Carrie Fisher suffers heart attack on plane, dies at age 60*

With Tarkin they had a lifemask mold to scan for his face, which also would have an impression of his skin texture, and he was such a big part of the film's plot ILM spent a lot of time on him.
Leia's digital effect had to be created from scratch using only 2D photographic material, which I'm sure made it a lot harder to pull off.
Also I think the effect would have worked better had we not seen her turn full on towards the audience.

Here's a decent cap from the film with her not looking directly towards the camera, and it's much better. You can see the difference in resolution in this film capture to your cap that looks like a blow up from the frame, or a picture taken with a camera at a screening. I mean look at the difference in detail in her hair. your cap is not a good representation.

 

Linking a separate thread that exists discussing the potential movie handling.

'Star Wars' Braintrust Plots Leia's Life After Carrie Fisher's Death

 

It looked like crap to me, and that's the only thing that matters with what I see on-screen. If the effect takes you out of the movie, all that time and money and effort is wasted. I've only worked for two VFX companies in my life (Cinesite and ILM), but I learned enough to be dangerous and know too well the pros and cons of why decisions like this get made and the compromises that happen because of time and money.

I was on record as disliking the idea behind the CGI Paul Walker for Fast & Furious 7, too, but I have to say that about half of the scenes were fine (and undetectable), 1/4 of the scenes were a little bit noticeable, and the other 1/4 of the scenes weren't too great (particularly the final shot). Human characters are very, very hard to do because the slightest misstep results in the Uncanny Valley; robots and inhuman creatures are a lot easier in CGI since they can get away with being different from things we've seen before.

 

That doesn't change the fact that the photo you used in your post is absolutely non representative of what was on screen in the film. You used a low-res blow up of a frame to make your point and I think that was disingenuous. Your photo of Leia is a low-res, soft mess. Again, I think Leia would have been better if she had not turned full on towards camera. My photo in general has more detail and is much more a representative of what was on screen, and looks like Carrie.
You have every right not to like Tarkin and Leia in Rogue One, I was not arguing that, just that one shouldn't use a junk photo to make one's point.

 

I'd argue the grainy, probably "snapped in the movie theater" pic of CGI Leia actually does it some favors by obscuring some of the creepy uncanny valley aspects of that face shot.

I saw "Rogue One" several times in the theater, and the two CGI faces never looked that great. The effect kind of became muted upon repeat viewings, mostly because I knew it was coming.

I think more covert use of the CGI, such as Tarkin's reflection, or Leia's back or even the higher rez shot above of her looking down, were less egregious and would have worked okay.

But, even if that higher rez ABC news shot above, after having seen the film numerous times in theaters, that ABC still frame looks *better* than how that shot (and the shots/camera movements that follow) actually looks *in motion* in the film. As soon as she starts moving, and especially when we get a close-up on her face and her mouth moves, it's pretty bad. As I've often said, it's surely top-notch CGI work, as good as it gets; as good as money can buy. The problem isn't "bad CGI work" per se, but rather using the CGI past its limitations.

The CGI Tarkin was jarring and took me out of the film (I think it took me until a third viewing to stop just ogling the weird CGI work and actually listen to what Tarkin is saying in that scene; which I think also indicates they didn't even need that much Tarkin dialogue in the film, but that's a separate issue I suppose), and the CGI Leia was a jaw-droppingly odd thing to use as literally *the* closing shot of the film.

I guess we'll have ample opportunity for HD screencaps in the next few weeks, but I suspect an HD screencap of the full-face shot will look just as "off" to those who tend to see such things. That is, unless they've done any additional work on the CGI in the intervening months, which seems unlikely.

 

I'd say most people have a problem with the motion aspects of the CGI (though I know quite a few people who had no idea it was CGI) and I get that.
Still, I think he looks great






certainly that looks better than Episode III's Tarkin


FWIW, I liked Tarkin better than Leia in R1 and was very happy to see him in the film, but I fully understand that some didn't like it and I've got no problem with that opinion.

I also still stand by my screencap of Leia as being more representative of the actual work in the film. Did I like the final turn towards camera? not really, I found it unnecessary, she could have delivered her line not full on and it would work just as well.

 

Again, having seen the film numerous times, I'd say all of the screencaps in this thread are more or less accurate as to how it looks, because they're all legit pics. So the full-face one looks pretty weird. The "head looking down" shot looks less egregious, and so on. Tarkin shots in particular tend to look less problematic when still.

I saw the film numerous times, and I'm not even a die hard SW fan, so I think it stands to reason that I like the film and the two CGI characters weren't deal breakers. I was just stunned they did something so "off" in the film. I don't have a problem with someone saying the CGI doesn't bother them. I'm more skeptical of the credibility of folks who really claim they "can't tell" it was CGI at all, because I think one would have to be averse to paying much close attention to the visuals to come away with that impression.

 

Well, what can I say, everyone's mileage may vary. I saw the film multiple times in the theater too, and I liked Tarkin right from the first scene. I was actually surprised they had him in more of main character role, and thought it was great.

I can't agree that "all of the screencaps in this thread" are accurate. The pic Vidiot posted is like saying a cassette dub of a cassette is better that the master tape, it's waxy and artificial exactly because all of the detail is missing. And once again I will say that that I wish Leia hadn't turned fully to face the camera, and that is where that effect loses it.

"I'm more skeptical of the credibility of folks who really claim they "can't tell" it was CGI at all, because I think one would have to be averse to paying much close attention to the visuals to come away with that impression."

Or it could be that some folks are 1. not aware that Cushing is dead and 2. are wrapped up in the story. You are welcome to be skeptical of those folks, but it doesn't change the fact that some people didn't realize.

Me? I'm not one of those folks. I knew it was CGI and it didn't bother me in the least, in fact, I liked that Tarkin was used more than I thought he would be.

What would ILM be without trying to push the envelope of special effects work.

I'm afraid we'll never agree about this, and I'm ok with that.

 

I would recast. If the actual story revolves around her character then it should be recast. The show must go on as they Say. It's happened many times in past films roles get recast. Make a small tribute to her before the film and cast a great actress that will do the character justice. By the time episode 9 comes out the emotion we all have wil have subsided and most will be able to accept it since unfortunately Carrie is gone, the show must go on.

 

To the point of recognizing that it's CGI, my main point was that if someone can't tell (regardless of whether they love it or hate it or somewhere in between), then I would have to weigh their observational skills regarding everything else accordingly. If someone can't tell CGI Peter Cushing looks like an excellent video game cut scene, I'm not particularly going to trust that person's observational skills. No big deal, it doesn't make anybody a bad person or anything. If they think Cushing is dead, then I would also question, at least just a bit, their analytical skills (only *if* they're actually analyzing the film) in not having the baseline knowledge that Cushing is dead, or that even if you didn't know he was dead, in not finding it *very difficult* to believe that old dude hasn't aged *at all* in 40 additional years.

I don't think the cassette dub analogy is quite accurate as to that pic. If the question is "*how* good or bad is the CGI?", then I suppose high rez photos will help parse that out. But if the question is "is the CGI fundamentally problematic?" or "can you tell it's CGI?", then even that low-rez movie theater shot answers those questions in my opinion, having seen the film numerous times.

 

Of course it's apt. You are assuming that in my analogy that the album is a good album. I'm only saying you can't judge how the master sounds from the standpoint of a dub of a dub on cassette. Just like you can't compare a decent photograph with detail to a **** image to illustrate how terrible the CGI is.

You may not like the CGI (I get that), but it most certainly is not a dull blurry mess with no detail.

Once again, I'm not defending full on Leia's CGI (which I have stated that I'm not a fan of), only that using a blurry low-res photo to make a point on the merits of the CGI is disingenuous.


anyway, we're clogging up a thread which isn't really about any of this.

 

I think the reason the analogies aren't matching up in my opinion is simply because "how terrible the CGI is" is not analogous to something as nuanced as judging the mastering of an album. Perhaps a better analogy would be asking whether a specific sound in a song is synthetic or real, or whether something has been autotuned or not. Those types of questions could potentially be answered even when listening to a third generation cassette dub.

To me, the baseline quality of the CGI in the film (the "is it real or not?" or "is it believable enough?" questions) can be addressed with that low-rez screen shot. I don't think someone snapping a pic of a movie screen screen showing *actual* footage of Carrie Fisher from 1977 would look *anything* like that shot.

If the question pertained more to, say, a Blu-ray of "Rogue One" and questions about the quality of the video mastering and whether there's any noticeable compression, etc., then *that* would indeed require something better than a low-rez screencap.

So again, if one wants to parse whether the CGI deserves a score of "7" versus "8" out of 10 or something like that, then the low-rez screencap probably isn't sufficient. But if we're just working on a basic pass/fail question, I think it *is* good enough.

 

All that matters to me regarding CGI Leia in Rogue One including the full turn toward the camera is how it made me feel the moment. It moved. It actually brought tears to my eyes. I'm more interested gab fine with how it looked. I'm more than fine with how CGI Tarkin looked. I loved the effects!

 

I agree with this, but of course, most will disagree. Story matters, and if Leia's role in the film is fundamental to the story, the role should be recast.

 

Here's a higher-res screen grab (none are mine -- I'm just grabbing something from Google):



It looks weird, plastic, artificial, and robotic. I can't show a moving image, but the unnatural motion was a huge tipoff that something was extremely wrong. i wasn't the only one:

It’s unclear exactly how this uncanny valley of a young Leia was created (in the credits, Carrie Fisher is listed under “special thanks”), but it’s clear that CGI was involved. She’s not the only CGI-created character in the film: A New Hope character Grand Moff Tarkin appears sporting the face of actor Peter Cushing, who died in 1994. But while Tarkin is merely unnerving, the Leia cameo is so jarring as to take the audience completely out of the film at its most emotional moment. Leia’s appearance was meant to help the film end on a hopeful note (quite literally, as “hope” is her line), but instead it ends on a weird and unsettling one.

How the 'Rogue One' ending went wrong
Let’s Talk About ROGUE ONE’s Most Unsettling Cameo
‘Rogue One’: The Problem with That CGI Character
'Star Wars: Rogue One' Is Brilliant, That CGI Though

 

Don't they use motion capture for this? You'd think the motion would be flawless.

 

Given the complaints about the CGI characters in Rogue One (Tarkin and especially Leia), is there a chance that they would redo them when they have better tools available to make them more realistic? Perhaps for a later home video release or (gasp!) special edition. I usually don't like this kind of revisionism that happens often in the Star Wars world, but if Leia especially could be improved, maybe even not having her turn around completely, I could tolerate that.

 

This is a really beautiful, well-done tribute to Miss Fisher done by the Star Wars people that debuted today, part of the Star Wars Celebration convention:



I defy any real Star Wars fan to watch this and not get a little teary-eyed.

Some of the behind-the-scenes material shown -- particularly the stuff from 1976 -- has never been seen before. It's incredible that they saved every scrap of film that way.

 

Great clip.

A few friends attended some of the panels today and are certain that gorgeous, unaltered OT footage was used in the clips shown. The natural colors are what hit them initially. Empire and Jedi scenes lacked the CG found in the Special Edition versions.

 

Lucasfilm said last year I believe they did a 4K transfer of the original trilogy. Whether that's the original original or the special edition wasn't made clear.

 

This is very true. We're very sensitive to subliminal movement cues, which, if not perfectly natural, will make us think something is a bit 'off'.

Having said that, I thought they did an excellent job with Tarkin overall. Of all his screen time, there were only one or two places where something seemed slightly off. I think it was with his gaze or eyes that seemed to dart around a bit.

Of course, since he's such a well known actor and is deceased, that simply primes people to examine the minutest details of the performance. It's like in the old analog days when one would scrutinized every special effects shot for matte lines or wires, etc.

So, while I was fine with Tarkin, Lea was a different matter. She really did look artificial - I cringed.

 

I think it was confirmed that it was the special editions that Disney did a 4k scan of.

 

Thanks for that.

 

I like those original clips of Leia's message to Obi-wan, which in the movie was altered so it looks like a hologram.

 

Those are unseen outtakes, notice the absence of Leia's hood. The hologram in the film she has her hood up.