Hollywood Brought Us Into The Sci-Fi Future And You Haven't Even Noticed
Hollywood has always been the land of a dream, this make-believe realm where everything is possible.
Now technology allows the cinema to take the illusion up to entirely another level: eternal digital youth.
Some recent movies have shown us how new technologies are capable of creating digital images of actors to star on par with the live ones.
And not that some random AI-generated images, but those of the actors who either passed away, or aged significantly to reprise their past young roles.
For instance, we see this in the recent Blade Runner 2049 feature film, where we watch the future unfold both figuratively and in this case literally.
Harrison Ford 's character Deckard, who has aged similarly to the actor himself since the original movie was released, meets the heroine of Rachael.
In the 1982 movie she was played by Sean Young, now 58. Special effects technicians had her skull and head scanned for the 2019 movie, and together with her old footage and voice tracks they had made Young's character look just like she did 35 years prior.
The whole process actually started earlier, with adding thousands of extras in mass scenes, where only a couple of hundreds of real people were filmed (for example, in Mars Attacks, 1996, and Superman Returns, 2006).
Not good news for real-life extras though, especially those who make a living out of it.
Nowadays we're moving towards a digital "resurrection" of late celebrities. Case in point: Peter Crushing "starring" in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, despite being dead for more than 20 years.
And let's not forget the late Tupac Shakur "performing live" at Coachella 11 years ago.
The company behind Tupac Shakur's hologram is Digital Domain. Its digital effects supervisor Darren Hendler said once that they already have a "digital archive menu" where some of the current start store their digital appearance, voice, traits and even wardrobe looks.
As Hendler has not disclosed any names, we now know that at least one A-list celebrity who has given it a serious thought.
Michael Douglas, 78, has shared recently in an interview with The Guardian that he was going to "license [his] name and likeness so the rights go to [his] family rather than to the metaverse".
The legendary actor admits that the reason behind it is to "have some control". And who can blame him?