7 ms·

How ‘Rogue One’ Brought Back Familiar Faces

32 points by stevewilhelm 10y ago

danvoell 10y ago
Thanks NYT! - "Warning: This article contains spoilers about “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."
camperman 10y ago
I was horribly unimpressed with the CGI versions of both Tarkin and Leia. I've seen video games that do better. And then it hit me a few days later: modern CGI is perfectly capable of rendering a very realistic person but the teams are told not to, either because actors have lobbied against it or on orders from high up. EDIT: Y'all are blind as bats :) I saw it in IMAX 3D and it was like watching a video game character mixed in with real people.
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  I have not seen more realistic human characters in video games. Please give an example. It took me a second to notice Tarkin wasn't real, and I saw it in IMAX. I'd say it's remarkable that we've reached the point where this can credibly be done at all, and done confidently without hiding the characters in shadows or strobe lights and avoiding close ups.
  - EvilTerran 10y ago
    In terms of video games - the first time I saw it, I spent a good chunk of the opening cut-scene of Halo 4 trying to figure out if Dr Halsey was live-action or CG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3zcO28JbHxI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3zcO28JbHxI I wouldn't go so far as to call that better than the Rogue One CG work, but it's... comparable quality, at least. I don't really care to rank them, they're both downright incredible in my book.
    - surye 10y ago
      Great CG playing against good cg (not all characters/env are created equal) makes the great CG stand out as realistic. Great CG playing against real life makes the great CG look off and less realistic. I think your example is a matter of contrast more than technology.
- nilkn 10y ago
  For what it's worth, my family members went into the movie not knowing ahead of time that Tarkin was CGI, and they didn't realize he was throughout the movie. I had to tell them after it was over.
  - cstejerean 10y ago
    I didn't realize it until I read about it earlier today. My wife had no clue either, she was shocked when I told her. So I think they definitely did a good job with Tarkin.
  - nsxwolf 10y ago
    I mean, it has to be pretty good if it took my brain a couple seconds to ask "Wait, isn't Peter Cushing dead? Oh shit, it's CGI". We may still be in the Uncanny Valley, but we've climbed pretty high out of it.
  - pcmaffey 10y ago
    Had no idea either. Ironically, while watching, I was most impressed with his 'acting' performance of all the characters.... Perhaps because the total lack of humanity came through visibly.
  - marcell 10y ago
    I didn't know about this going in, and I don't recall the details of Star Wars well enough to know that this character was in Episode 4. My though process was something like this: "That character seems weird...is it CG? It can't be, that would be too weird...but something about the character just seems off." I may be more sensitive to this than others. It was pretty impressive, though for me still in the uncanny valley.
    - dvtv75 10y ago
      I went in not realizing Tarkin was in it, and the moment I saw him my reaction was "AAAAAAAH! CREEPY!" It was most impressive, but still creepy. I think... I feel that the upper half the face wasn't quite right.
    - 10y ago
- RustyRussell 10y ago
  Yep, I had the same unnerving feeling of watching a video game cut scene. Really took me out of the film :(
- brian-armstrong 10y ago
  I didn't notice Leia being CGI as much, but Tarkin was fully in uncanny valley. His face texture was a little too smooth and you could contrast with the live actors in several shots. The lighting/shading on his render wasn't right in the bridge, either. It's weird to me that they would choose a goofy CGI when they could have just taken a similar looking actor. I was getting flashbacks to Tron Legacy the whole time
  - artpepper 10y ago
    That's funny, I had the opposite reaction - CGI Tarkin didn't bother me too much but Leia was creepy.
  - toyg 10y ago
    It's a challenge, I bet a lot of Lucasfilm fx guys were thrilled at the prospect and did their very best. Still, I agree that the result is underwhelming and, above all, gratuitous: there was no need to involve Tarkin directly, and Leia could have been handled in better ways (e.g. camera shooting from the back, or showing only her hair -- Leia has such a distinctive hairdo, you'd need very little to know it's her).
- lobster_johnson 10y ago
  I cringed every second he was on screen. While it was clearly better than any CGI character I've seen, it was still strikingly obvious, especially as the editing cut between CGI-Tarkin and real-human Krennic. The textures are superbly detailed, but Tarkin comes across as a botoxed-up; there's something very wrong and jerky about the movement of his eyes and mouth. There's also something horribly wrong about his skin colour. In the film he looks like he's deathly ill — reddish eyes, deep purple eye sockets. Cushing was elderly in the original trilogy, but he wasn't near death. I don't think it's a coincidence that you (or, rather, I) can't find a single clip of the CGI Tarkin on YouTube. I did find a low-res cam screenshot [1], and you can see the uncanny valley even there. He looks a bit vampiric. [1] http://i.imgur.com/kAwm23P.png http://i.imgur.com/kAwm23P.png
  - op00to 10y ago
    I thought the vampiric look was the point - that all that evil sucks the life out of you.
  - mjhea0 10y ago
    Die hard fans cringed. I thought the Leia part at the end really hurt the film. Instead of focusing on the story, I immediately started wondering how they achieved it.
    - mjhea0 10y ago
      I took me out of the moment, in other words.
- princeb 10y ago
  > Y'all are blind as bats i don't remember tarkin from the first film, i didn't know he was CGI'd, and I didn't notice anything while i was watching the show. i thought he was just another campy actor acting in the spirit of the original film, which was super campy. the x-wing battle at the end of the film convinced me that some of these actors were likely intentionally hamming it up, like a command and conquer cutscene.
  - basch 10y ago
    some of those pilot contributions were filmed in 77.
stevesearer 10y ago
I didn't see it addressed in the article, though I may have missed it, but would the family of Peter Cushing be paid for the use of his likeness? Do you need permission to use someone's likeness like a copyright or something?
- stupidcar 10y ago
  This article by Vulture goes into some detail about it: http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/rogue-one-peter-cushing-digital-likeness.html http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/rogue-one-peter-cushing-digit... In short, personality (e.g. likeness) rights are well established in law, but vary by territory, especially for posthumous usage. Disney almost certainly negotiated with his estate / living descendents.
- Fezzik 10y ago
  Per [1] it looks like there was an agreement between Mr. Cushing's estate and Industrial Light & Magic. I would be surprised if this did not involve some sort of compensation to the estate. In this day and age though, I would also not be surprised if in some franchise contracts big studios try to get preemptive agreements to use an actor's likeness in future films. Obviously that was not the case here though. [1] http://www.slashfilm.com/grand-moff-tarkin-in-rogue-one/ http://www.slashfilm.com/grand-moff-tarkin-in-rogue-one/ Edited to add: for a long summary of likeness law, see: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/using-name-or-likeness-another http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/using-name-or-likeness-anoth...
cyberferret 10y ago
Just saw Rogue 1 last night. By my calculations, Leia's character appeared on screen at about the same moment Carrie Fisher passed. Poignant and sad. But related to this thread, i must admit that Tarkin's CGI character fooled me for the first few minutes. I was so caught up in the story that it took me a while to realise Cushing was no longer with us.
- Jarwain 10y ago
  I wasn't even aware that the actor wasn't with us until afterwards when discussing the movie with friends. I noticed a weird glow but I didn't really think about it; it amazes me how good CGI has gotten these days to be able to portray a person without some people even noticing.
awestley 10y ago
Sadly they need to use this for one more familiar face. :(
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
filoeleven 10y ago
There is a subplot in "The Congress" where the actress Robin Wright (of Princess Bride fame) agrees to be digitized so that they can use her likeness in films. Part of her contract is that she may never act again. It makes me wonder how long it will be before we start seeing digitized actors who have not died, and what kind of rights/residuals they will get. It was a strange film; I enjoyed it. Fans of Philip K. Dick would do well to watch it--it reminded me a lot of his work (though it was not based on anything he wrote).
- lobster_johnson 10y ago
  It's actually supposed to be based on The Futurological Congress [1] by Dick's contemporary Stanislaw Lem, although they changed it beyond recognition. The only thing the book and the film have in common is that there's a congress. I didn't enjoy the film at all, but I can recommend the novel, which is excellent. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Futurological-Congress-Memoirs-Ijon-Tichy/dp/0156340402 https://www.amazon.com/Futurological-Congress-Memoirs-Ijon-T...
  - filoeleven 10y ago
    Yes, I almost added that it was loosely based on Lem, who I have yet to read, but when I went to confirm this on Wikipedia, I found that the director actually stated that he used the book "more as a source of inspiration." So I imagine going in expecting to see a faithful reproduction would be pretty disappointing!
    - lobster_johnson 10y ago
      If you like PKD, I think you'll like Lem. He's very different, but they have some commonalities; they were both great, inventive conceptual thinkers with a superbly dry sense of humour. TFC is a very dry, dark satire.
jmcgough 10y ago
I was pretty blown away by it in theaters - crazy to see Tarkin, Leia, and Mothma, looking and sounding almost exactly as they did in in Episode 4 all those years ago.
- bsharitt 10y ago
  I think quick cameos are really doable right now. Leia was fin in Rogue One, but the more Tarkin appeared on screen, the more "off" he felt to me. The animators definitely made it across uncanny valley and most of the way up the other, but I think we're still a little short of the top for extended appearances along side real people.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    This is Star Wars...uncanny CGI can't offend too many fans.
    - Joakal 10y ago
      The first 3 star wars movies was made mostly with props (miniatures). The next 3 were CGI. http://themovieblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/lucas-green-screen.jpg http://themovieblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/lucas-gre...
      - zanny 10y ago
        Except unless you own a copy of the VHS release before 1997 you are stuck with bad CGI in the original three. Which is certainly sad. Anyone born since around 1995 has probably only seen the awful song scene in Episode 6 version.
      - paulddraper 10y ago
        > The first 3 star wars movies was made mostly with props (miniatures). If you bought them decades ago.
  - ropeladder 10y ago
wazoox 10y ago
Tarkin was excellently made. I'm pretty sure most people not knowing of the trick didn't suspect anything. OTOH I've found Leia, for the few seconds she's visible at the end, quite poorly done; in particular her lips moved in a very unrealistic and artificial way.
lobster_johnson 10y ago
It's interesting that of among these promotional articles and videos about the Tarkin and Leia CGI reconstructions, there's not a single frame grab or video clip. There's absolutely nothing on YouTube. With all the gushing about how they managed to bring a dead actor to life, you'd think Disney would release some clips. (FWIW, I was among those who thought the CGI characters were awful, in an otherwise brilliant film.)

32 points by stevewilhelm 10y ago

Thanks NYT! - "Warning: This article contains spoilers about “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."

I was horribly unimpressed with the CGI versions of both Tarkin and Leia. I've seen video games that do better. And then it hit me a few days later: modern CGI is perfectly capable of rendering a very realistic person but the teams are told not to, either because actors have lobbied against it or on orders from high up. EDIT: Y'all are blind as bats :) I saw it in IMAX 3D and it was like watching a video game character mixed in with real people.

nsxwolf 10y ago
I have not seen more realistic human characters in video games. Please give an example. It took me a second to notice Tarkin wasn't real, and I saw it in IMAX. I'd say it's remarkable that we've reached the point where this can credibly be done at all, and done confidently without hiding the characters in shadows or strobe lights and avoiding close ups.
- EvilTerran 10y ago
  In terms of video games - the first time I saw it, I spent a good chunk of the opening cut-scene of Halo 4 trying to figure out if Dr Halsey was live-action or CG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3zcO28JbHxI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3zcO28JbHxI I wouldn't go so far as to call that better than the Rogue One CG work, but it's... comparable quality, at least. I don't really care to rank them, they're both downright incredible in my book.
  - surye 10y ago
    Great CG playing against good cg (not all characters/env are created equal) makes the great CG stand out as realistic. Great CG playing against real life makes the great CG look off and less realistic. I think your example is a matter of contrast more than technology.
nilkn 10y ago
For what it's worth, my family members went into the movie not knowing ahead of time that Tarkin was CGI, and they didn't realize he was throughout the movie. I had to tell them after it was over.
- cstejerean 10y ago
  I didn't realize it until I read about it earlier today. My wife had no clue either, she was shocked when I told her. So I think they definitely did a good job with Tarkin.
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  I mean, it has to be pretty good if it took my brain a couple seconds to ask "Wait, isn't Peter Cushing dead? Oh shit, it's CGI". We may still be in the Uncanny Valley, but we've climbed pretty high out of it.
- pcmaffey 10y ago
  Had no idea either. Ironically, while watching, I was most impressed with his 'acting' performance of all the characters.... Perhaps because the total lack of humanity came through visibly.
- marcell 10y ago
  I didn't know about this going in, and I don't recall the details of Star Wars well enough to know that this character was in Episode 4. My though process was something like this: "That character seems weird...is it CG? It can't be, that would be too weird...but something about the character just seems off." I may be more sensitive to this than others. It was pretty impressive, though for me still in the uncanny valley.
  - dvtv75 10y ago
    I went in not realizing Tarkin was in it, and the moment I saw him my reaction was "AAAAAAAH! CREEPY!" It was most impressive, but still creepy. I think... I feel that the upper half the face wasn't quite right.
  - 10y ago
RustyRussell 10y ago
Yep, I had the same unnerving feeling of watching a video game cut scene. Really took me out of the film :(
brian-armstrong 10y ago
I didn't notice Leia being CGI as much, but Tarkin was fully in uncanny valley. His face texture was a little too smooth and you could contrast with the live actors in several shots. The lighting/shading on his render wasn't right in the bridge, either. It's weird to me that they would choose a goofy CGI when they could have just taken a similar looking actor. I was getting flashbacks to Tron Legacy the whole time
- artpepper 10y ago
  That's funny, I had the opposite reaction - CGI Tarkin didn't bother me too much but Leia was creepy.
- toyg 10y ago
  It's a challenge, I bet a lot of Lucasfilm fx guys were thrilled at the prospect and did their very best. Still, I agree that the result is underwhelming and, above all, gratuitous: there was no need to involve Tarkin directly, and Leia could have been handled in better ways (e.g. camera shooting from the back, or showing only her hair -- Leia has such a distinctive hairdo, you'd need very little to know it's her).
lobster_johnson 10y ago
I cringed every second he was on screen. While it was clearly better than any CGI character I've seen, it was still strikingly obvious, especially as the editing cut between CGI-Tarkin and real-human Krennic. The textures are superbly detailed, but Tarkin comes across as a botoxed-up; there's something very wrong and jerky about the movement of his eyes and mouth. There's also something horribly wrong about his skin colour. In the film he looks like he's deathly ill — reddish eyes, deep purple eye sockets. Cushing was elderly in the original trilogy, but he wasn't near death. I don't think it's a coincidence that you (or, rather, I) can't find a single clip of the CGI Tarkin on YouTube. I did find a low-res cam screenshot [1], and you can see the uncanny valley even there. He looks a bit vampiric. [1] http://i.imgur.com/kAwm23P.png http://i.imgur.com/kAwm23P.png
- op00to 10y ago
  I thought the vampiric look was the point - that all that evil sucks the life out of you.
- mjhea0 10y ago
  Die hard fans cringed. I thought the Leia part at the end really hurt the film. Instead of focusing on the story, I immediately started wondering how they achieved it.
  - mjhea0 10y ago
    I took me out of the moment, in other words.
princeb 10y ago
> Y'all are blind as bats i don't remember tarkin from the first film, i didn't know he was CGI'd, and I didn't notice anything while i was watching the show. i thought he was just another campy actor acting in the spirit of the original film, which was super campy. the x-wing battle at the end of the film convinced me that some of these actors were likely intentionally hamming it up, like a command and conquer cutscene.
- basch 10y ago
  some of those pilot contributions were filmed in 77.

stevesearer 10y ago

I didn't see it addressed in the article, though I may have missed it, but would the family of Peter Cushing be paid for the use of his likeness? Do you need permission to use someone's likeness like a copyright or something?

stupidcar 10y ago
This article by Vulture goes into some detail about it: http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/rogue-one-peter-cushing-digital-likeness.html http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/rogue-one-peter-cushing-digit... In short, personality (e.g. likeness) rights are well established in law, but vary by territory, especially for posthumous usage. Disney almost certainly negotiated with his estate / living descendents.
Fezzik 10y ago
Per [1] it looks like there was an agreement between Mr. Cushing's estate and Industrial Light & Magic. I would be surprised if this did not involve some sort of compensation to the estate. In this day and age though, I would also not be surprised if in some franchise contracts big studios try to get preemptive agreements to use an actor's likeness in future films. Obviously that was not the case here though. [1] http://www.slashfilm.com/grand-moff-tarkin-in-rogue-one/ http://www.slashfilm.com/grand-moff-tarkin-in-rogue-one/ Edited to add: for a long summary of likeness law, see: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/using-name-or-likeness-another http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/using-name-or-likeness-anoth...

cyberferret 10y ago

Just saw Rogue 1 last night. By my calculations, Leia's character appeared on screen at about the same moment Carrie Fisher passed. Poignant and sad. But related to this thread, i must admit that Tarkin's CGI character fooled me for the first few minutes. I was so caught up in the story that it took me a while to realise Cushing was no longer with us.

Jarwain 10y ago
I wasn't even aware that the actor wasn't with us until afterwards when discussing the movie with friends. I noticed a weird glow but I didn't really think about it; it amazes me how good CGI has gotten these days to be able to portray a person without some people even noticing.

awestley 10y ago

Sadly they need to use this for one more familiar face. :(

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

filoeleven 10y ago

There is a subplot in "The Congress" where the actress Robin Wright (of Princess Bride fame) agrees to be digitized so that they can use her likeness in films. Part of her contract is that she may never act again. It makes me wonder how long it will be before we start seeing digitized actors who have not died, and what kind of rights/residuals they will get. It was a strange film; I enjoyed it. Fans of Philip K. Dick would do well to watch it--it reminded me a lot of his work (though it was not based on anything he wrote).

lobster_johnson 10y ago
It's actually supposed to be based on The Futurological Congress [1] by Dick's contemporary Stanislaw Lem, although they changed it beyond recognition. The only thing the book and the film have in common is that there's a congress. I didn't enjoy the film at all, but I can recommend the novel, which is excellent. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Futurological-Congress-Memoirs-Ijon-Tichy/dp/0156340402 https://www.amazon.com/Futurological-Congress-Memoirs-Ijon-T...
- filoeleven 10y ago
  Yes, I almost added that it was loosely based on Lem, who I have yet to read, but when I went to confirm this on Wikipedia, I found that the director actually stated that he used the book "more as a source of inspiration." So I imagine going in expecting to see a faithful reproduction would be pretty disappointing!
  - lobster_johnson 10y ago
    If you like PKD, I think you'll like Lem. He's very different, but they have some commonalities; they were both great, inventive conceptual thinkers with a superbly dry sense of humour. TFC is a very dry, dark satire.

jmcgough 10y ago

I was pretty blown away by it in theaters - crazy to see Tarkin, Leia, and Mothma, looking and sounding almost exactly as they did in in Episode 4 all those years ago.

bsharitt 10y ago
I think quick cameos are really doable right now. Leia was fin in Rogue One, but the more Tarkin appeared on screen, the more "off" he felt to me. The animators definitely made it across uncanny valley and most of the way up the other, but I think we're still a little short of the top for extended appearances along side real people.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  This is Star Wars...uncanny CGI can't offend too many fans.
  - Joakal 10y ago
    The first 3 star wars movies was made mostly with props (miniatures). The next 3 were CGI. http://themovieblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/lucas-green-screen.jpg http://themovieblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/lucas-gre...
    - zanny 10y ago
      Except unless you own a copy of the VHS release before 1997 you are stuck with bad CGI in the original three. Which is certainly sad. Anyone born since around 1995 has probably only seen the awful song scene in Episode 6 version.
    - paulddraper 10y ago
      > The first 3 star wars movies was made mostly with props (miniatures). If you bought them decades ago.
- ropeladder 10y ago

wazoox 10y ago

Tarkin was excellently made. I'm pretty sure most people not knowing of the trick didn't suspect anything. OTOH I've found Leia, for the few seconds she's visible at the end, quite poorly done; in particular her lips moved in a very unrealistic and artificial way.

lobster_johnson 10y ago

It's interesting that of among these promotional articles and videos about the Tarkin and Leia CGI reconstructions, there's not a single frame grab or video clip. There's absolutely nothing on YouTube. With all the gushing about how they managed to bring a dead actor to life, you'd think Disney would release some clips. (FWIW, I was among those who thought the CGI characters were awful, in an otherwise brilliant film.)