![]() ![]() It was an impressive feat for a film made 16 years ago. Oliver Reed died during the production of Gladiator (2000) Reed’s face was mapped onto a double’s head using CGI for his final scenes. It’s a line that could have appeared verbatim, 22 years later, in any of the recent articles on Rogue One and Tarkin. “The technology does raise troubling questions about the rapidly expanding realm of movie magic,” wrote John Horn for The Associated Press. When John Candy passed away on the set of 1994’s Wagons East, a stand-in and special effects were used to complete the film. Lee’s face was digitally mapped onto a body double’s head since the character tended to stick to the shadows anyway, it made sense for his face to be obscured, and the replacement was widely hailed as a success. In 1994, history repeated itself when Lee’s son, Brandon, passed away during the filming of The Crow by this stage, however, the technology used to replace him had evolved, and was more akin to what we see in Rogue One. Of course, the technology used to create this first ‘Fake Shemp’ was light years away from the technology that brought Tarkin to life in Rogue One, but in practice, it’s the same thing – ‘special effects’ and body doubles are being used to substitute for the performance of a deceased actor.īruce Lee got the ‘Fake Shemp’ treatment after he died during the production of 1978’s Game of Death body doubles and even a cardboard cut-out of Lee’s face were used to substitute for the martial arts legend. (Decades later, Evil Dead director Sam Raimi would coin ‘Fake Shemp’ as a blanket term to describe the use of any stand-in.) But, rather than fail to deliver on their contract, the group simply edited new footage of Moe and Larry together with stock footage of Shemp, and, where necessary, used character actor Joe Palma as a double for Shemp (usually shot from behind, or with his face obscured). In reality, Shemp Howard had died (of a heart attack, at age 60) before the shorts were filmed. In 1956, Columbia Pictures released four Three Stooges shorts – Rumpus in the Harem, Hot Stuff, Scheming Schemers, and Commotion on the Ocean – that appeared to feature Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Shemp Howard. The film’s revival of Peter Cushing is not particularly transgressive or revolutionary - it’s simply the latest advancement in a process that Hollywood has been attempting to perfect for 60 years. In the same article, the filmmakers themselves acknowledge the “slippery slope argument” the idea that, by creating a digital likeness of Peter Cushing in Rogue One, they have potentially opened the door for more films to employ digital reproductions of deceased actors.īut if this is a slippery slope, it’s one Hollywood has been heading down for decades. ![]() Slammed as “a giant breach of respect for the dead” by The Huffington Post, Tarkin’s revival has been treated as a breakthrough that presents new, interesting questions and challenges for filmmakers and audiences to grapple with.ĭave Itzkoff’s in-depth article for The New York Times about the process of bringing Tarkin back to life places the film at the centre of a “postmodern debate about the ethics of prolonging the life span of a character and his likeness beyond that of the actor who originated the role”. Warning: This article contains spoilers for Rogue One.įor all of Rogue One’s many talking points, it’s the digital resurrection of Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin that has generated the most heated discussion. ![]() The debate supposedly sparked by the appearance of Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One has actually been going on for decades. ![]()
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