TRON: Legacy – Could Deep Fakes Improve CLU?
Visually Stunning in 2010, But Could TRON: Legacy Look Better?
Okay, kids. One of my very guilty pleasures is the movie, TRON: Legacy.
I enjoy TRON (the original), but the sequel, well – I saw that like eight times in the theater.
Blown away by the visual design and special effects, the movie was a roller coaster of a popcorn flick.
BUUUUUUUUT.
There are several moments in the movie where I am taken completely out by CGI Jeff Bridges. It was interesting. It looked like The Dude was younger, sure. But also bloated, and squinty.
Deep Fake Gives CLU a Clue in TRON: Legacy Clip
In a very good review of the film, Amy Biancolli (of CHRON.com) wrote:
Just to be clear: The original Tron was groundbreaking, goofy, and inscrutable, with eye-popping graphics and lots of wooden dialogue. This sequel is also goofy, also eye-popping – see it in IMAX 3D if you really want to fry your optic nerve – and also weakly scripted, borrowing from various Star Wars films plus The Elephant Man (“I’m not a program!”). And yet the sheer size of the thing works against it: The effects are absolutely spectacular, but they blow the goofy-cheesy quotient straight through the roof. In revisiting the Grid, first-time director Joseph Kosinski and screenwriters Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis have hyperbolized every last detail. So, yes. Roast pig in three dimensions.
And, of Bridges alter ego, she pondered:
Regarding Bridges’ digital de-aging: It’s creepy. It’s a little less creepy on Clu’s face (he’s not human, anyway) than on Kevin’s in a scene from 1989, but on either of them, it has the waxen look of storefront mannequins – or over-Botoxed socialites. Those weren’t around in ’82, either.
And I am right there with Amy. So, when my cousin Eddie from LA (he works in casting in Hollywood), sent along the below, I was pleased. Very pleased.
The change, presented by Shamook on YouTube is very, very impressive. And it sent me down a very deep, deep fake hole.
And beyond TRON, Shamook had several Star Wars videos on his site. One of them has Carrie Fisher and, literally, gave me, “Hope….”
Shamook wrote:
Princess Leia Fixed using Deepfakes
Using deep fake software I’ve managed to enhance Hollywood’s CGI version of Princess Leia in Rogue One. The process took only 24 hours on an $800 PC and 500 images of Carrie Fisher in the original Star Wars movies. As you can see it’s inevitable Hollywood will start to utilize this method of VFX, when and how is still the question.
Carrie looks so good (with the help of Ingvild Deila). It makes me hope (pun intended) that we get remastered editions of the new generation of Star Wars movies.
And why not throw in a new version of TRON: Legacy. But only if we get a remastered Bruce Boxleitner.
However, what do YOU think of Deep Fake vs. CGI? Let us know in the comments.
