Alien Romulus and the future of AI assisted CG performances
Cliff_Forster
Icrontian
For those who have not yet seen Alien Romulus - This will offer a very light duty spoiler and nothing outside of that. Nothing that should fundamentally ruin the film but if you want to preserve every moment, stop here.... Still reading??
By some technical mixture of computer graphics and artificial intelligence these movie magic makers convincingly bring Ian Holm back from the dead, plaster his 1979 mug on a new science officer and it is the first time I've seen this done where it is not "Uncanny Valley" - assuming someone goes in to see this and they have never seen the original 1979 Alien they might be clueless that the performance is not actually given by an actor. It's that convincing looking, and.... I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it?
When we saw them bring Peter Cushing back from the dead to have moments with Tarkin in Rogue One, I think it was pretty clear to everyone in the audience that something about that was technical, not quite human - Alien Romulus has finally gotten the technology to a point where it's one of the most impressive things you have ever seen in cinema. It's mind blowing, but also kind of alarming how fast that tech has advanced.
There are so many ethical questions, I barely know where to begin. Not that anyone will ever want to bring me back from the dead, but let's assume it's an option, I do a thing that is popular, humanity wants to preserve that, how do I claim agency over the things that happen to my likeness after my passing? Will this rob actors of potential opportunities? In the case of this film, obviously some folks in the effects and sound labs got paid, but could you just have easily cast an actor to play a different android that mirrored the directive? Now that this can be done so convincingly, will Disney go back and start "fixing" things that we all love as they are?
Did anyone else see it and have the same moment that I did, go, wait, that's like Ian Holm and it totally doesn't look like CG right now?? How?? Holy Shit that is cool, but.... wait a minute, maybe it's a little too good?