TV Discussion Deepfake, Respeecher, and the Recasting Debate

The thing to remember is whether it's CG or deepfake style technology, it's not perfect. When people can go past that point and appreciate the story without being reminding themselves every 30 seconds that it's a visual trick, it's more likely to be used.

 

Machine learning is, indeed, a remarkable technological achievement, it is a fast growing field, and it does help us, and will continue to help us, in several domains.

Of course, I vehemently disagree about the fact that we couldn't tell the difference without knowing in advance, but a part from me disagreeing, which is fairly irrelevant, I'd like you to try to put yourself in the shoes of the actors who work on their skills their whole life, they take classes to properly modulate their voices and their movements, and they work on themselves as well, in order to be fully immersed in the character, which sometimes can be pretty demanding also emotionally, and physically, depending on the specific role they have to play. Then some people come out and they're like "meh, if they rather used deepfake I couldn't really tell the difference".

I don't think Hamill cares that much what people have to say but it feels rather insulting toward him to say that the computer animated copy isn't even distinguishable from what would have been his performance.

 

The only really successful use of any of the AI technology has been Respeecher for Vader in OWK because there's an inherent "narrow band of inflection" as James Earl Jones once put it.

Everything else has never really landed for me.

 

I know that, but you are de facto still claiming that there is virtually no difference between how an actual performance by Hamill would be and the deepfake we saw in TBOBF, which to me doesn't seem very flattering toward Hamill.

Sure, but this is an argument nobody was making.

As you are correctly pointing out, the actors are not their characters. To me, this would be an argument in favor of recasting, but I understand that this can be debatable.

As for the "manufactured" outrage, the issue of deep learning used to recreate art, and what it means for the artists themselves has been debated for many years, it's not like I'm coming up with god knows what revolutionary idea.

 

And that is what LFL have vowed. No mention of other characters but the big 3 will not be recast between their first and last appearances in the Saga.

 

I've yet to see it used where it's not incredibly tacky and inferior. I'm expecting Dial of Destiny to change that but that's also likely just a face de-age for Mr. F. The Skywalker creation is just not right. He came across as wooden and inauthentic.

 

Many said the same thing about Hayden.

"So much like your father," indeed.

 

I do think the technology has gotten better and better. Given a few more years I think Hollywood will be able to recreate anyone’s voice so long as they have the sample for it to an almost perfect level.

 

I would say the recast panic affected everyone, in the MCU for example they preferred to kill off T'Challa instead of recasting it, and with all due respect to Chadwick I would prefer a recast, in fact I think a recast and continuing the character's story would be more respectful to Chadwick than killing him off screen. I feel the same way about Leia, Carrie Fisher is Carrie Fisher, but one of the problems with this movie was her death, which meant that everything had to be redone from the original plan.

 

If the CGI is working perfectly, there is no difference because it is Hamill's performance. Ideally, all they have to do is de-age him digitally, just like applying make up so he appears younger. It's still him doing the acting. The process isn't yet perfect, but it's getting closer.

 

This is exactly why the so-called "moral" argument really doesn't do it for me. With Tarkin, they were recreating Tarkin, a fictional character, not Peter Cushing. I really don't see the fuss. Couldn't then, still can't now.

 

Yet.

“No Nathan, Chelsea and Griffin, I am your father.”

 

Honestly, Vader also had problems and sounded weird, personally I would prefer if they put Matt Sloan or Scott Lawrence instead of doing AI, there were no problems before, and now suddenly only Jones can voice Vader. I'm afraid of Transformers, Peter Cullen is great and yours will be, but he's not the only one, over the years we've had great actors playing Optimus like Garry Chalk, David Kaye and most recently Alan Tudyk. I choose acting over AI every day.

 

I'm finding myself increasingly opposed to deep fakes and AI voice technology.

There will absolutely come a point, probably quite soon, where these technologies will be indistinguishable from recorded actors. So the "product", so to speak, will be as good or better than what a real actor could provide from the perspective of the audience.

But we need to ask ourselves whether there is artistic value in the creative process of acting, and whether we're willing to lose that. I, for one, am not. Art is humanising and even more so when deeply embodied in the way that acting is. I think it's a precious creative form that I want to be part of the future of art and media.

I also personally believe that a good recast can add a huge amount of value to a story. New interpretations of characters by a good actor can be absolutely wonderful and add compelling new perspectives.

Many "fandoms" also have an unhealthy obsession with perfect continuity, which has never been achieved, and Star Wars isn't even close. Nevertheless it leads to unnecessary resistance to recasts.

Ultimately many companies will choose whatever is cheaper and more efficient - so there needs to be a serious cultural conversation before the horse has fully bolted. I just hope audiences are willing to look beyond merely the consumption level of art, and to find value in the process too.

 

According to this logic, generating the sound of a violin with a software should be considered at the same level as playing the violin directly. They're both just tools to make music after all. And someone might even seriously agree... "who cares? I couldn't tell the difference when I hear it". Yet, for some reason, I, and many others, like the idea that an actual violin is used, with an actual person playing it.
In exactly the same way, I like to see actors playing their character, and I like to see their actual faces when they do so.

Now ^this would be true even if deepfake were perfect. And to make things worse, we're still rather far from that.
So the issue is twofold: (1) I hate the current results with the technology as it is now -it still looks fake and stiff- and (2) I am not even interested in how they improve it, because it is the solution to a non-existing problem (the need for "visual continuity" or whatever) and reduces the human component in movie making.

 

Regardless of how I feel about deepfakes (and how Disney is absolutely going to try to screw over actors with it) the technology is definitely not there yet to make a perfect illusion. All the times where Luke appeared, I could see something was off about him and it was distracting as hell. His voice and facial expression also felt limited.

I think Disney should move to casting actors. I know it's a big thing for Star Wars to do, but it's for the best and the sooner they get to the decision, the sooner you can have actual stories with characters like Luke. By the way, it's amazing how little OT-age Luke appears in media that isn't comics and Lego. I get live action for the aforementioned reasons, but he's never even had an animated series or something.

 

I would be fine with deepfake and respeecher, because the intention when using this technology to portray a character is just that; the character-not the actor. LFL is not looking to show Mark Hamill, or Peter Cushing or whomever...they are looking to include Luke Skywalker and Moff Tarkin in those scenes. Whether this capability is used for just cameos or for full films IMO doesn't matter either-it's all or nothing. The morality doesn't change based on the amount of minutes of screen time the character has.

Although LFL doesn't own the right to Mark Hamill, it owns the rights specifically to the character of Luke Skywalker, and anything they do with that character is their prerogative. To me it's ultimately a choice by the film production company to include a character created for those films, and it's their right to use previous appearances of the character they created, even if using tech to recreate those appearances is required in order for the character to look, sound and act the way it should-based on the previous direction in terms of how that character was previously brought to life.

 

Tarkin and Leia worked well enough in RO, but Luke was a bit off-putting in Mando/BoBF. The uncanny valley there was just a little too wide. We will probably see LFL push the concept towards its absolute limit with Indiana Jones 5, at which point the potentiality will become clearer. I’m not opposed to it in principle, but it’s a delicate art.

 

It's funny you say that, cos I'd actually say the opposite; that the CG used to portray Luke in BOBF is worlds better than how they showed Tarkin and Leia in RO (as good as it was at the time). IMO the effect has improved with every time they used it over the last 6 or so (if you can believe it) years since RO came out!

The main thing about this though, is that it will only get better and better-it's inevitable that in as little as a couple years we will likely be at the point where they can do renderings like this for characters that last for several scenes throughout a whole film!

 

I actually agree with you that the technology used on Luke was better, considerably so. But in a strange way, for me at least, that’s part of why it feels off. With Tarkin and Leia we know it’s animation and it looks like animation. With Luke though, it feels like something different. I’m not entirely sure how to describe it, but yeah, it’s kind of distracting.

 

My wife had no idea Tarkin and Leia were animated in RO.