Lucas To Bring Back Long Dead Hollywood Icons!

This is from the British tabloid newspaper The Sun so usual caveats apply.

According to Mel Smith (British comedian/actor and director of Radioland Murders) Lucas is buying up the rights of screen icons like James Dean to bring them back to life with CGI so they can "star" alongside live actors for a movie.

Sounds completely bizarre and slightly mad, so knowing Lucas, there may be some truth in this.

I wonder if this is one of George Lucas's "experiamental" movie projects he's been talking about for 30 years?

EDIT: Locked after Lucasfilm denial.

That sounds like a spectacularly bad idea.

Guys, it's The.Sun. [face_alien_1]

I question the article's veracity as well, but that doesn't change the fact that what it proposes is a horrible idea.

Its complete nonsense, of that I'm 99% certain. Its been clear for a while many people bitter towards Lucas work in the media and pedal any such tripe with glee. There's been a fairly obvious agenda towards it - the Indy CGI whip story is another example. Even linked from that page in question is a story which has basically taken one quote from John Hurt (probably out of context) and framed it to the same agenda.

To be honest, knowing Mel Smith, it sounds a bit like a joke... something tongue-in-cheek he'd just invent himself to play on the public's general misgivings and erroneous perceptions about Lucas. Notice how the part where Smith apparently tells us "Lucas is obsessed with computer-generated technology" only has the word "obsessed" attributed to Smith. I'd infer from that the question was "is Lucas obsessed with CGI?" to which the response was something like "well he's obsessed with improving the technology and seeing the boundaries pushed" etc. Yet they frame it with such a negative connotation, focusing on their own preferred portrayal and promoting a confirmation of said portrayal which likely wasn't even given.

As someone else said above, its The Sun. As a publication it has pretty much zero credibility in the UK with anybody who actually uses their brain on a daily basis. Had this appeared in The Guardian I would perhaps take more interest.

Yeah I don't believe it. Lucas has always spoken out against such uses of technology and even believes people should be able to own their own image.

But, and I say this as a small but......but if it's true, it is a very terrible idea.

But I don't believe it is. It came from The Sun, which is not far beyond The World Globe(a very far out tabloid popular in the U.S.).

EDIT: Go to the main page of this site. Lucasfilm has now officially shot down this bit of nonsense.