forty-year-old Harrison Ford’s skin for a flashback. If anything, fans tolerate these digital dummies because they’re enjoying the rest of the film.

Disney recently inserted an AI zombie version of Ian Holm in their new Alien movie. The results were exactly what you’d expect. Review after review for Alien: Romulus consistently cited the movie’s digital Frankenstein as one of its low points. Unfortunately Disney won’t face a trial like the Star Wars one for Romulus.

In addition to fans not wanting these freaky Uncanny Valley rejects in their movies, digital actors don’t look good. Rogue One was eight years ago, and in that time, Hollywood’s deep fake technology hasn’t improved—at least if Romulus is any indication. Here’s an idea, Disney: if you want to avoid lawsuits and trials, why not just recast whatever Star Wars character you want to bring back?

Could you imagine if George Lucas had tried to digitally recreate a young Alec Guinness for the Star Wars prequels instead of casting Ewan McGregor? You would think that if anyone would be open to CGI experimentation, it would be the guy who shot three movies where 99 percent of everything was green screen. Not only did Lucas not do that, but he also put Grand Moff Tarkin in Revenge of the Sith without offending fans of the late Peter Cushing or getting sued.

That’s right, the very thing Disney has to go to trial for Lucas did in an earlier Star Wars movie with no legal complications whatsoever. How did George accomplish this witchcraft? Did he splice old footage of Peter Cushing into Episode III? Did he build an animatronic Tarkin?

Nope. George did things the old-fashioned way. He cast a new actor to play Tarkin and made him up to look a bit like Cushing. That’s it. And you know what? It worked!

Another revolutionary idea that would save Disney from another Star Wars trial is not to use characters tied to a dead actor. Tarkin didn’t have to be in Rogue One. Making a movie about the Death Star without him would have been tricky but far from impossible. Nixing the young Leia scene would have been even easier.

Whether Disney starts recasting roles where the actor is either deceased or close to it or stops using their respective characters altogether, these digital doppelgangers must stop. Maybe if Disney loses this Star Wars trial over Peter Cushing’s likeness they finally will.