"George Lucas Owns My Face": Luke, Han, and Leia DeepFake Reunion is Inevitable

If the reappearance of computer-generated Grand Moff Tark and Princess Leia in Rogue One was not a sufficient proof of that, you can take a look at these CG images of the trio:

At this point, given Disney 's practices, it is not a question of "if", but "when". Particularly given that all three of the original trilogy main actors have commented on for years that their likenesses in the original trilogy are owned by Lucasfilm due to the novelty of merchandising contracts that they have signed back in the eighties, and they have no way to prohibit Lucasfilm/Disney from using them. Carrie Fisher even joked that "George Lucas owns my face" in her memoirs.

Fans, however, are less than enthused about this possibility.

First, quite a few people are simply tired of the endless rehashing and nostalgia baiting, and hope that the franchise can move on towards new stories.

Second, some fans are just straight-up offended by digital puppetry of the deceased, considering the whole thing ghoulish and macabre.

Third, there is a common opinion that looking and sounding sort of like, or even exactly like an actor, is the least important part of imitating that actor. Even the best digital likeness does not reproduce emotions, expressions, voice infections, and mannerisms of the original, or, in other words, actual performance is not so easy to DeepFake.

A character can survive getting re-cast. Poor performance? Not so much. And purely CG characters do not perform well – to many people they still look and sound robotic.

Sure, there are theoretical ways around that, like motion capture… but if you have a new actor who can perform the part, why plaster an old actor's face on him?

Even if Luke, Han and Leia absolutely have to return, and even if a recast is absolutely impossible for some reason – yes, there are arguments that at least in case of Han, the actor pretty much is the character, but come on, there are many fictional characters, even from franchises which are primarily cinematic, like Doctor Who or James Bond, which have survived numerous recasts – people would have preferred to see them again in an animated form, rather than risk DeepFake's "uncanny valley" problem.