Stop recreating dead actors!
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- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
- Quote read by @SteveShives
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Honestly, I don't care whether or not it's legal. Surviving relatives should NOT EVER own a dead person's image. It kinda reminds me of something Peter Capaldi said about returning as the Twelfth Doctor. He had his time, it was good, and now it's over. That's how dead actors, singers, or any performers should be treated. Let's just allow them to go.
I'd still like to hear Peter Capaldi voice 12 in Big Finish at some point.
While Jacob Dudman does do a good emulation of Matt Smith's 11th Doctor, I don't think his Capaldi impression is as good.
This is changing the topic slightly but feels like society has become really disconnected with death and the idea of permanent loss, at least how it's reflected in mainstream media like characters rarely die for real, it's always some fakeout death and they secretly survived for another spinoff or the characters do die but the actors who played them are going to come back despite previous claims of finality because profit needs to be made... it might be obvious what I'm talking about at the end there lol but it feels like movies and shows have such a hard time letting something go or letting itself end. I find myself being surprised if something comes out, does what it does and then doesn't feel the need to come back again for some sequel or second season.
dead actors are ideal employees. they work for no free, don't have to be feed or watered, have no opinions about their lines, and will not sue regardless of how many nudes of them the director or the producers will have made.
and actors die all the time, so the supply of new faces is endless!
Well, their estate gets paid, at least. Pretty sure that this is the only reason stuff like this happens. Granted, I can totally see actors willingly signing away their digital likenesses prior to their deaths being a thing in the near future.
And CGI is supposedly becoming better by the minute so it’s getting easier.
Jesus christ, that might be the single bleakest paragraph ever written in a youtube comment.
Funny how Holm's character worked by an exploitative corporation and wanted to "evolve" humans to make them work longer and better by messing with a dead creature.
Don't give them any ideas. But, on second thought, maybe they're already aware of this. I mean, it's already a thing in the music industry.
I don’t like it when they use dead celebrities in tv adverts to sell products. Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein and Audrey Hepburn are used all the time and it always makes me uneasy 😩
I am still surprise with the tech they have they haven't found a way to finish Monroe's now well known it unfinish film with Dean Martin. She had been fired and re hired by Fox to finish the film before her death.
The year is 2039. Crowds gather outside their local cinemas eager to be first to see the 50 years anniversary remake of Weekend at Bernie's, starring all the original cast reprising their roles.
I hope not 😂 that's interesting, but ghoulish.
i can easily imagine a situation in the future where an actor walks off of the set over some conflict and is later forced to agree to the studio finishing the movie with their digital likeness
This already sort of thing already kind of happened in an analog in a very well-known case. Crispin Glover refused to do Back to the Future II, so the filmmakers just used existing assets to recreate him.
@PixelatedH2O that was for a sequel that he hadn't done any work on already, so not entirely the same thing. Think OP means if lets say Crispin Glover had walked off set and refused to come back and they still had the dance scene to do, so they force him to agree to them getting a body double and using tech to recreate his likeness to finish the film without him - paying for the work he had already done and then theres the debate of does he get paid for his likeness given he was the one who walked off set?
EDIT - in such case I think actors should be consulted and paid for their likeness, imagine an actor wants to come back for a sequel (zero pay disputes) but physically can't? Do the filmmakers get to just use their likeness and recreate their presence and just pay a rights fee or just make an excuse for their character not being back? 🤔
I'm sure this has been done a few times. Like, they did it with The Crow and Brandon Lee way back in the 90s, and there's no way it hasn't got harder to detect since. tbh I don't totally disagree with it. After all, every movie is bigger than any one actor.
How do you feel about movies where an actor has been edited out and replaced with someone else, like Tig Notaro in that one movie?
Oh. Wow. And the movie was promoted as "CGI free". And later they changed their tune, saying it was not CGI free, but it was used to "enhance" practical effects. 🙄
Yeah that could be a whole other conversation
"No CGI" marketing is a lie
@@AngieDeAguirre people who genuinely believe that something is CGI free I often feel don’t fully understand how visual effects effects work
A similar thing was said about that car racing movie with Aaron Paul, yet that clearly wasn't true from watching just the trailer. As I saw someone saying once "No CGI just means CGI you don't see." Even then it can be very obvious.
You should watch “No CGI is really just Invisible CGI.” It’s a real eye-opener.
I call this “Digital Frankenstein-ing.” The problem is simple. It isn’t Ian Holm’s talents driving the performance, so it’s deceptive to use their image for a performance they didn’t give.
One of the things that really gets me is this shrinking circle of success. No new stories, re-using dead actors images, no creative risks means the same types of people who historically have found success keeping it, and even less room for queer stories, stories from people of colour, stories about disability...it's keeping fame in the same hands even when those people aren't even here anymore
Hollywood is dying and they’re gonna collapse completely if they don’t open the goddamn door and try something new. No remakes, no ai, no resurrection of dead actors, actually do something new
I remember reading an article a while back from an actor who wanted to make a movie and said that the only actor who could potentially play the part is the late James Dean and is therefore intending to recreate the preformance through CGI. And my immediate reaction was: "Oh, c'mon, surely there are other, still living actors, who can give an equally good preformance."
Yeah there was that James Dean thing announced in 2019 and I can’t find a single thing about it since. Have to assume it fell apart.
@@CouncilofGeeks I think so too. And maybe that's for the better.
I apologize, but... nearly every time Vera said, "Grand Moff Tarkin," for some reason I heard, "Grandma Tarkin."
I heard that too and I found it funny :)
The captions did as well. Freaking awful CC.
I heard it too! I'm so glad I'm not the only one 😂
I'm starting to feel as if I am bullying Vera. I didn't want to do that. But I guess from now on, in my head, Peter Cushing might be "grandma".
"I say, Grandma, how did you deduce all that just from some dust on the mantle?*
"You may think you've beaten me, Grandma, but Dracula always returns, and I shall have my revenge! Mwah hahahaha!"
Just two other prime Cushing roles, Sherlock Holmes and Van Helsing in the Hammer Horror films.
@nancyjay790 I didn't intend to be mean about it I thought it was cute and hilarious that my ears where picking it up like that.
Honestly CGI Tarkin's presence in Rogue One in no way enhances the film. I found it rather jarring and distracting. I know Peter Cushing is a beloved actor but couldn't they just do a grainy holographic transmission with a look-alike (played by a different actor?) Or cut him? At least de-aged Leia had Carrie Fisher's consent.
I disagree Tarkin is far too involved in the death star to not have him present.
@@nick5661 It would have been super easy to dance around that by having only adress Krennic through underlings. Would have been an amusing way to drive home even harder how litte respect Krennic had in the Empire.
@nick5661 My Advice for a Work around would have been to relegate his Scenes for Star Wars Rebels where Tarkin serves as a Reoccurring Villain.
Shout out to Stephen Stanton who does an excellent emulation of Peter Cushing's voice there.
@@nick5661 they could have done what always was done: cast another actor, dress them same, and we all have a mutual understanding that it's the same character
@@Tenshi6Tantou6Rei And he was only in Rogue One 3.5 minutes, a short couple of scenes. Use like Empire Strikes Back fuzzy asteroid admiral holograms.
2005 Revenge of the Sith Tarkin was recognizable and not distracting to me. Rogue One was made a decade later.
I agree wholeheartedly with you on the not taking risks - imagine if Dr Who never regenerated, all the amazing depictions we would have missed if they'd just kept using William Hartnell's likeness
Or more realistically, kept recasting with people like Richard Hurndall who were tasked with doing it the same way Hartnell did.
They always seem to over light the recreations. They don’t understand that shadows are your friend.
It would be beter used for only ghosts frankly :(
@@marocat4749 I’m definitely not saying it’s something that should be done but if you are going to do it don’t make it look like a wax figure!
The only way id feel comfortable is if the actor dies mid way through shooting like Brandon Lee in the original Crow movie or Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus where they used stand ins or body doubles to finish the movie at the time.
Im really not comfortable seeing someone who has passed away a number of years ago suddenly back on the screen again. I know a lot of these cases get permission from the family or estate of the given person but i personally think its a little weird. Where would you stop if you keep allowing this cause then nobody is ever truly dead and are being worked even when they arent there.
It reminds of when Paul Walker's brothers wanted his character to come back on screen for the Fast and Furious films even though the actor passed away which i personally think is just greedy at this point.
Ther are scenarious, if its in the middle of a movie, i mean ideally you get a dr parnassus respectful, but i get it.
I even get really short cameos but thats it, if you want a characterback, recast. i would be fine with recasting black panther.. Just find an actor thats close enough and can do that.
And here it was so easy, get an actor wit ha similar enough presence and say, oh yeah he needed to readapted and rebuild different due the damage. or something, or magical shinanigans
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is actually an interesting instance for how differently it stands out by recasting multiple actors and making the face changes part of the story.
And as Vera said in the video, how do we know the actors would have actually signed on to do the movie or tv show? Sure Paul Walker was in the franchise already, but who are we or anyone involved in it to say he'd have kept coming back? It just feels so immoral, even with the permission of family to use their likeness 😕
Plenty of families aren't concerned about the best interests of their own. Think of all the ab/se in Hollywood, not just from child actors & young starlets, but all sorts. And how many families have skeletons in their closets. There have been a lot of really unfair and unfortunate cases. Britney was in music, but a major example. And Brittany Murphy, the voice of Luanne on _King Of The Hill_ and in several films and did some music as well, but her family was key in her very truncated and tragic story.
I remember a Twilight Zone-type show from the late 70s or early 80s called something like Green Room. Anyway, they had an episode where a famous news anchor was digitally recreated to secretly fill in for him when he was sick or something. He was quite happy at first thinking he could go on vacation and stuff while his double did the work. The twist was that the network couldn't risk people seeing him or knowing if he died so they lock him away in an underground bunker so as not to ruin their ability to use a digital double forever
I think the only time I'd feel fully comfortable with it is more like the Harold Ramis/Paul Walker/Carrie Fisher kind of situation. Basically allowing fans to have a kind of goodbye to a franchise lead who's been integral to all the prior movies.
Or the Brandon Lee situation where an actor dies during production. I'd rather see as much as I can of what they were able to do than have their work be lost altogether.
Also side note: your new haircut is so pretty and flattering! I love that look for you!
the best example of a production dealing with an actor passing away midway through is, I think, Doctor Who with Bernard Cribbins.
they only got a single scene at the end of episode 2, and they had to write him out in full for episode 3. and they did.
am I sad we didn't get to see more Wilf? for sure. but I'm glad they respected the situation and only used what they had.
I remember seeing rogue one for the first time and the first scene featuring Tarkin (dead Peter Cushing) he has his back to the audience and you see his reflection in the window and I thought that was a brilliant way to show the character without going too far. Then he turned around and I was less impressed with their restraint.
I remember the whole thing on the original Crow. Which was done so well especially for the time. And weirdly fitting since they did the same thing with Brandon's father, Bruce
They had the benefit of enough of his part having been filmed that it didn’t require a drastic reconstruction of the story to work.
@@CouncilofGeeks of course. They just had not filmed a major part when he becomes the crow, puts in the makeup for the first time.
It was a great artistic choice and only needed 1 shot of his face on the double as they panned out.
That whole shoot though is a cautionary tale for how studios try to take short cuts to make a film
regarding the "puppeting dead actors" thing, I recommend Chuck Tingles novel Bury Your Gays for anyone who hasnt read it. Very cool horror/thriller novel take on this real live incredibly fucked up concept
Consent and compensation of the family aren't everything. I still remember Gary Coleman's last photo; comatose, his family around the hospital bed, being sold to a magazine.
Money can still make for ghoulish outcomes.
"I mentioned his name earlier. Anyone remember?"
Dan Betts?
"Daniel Betts."
Well, that's the very slight boost in confidence i needed this week.
Hope he doesn't get forgotten by all coverage...
I remember years ago, maybe the 1990s, there was a commercial with Fred Astaire dancing with a vacuum cleaner. This was years after he died and I felt the same way you feel about what's currently going on. It is ghoulish. If tech was a little more advanced, I could see Hollyweird making Strange New Worlds with the original cast from the 60s. After all, it'd possibly be one lump payment to the estate and they could make all new adventures, while the current actors would be fighting to get the latest commercial gig. This really needs to be slowed down or stopped.
I hope the BBC doesn’t go down this route with Doctor Who. It would be horrifying to see Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee resurrected also Baker through to McCoy young.
Particularly when Sean Pertwee is right there. I'd love an extended stretch of two Doctors with one companion, with Sean playing the 3rd Doctor.
@@thebitterfig9903 I 100% agree with you but unfortunately, Sean has said multiple times in the past that he doesn’t want to play his dad’s character.
@@tokublwhovian hadn’t heard, good to know. I do recall seeing a great Halloween costume one year, tho.
BBC would never have the budget lol
@@bobcassidy201 They wouldn’t need the budget to do it anyway, or Disney could slip them a few quid if they or Russell was desperate to try the tech.
Back when AI was first becoming the 'new thing', it gave me genuine existential dread. Nowadays, it makes me immensely angry in a way that very few things do. I just wish I could think of something helpful to do with all of that anger. The dread is still there, it's just underneath the molten anger for the moment.
Got into an argument about this the week it came out. The other person couldn't understand why I thought it was unethical, even if they got permission from Holm's estate and widow. The fact is Ian Holm himself did not consent to appearing in this movie. Whether or not we think he would have is irrelevant because he couldn't.
Besides, why not another model of android? It's not as though the company didn't have the resources.
@@julietfischer5056 I'd argue it would make more sense if Rook to be a different model. The crew of the Nostromo didn't know Ash was an android at first. It would make more sense if Ash had a unique face design if the company were hiding the fact he's an android from the crew.
I really think now you will have actors start putting in terms in their wills of how their likeness can be used after their death. I am not sure of the legality of that, or how it would be enforced, but if I was an actor, you can bet that I would be doing my best to put restrictions on how my likeness can be used after death. Even if your immediate family after you death (spouse or children) want to honor your legacy, (and that is presuming they know you enough to know what you would have wanted), when it gets to the next generation, they probably don't.
Could you go with ghost mediuls in court and question the legality? If only to make ad absurdum that that actors had no way to consent of something that didnt exist yet?
Nah, what will happen is when you're a young actor you sign a lifetime contract that allows that studio to use your likeness after you're dead, and if you don't sign it you won't get employed.
And another thing: they aren't going to stop at dead actors. Eventually, they're going to go to recreating the bankable movie stars who are still living, and possibly move to another area: create their own digital movie stars, using AI for all of it, and shove the actors out of the process entirely.
I say "eventually", as if I'm not sure they're already in the process of doing that. It's more than de-aging, but instead recreating them as they are now.
It's not even an eventually, there have been attempts to do so before. The main lead for Final Fantasy Spirits Within was supposed to be a landmark achievement in making the first ever virtual actress
@@vitreouspersona2627 I was thinking about that while writing the comment, but don't know why I didn't think it was more indicative than it is. We laughed at that because the tech was nowhere near convincing enough, but they definitely will try again.
They already did this with Bruce Willis as his health declined. So many scenes in his last movies are recorded by body doubles with his voiceover.
One really interesting case which I’m surprised hasn’t been mentioned in the comments was with Back to the Future 2.
The actor who played Marty’s father refused to come back, I believe due to pay reasons or due to being busy.
As a result, when the film goes to Marty’s future and shows his parents visiting his home, they had the Dad floating upside down and shot indirectly so you couldn’t tell it was a different actor.
I believe the original actor did sue them but I can’t remember the outcome, either way it’s quite a pivotal case where they did it with a still-living actor.
(Also they recast Marty’s girlfriend for separate reasons, but they show her quite prominently, so it is at least clear it’s a different actor playing the same character)
*EDIT:* Forgot to add this, but on an unrelated note, the idea of essentially creating a virtual version of a real person to do the same job is the main plot of a show called Max Headroom. Just wanted to add that since it’s become very relevant in the last few years, especially with the plot focus on AI and corporate greed.
So the issue with Back to the Future Part 2 wasn’t the recasting, it’s that they added prosthetics to the new actor to make him look more like Crispin Glover plus mostly putting him in the background to hide the recasting. Glover sued because the studio didn’t have the rights to his actual likeness. It was settled out of court and in future contracts and union agreements have been worded to prevent this. You can recast but you can’t pull this kind of stuff to make it look like you didn’t, because again the studio has the rights to the character and any filmed footage, not the actor’s likeness.
Also, IIRC Crispin Glover didn't return bc the part for George was noticeably cut down from the first movie. Or maybe he was willing to, but only if they paid him the same amount as the first movie? It's one of those. The percentage of the script his character was in was relevant somehow.
@@natsmith303 I believe the issue was that he was being paid less than other returning supporting characters, with the producers believing that his profile at the time didn’t warrant the pay he wanted.
Is it weird that I never notice the recasting of Jennifer? When watching the movies for the first time, with no knowledge of it, I didn't notice anything, and when rewatching them with the knowledge of it, I still don't notice any "tells". And I'm constantly seeing people say how "obvious" the recasting was and how the original Jennifer was so much better.
.
@@SpedeVesku I think the fact Jennifer isn’t actually in most of the original film is probably why it isn’t so jarring to some people.
She’s a relatively minor supporting character who we only see in a couple scenes. She does converse quite closely with Marty and is in the ending which opens into BTTF2, but otherwise she isn’t present when any of the action is taking place like in the latter film.
I do still think they really should have gotten her back if they could, but iirc her mother was ill and she had to take care of her at the time, so she couldn’t reprise the role.
They probably could have gotten away with not having her character appear at all if they hadn’t included her in the end of the first one. Because it’s directly shown that the next entry will begin with her riding with Doc and Marty in the DeLorean, they had no choice but to either recast her or set the movie sometime later.
I remember the headline a few years back that the perfect actor for a movie was James Dean. The director truly believed that there was no living actor who could do that job. Regardless of the fact that you would need a living actor to do the performance that would be digitally altered.
I think the movie fell apart for multiple reasons, including backlash, but it was a scary possibility.
DUMBLEDORE!
Richard Harris and Michael Gambon - May they both rest in peace.
Movies made for children. They didn't have any problem with "Different actors : Same character.
If the actor is dead, leave them dead.
The beard and long hair helped for that. How many different actors have played a given soap opera character?
Honestly they didn’t feel remotely like the same character. It felt like part of the soft reboot which came with the change of director.
@@Quirderph- Both actors brought their own interpretations to the character.
Leia in Rogue One is definitely more of a "well, she was around to sign off on it", but existing cut footage of Carrie Fisher from Force Awakens (and maybe Last Jedi?) being used to have Leia appear in Rise Of Skywalker pissed me off at the time and still does. Yeah they got permission from her daughter but they also there was ultimately no point? I mean at least it was existing footage aside from a flashback where it was mostly just face replacement, but like......that movie would've been much better served being about the absence of Leia rather than shoehorning her in there. It felt insulting to both the actress and the character.
Hell I can even remember people at the time thinking "yes I am totally on board with this" and then coming around to my side of thinking once the movie came out and they saw how the execution went. Stuff like that is why I wish that if they'd wanted to release these movies closer together than previous Star Wars trilogies were, they'd have just written them all at the same time and shot them LOTR style, aka mostly all at once with breaks here and there (and then only needing the actors back for pick ups and/or ADR). Then we could've just had Carrie in all 3 and they wouldn't necessarily have to have done this (unless she'd still passed while filming was ongoing, but I feel they would've worked around what she could handle. Not like they'd need her for an entire shoot like that).
This issue struck me with the Christopher Reeves cameo in the Snyderverse Superman film. I was squicked.
Maybe actors should start specifying in their wills that they do not consent to being digitally recreated in new works. It might also help for big name actors to vocally oppose this practice, because if they are recorded as saying "this sucks, I hate it, I would never want to be made a part of it" then it gets harder to say that they might have consented to the use of their image in this way.
What happened to Leia in 'Rise of the Skywalkers' is another example of the Peter Seller's posthumous appearance in the Pink Panther movie you've mentioned.
I understand that the only plan they really stuck with in the Sequel Trilogy was to have the main focus for Original Trilogy main leads, one at a time (Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and then Carrie Fisher).
But they should had a serious rethinking of this plan after Carrie Fisher passed away on the plane trip back to the US after her last on camera acting job in the UK.
They didn't want to repeat what was done with Tarkin and Young Leia in 'Rogue One' after the reception of their appearances in that movie.
Using deleted scenes was a poor substitute for Carrie Fisher's last appearance, and it made her look like she's going senile, emphasized by the reactions of the actors (both through script and direction) in a lazy attempt to weave those deleted scenes into the final movie.
It's always fun when a character gets recast and it takes a while to realise who they're supposed to be.
I don't necessarily have the same issue with Big Finish having actors recreating the first three Doctors or the Brigadier, but i DO agree that it's stifling some of their creativity and we need them to avoid just doing what's familiar because it's easy. As an example that shows that they can manage that, their Eleventh Doctor Chronicles range has been some of the best stuff they've released in a long time, it has some nods to the 11 searching for Clara, but it really focuses on the dynamic of 11 and a new companion, Valarie Lockwood.
I feel a lot more ick with it in the live action cases, or in any media if AI is used to recreate a dead actor as that really does feel like puppeting a dead persons corpse for money imo
@ErinTheFennec Ironically enough Big Finish is using a Voice double in those for the 11th Doctor
To his credit, Jacob Dudman is a great Matt Smith emulator (though I can't say the same for his Capaldi impression, that one just feels.... off to me).
@@nekusakura6748 yep, it's part of the reason I brought it up, they're not using the original actor, but are still capable of doing really creative things and producing excellent stories.
@@ErinTheFennec I would admittedly really like to hear Capaldi for some Big Finish Audio Dramas at some point.
thanks so much for this Vera! i never comment but i wanted to express how glad i am that youre covering this -- i think you're giving a voice to something a lot of people have thought but have not quite been able to articulate. as a young creative, it's fucking scary to be confronted like this with how far studios will go to serve the people what they "know they already like" and how cynical and risk-averse they are. will this house of reprinted cards ever fall, i wonder?
On my RUclips front page this was right next to a video in which someone attempted to transform Richard Hurndall's First Doctor performance in "The Five Doctors" into William Hartnell. It... didn't really come off.
Lucky we got Richard Hurndall and David Bradley for great recasts for the First Doctor.
@@jeremyadler9620 Indeed, Hurndall and Bradley both did great tribute performances, and there's no point in morphing them into facsimiles of Hartnell.
I find it kinda hilarious how this got posted just before Disney getting sued for using Peter Cushing's likeness.
We're in the middle of a huge cash grab on nostalgia, especially in the Science Fiction/ Fantasy media sphere. The reactionary fans who have keyboards and are loud want little more than to just watch their familiar old characters doing the stories that thrilled us in our youth. Now that the Gen X Geeks are in their 40s and 50s, and the Millennials are right on their heels, we have (as a demographic) disposable adult cash. I still maintain it's why movie studios don't do anything risky. Because why make something new and untried when you can just chug out another Star War or mine LotR, or frikkin' every comic book ever to just tell the same story with flashier graphics. Importing the image of dead actors in their old roles is just another way to rock Grandpa and Gramma to sleep. No need to think about the story. It's Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin, it's Carrie Fisher as her 19 year old self, it's Ian Holm as Ash! Oh thank Gord we didn't have to learn about a new character who might anger us with being not exactly who we expected.
"Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" on the other hand is, on the other hand, a very acceptable film despite the fact that it uses footage of dead actors throughout.
Oh I said "on the other hand" twice. That was an error but I will leave it up to create an air of mystery about how many hands I actually have.
When I saw him I was so upset. I don't like seeing hollywood puppet dead actors like this
The first time I remember the modern, CGI based variation if this Dead Actor Cameo being used was almost exactly 20 years ago in 2004's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow when they uused Laurence Olivier's likeness and voice to voice a hologram of the mad scientist villain.
Though actually you could also include The Crow in here since it was basically the same situation as Gladiator.
Yeah, I kept waiting for The Crow for Brandon Lee to be mentioned since Bruce Lee's posthumous movie was mentioned.
Not casting Wayne Pygram to play Tarkin in Rogue One, considering he is now around the age PC was in A New Hope and looks EVEN MORE like him now than he did?
Just makes this all that much more ghoulish. It was a test-run for replacing people. Plain and simple.
And I sat with my thoughts on Romulus for a while. And I came to decide I didn't like it through this chain of reasoning: For cameos from people that played synthetics in the franchise? That this one is the same model as? Like, Lance Henriksen, Michael Fassbender, and even Winona Ryder are still alive and working. Why not them?
Even if they couldn't get Wayne Pygram to play Tarkin, Guy Henry (the physical actor in Rogue One) already looks and sounds quite like Peter Cushing (that is Henry's actual voice in the final film), they could've just let him play the role as himself, or otherwise used some minor prosthetics to make him look more like Cushing
You should put that "I will reinsert that context forcefully," quote on a mug. My feeling in the vast majority of cases is that they should have just recast, or not had that character in the film. There are plenty of living actors who can give you whole new performances.
Yeah, this is a big no-no, that’s so disrespectful 😓
Whenever something like this is done, I respect it a lot more if it's 1. omitted from marketing (Rook and mostly Tarkin), 2. has a lot of effort put in (CGI instead of Deepfake), and 3. has a high level of involvement from the family of the actor (Paul Walker's brothers acting as body doubles, or Sarah Jane being voiced by Liz Sladen's daughter).
The Absolute worst time this was done (despite technically being deaging) was with Luke in "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett". Mark Hamill was on set, and did a reference performance for the body double to reinact, but none of Mark Hamill was included in the final scenes. Even his voice was replaced with AI, despite him being a veteran voice actor.
Hamill is frankly too old to sound like his younger self, *but* there are dozens of people who can do a decent young Mark Hamill impersonation and would give better acting performance than frigging A.I.
@@SpedeVesku He did voiceover for one of the trailers for "The Force Awakens" where he actually had people thinking it was reused audio from ROTJ. That was only five years prior to the release of Mando season 2.
@@MrDarthT I don't remember that, but I do remember him voicing young Luke on some online animated short (Forces of Destiny?) and it was, no disrespect, almost comedic how obviously old his voice was compared to the character design
that was a.i
Re Doctor Who, I think there's an irony in accusing it of not investing in new things when it's, like, a 60 year old franchise. It's very much nostalgia-bait, even when it's trying very hard not to be. I think the show has generally done well, but it's also pretty much born out of the need to keep a character alive after the actor portraying them stopped wanting/being able to play them. But even then, they had David Bradley playing William Hartnell's Doctor which was... decent, I guess.
Not that I have any problem with that, but I think the answer there is not to look to old franchises to stay fresh, but to support new ones. That's something we really *don't* see lately. It's rare for a show to get a chance to get better - the old joke about every Star Trek spin-off only getting good after the first couple of seasons is pretty quaint these days, when even a show that's incredibly popular and promising in its first season can get snuffed out on a whim (I'm still bitter about Archive 81). And that's led to less of these franchises generally, because people don't want to set up multi-year arcs that they won't get to deliver on.
The Crow (1994) had two weeks of filming to finish when Brandon Lee died and they had to rework some of the remaining scenes so they could finish it (same situation as Paul Walker). Also, before he died, James Earl Jones gave full permission for Lucasfilm to use his voice to create new dialog performances for Darth Vader. So those are fully accepted in my opinion.
I completely agree with regards to Ghostbusters Afterlife and Harold's "ghost" in that. I loved the way they handled that. However, I have mixed feelings about Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One (though I get why they did it), though the brief moment of Princess Lea in Rogue One was fine because it was literally a brief and one line/word moment.
As for Alien Romulus, I have to watch it before I give an opinion, but given what you've said about it, I'm probably going to end up agreeing with you... I completely agree regarding the Bela Legosi (sp?) incident, however...
It was _kind of_ neat when Lucas did it in 2005 to bring back Peter Cushing for a brief shot of Tarkin to help tie the two trilogies together. But I don't think I've _ever_ seen it done well. We're just not at that level of technology quite yet, and even if we were I still wouldn't be on board with techno-necromancy because it just doesn't add anything to a piece beyond "Look, we brough back Humphrey Bogart so we could make Casablanca 2!"
Like, when they did that for a few shots at the end of The Mandalorian S2, I dug it as a well-earned cameo, one that Mark Hamel was involved with. Then they drug it out in Book of Boba Fett, and I was like "Oh god, you don't wanna recast, do you?"
Out there, there's a good, unknown actor who can nail a post RotJ Luke Skywalker, but you'd rather keep him in poverty because you wanna show off your new render farm.
I agree with your take on Harold Ramis. It's one of the few examples where the actor & the character was truly honoured by the way they were recreated & used to tell the story. And of course it was signed off & approved by his family. I'm only halfway through your video, but I'm mindful of Black Mirror's "Joan Is Awful" which took the recreation of living individuals to the extreme...I'll find out if you reference it by watching the rest
What ultimately makes me give it a pass is that it was intentionally designed to not resemble how he actually looked in his old age, but rather an older version of how he looked in the 80s. It makes it feel distinct enough from the actual person that it doesn’t have that ghoulishness I usually get from these, and it wasn’t done in the spirit of creating a new performance for him. No one who knows what Harold Ramis looked like would be tricked into thinking he was alive or that it was archive footage. Apparently the effect was largely done with prosthetics rather than CG as well, so that also helps just aesthetically speaking.
22:21 Slightly different case-in-point would be Professor Tolkien and the glut of LOTR content on the market. The Professor might have grudgingly accepted the Jackson LOTR films, but I have my doubts about his thoughts on the more recent derivative works.
Well getting into IP management is kind of a different (but still very sticky and often gross) conversation.
The instance that always sticks out to me is in Rogue One and the scenes "with" Peter Cushing gave me a queezy feeling that I can't really explain.
I have just finished Chuck Tingle's new book Bury Your Gays the day before yesterday. It is very good on many aspects, but one of the best parts was how he used the bringing back dead actors technology for its horror potential. Honestly, I feel like he put this moral dillema better into words than I ever could:
"I'm not sure that he would have taken the role. He didn't really play villains."
"Isn't it exciting? Now he can."
But yes, your argument about how the possibility to bring back dead actors and characters linked to them kills new ideas is also very spot-on. I personally didn't necessarily have a problem with recasting dead actors, like how the First Doctor has been recast twice already. Probably because I exist in the literature adaptation mindset, where you will inevitably have the same character be played by different actors over time. It is of course different for characters who started on-screen, so that they are much closer linked to the actor who helped to create them... But I'm OK with it. An argument that you missed out is however how having to write around the passing of actors can ENHANCE the creativity of the story. To stick with Doctor Who: We have got the concept of regeneration, and the tragic death of Roger Delgado meant that the Master got kind of left hanging, then they had to do the whole living skeleton and body hijacking plotlines. How GOOD it is to have the Master occasionally steal other people's bodies is.... depends on how much you like camp. But it definitely is NOT an idea that would exist if they could have brought back Delgado for a final episode that finished his plotline.
I believe in archive footage use/only using CGI to recreate them with the late actors’s estates/families approval supremacy
Yes i also am for extreme limiting to timited cameos, if you want more importance, just recast a similar looking actor or other tricks
What ever happened to recasting?
The answer is actors have an established union and CGI artists don't 🫠
"Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid". Say, "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid." Say it! "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid"!!! Just! Say! Dead! Men! Don't! Wear! Plaid! ...
And that's how I had a stroke.
I'm glad to see someone give voice to how I've been feeling about this for a few years now. Dead actors can't agree to be in movies and puppeting a recreation of their likeness around feels really gross to me, even if their family said it was okay. Hell, I still wouldn't like it even if they gave their consent in life, at that point, the performance is no longer theirs anyway, just recast.
For actors who pass during filming/production, like Carrie Fisher, Brandon Lee, etc., I don't mind the use of the tech to complete that particular production. That's a lot of people's jobs riding on the finished product, especially when it's your star. When it comes to other reasons for bringing a character whose actor is dead back for a project, just recast the character. Soap operas do this all the time, movie franchises have done this before (even the MCU - two different "official" Hulks, recasting Rhodey, etc.) And that's not when the previous actor has died, but just that they weren't available or didn't want to work with the actor anymore, but still felt the character was necessary. Is it milking the cash cow? Maybe. Probably. But it's keeping the series/franchise going without having to resort to ghoulish effects. Heck, Days of Our Lives did this as a plot point back in the 80s and 90s with the character of Roman Brady. Actor who played him left the show, so Roman fell out of a plane/off a cliff and "died", only to come back later as a different actor. But, surprise! This new actor's character only THOUGHT he was Roman, but was actually someone named John Black, and the REAL Roman came back years later, after Marlena was with John, thinking he was Roman, and was played by the original actor. Or you get teases of a character whose actor had died - like with Stefano DiMiera, who had been played by Joe Mascolo until Mascolo's death. Stephano was always referred to as "The Phoenix", because he always came back. And now that the actor is dead, while Stefano himself is never seen, there are occasionally looming shadows or phoenix imagery to imply that he's out there somewhere, plotting horrible things for the residents of Salem - or his children are using the imagery to further their own evil plans.
And I get that soap operas primarily do this because they're stretching a shoestring budget and aren't meant to hold up under scrutiny, but fans roll with recasts and body-doubles because its an established part of the genre. If creators recast and just roll with it, act like it's normal, the audience will do the same, eventually, if they want to continue to enjoy the thing - like MCU fans did for Hulk or Rhodey. Or like Quicksilver in WandaVision, for the short time the in-universe characters thought that was the same Pietro as the MCU one (still sad that didn't stick/was a trick, because it would have been fun to keep Evan Peters around longer as a Maximoff).
It's definitely something The 2023 flash should have done using Branfon routh to play Donner superman since he played him in superman returns or having Ben Affleck play Geroge reeves superman since he played George reeves in a biopic.
Basil Rathbone's voice (from one or more 1940s Sherlock Holmes films) was used in a cameo in Basil, The Great Mouse Detective. So his last portrayal of SH was 19 years after he died. This isn't the same thing though as it was more a nod to a great actor.
So they're making an Alien movie, and Ian Holm is unavailable... did they lose Lance Henricksen's phone number or something?
A very interesting topic. I am afraid if the trend continues, we will become desensitized to seeing dead actors on the screen. And AI is going to be used more and more. Especially for the voices, they could probably get away with using AI for the audio dramas already.
A smart move for live actors would be to focus on the advantages they have over digital performers and recreations, like the ability to meet fans in person, sign autographs, do interviews, respectfully offer ideas to improve projects, etc.. If they want to avoid accelerating this trend, they should probably also try to keep all the drama on screen by being a delight to work with and avoiding scandals, controversies, legal trouble, etc. since studio executives will use that as an excuse to do what they were likely going to do eventually even sooner.
So nice to have discovered this channel. This was all interesting, analysed and constructed well. Great video essay.
Hey vera! Just had a quick question about your take on this topic as it relates to actors who have preemptively agreed to lend their likeness or voice to the sort of thing, such as I believe is the case with James Earl Jones, having given permission for Disney to continue to use his voice. I ask because this would somewhat address your point about permission from the actors, but not necessarily your second point about this encouraging old material to be recycled rather than the creation of new material. Thanks!
I’m a bit more lenient on voice only work (keep in mind I only brought up Big Finish to point to the creative stagnation), but yeah it does encourage them to keep just throwing Vader into things because… well just because. And I don’t think that artistically healthy. It’s just not as ghoulish as the full recreations.
Could you imagine, someone taking your image and using it after you passed. Could ruin people's reputations. Look forward. I clicked the notification. ❤️
Well this became relevant extra-fast. Let actors voices go too. James Earl Jones was great, let the next JEJ find their role now.
Scott Lawrence does a great James Earl Jones impression in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
I'm glad you brought up Big Finish, because the soundalike replacement that's infuriated me the most is Jon Culshaw as the "Tremas Master" (as I guess you have to say in the case of EU like this), with Anthony Ainley's picture on the front covers. Anthony refused to work with Big Finish during his lifetime for reasons that vary depending on who you ask, but the point is he said no. But now that he's been dead "long enough" I guess, they've decided they not only will get a soundalike (which Culshaw doesn't for him, I'm sorry), but slap his image on the front. I don't know who has his personality rights now, he had no spouse, no kids, and no really close family. But whoever it is clearly doesn't care what he said in life. Or maybe the BBC holds the rights to him as The Master anyway. I don't know. But this just sticks out to me as disrespectful because unlike the the first three Doctors or Roger Delgado, Anthony did live into the era of Big Finish, and he said no. In that case they should just let sleeping cheetahs lie.
The Most Common reason given was that Ainley wanted script approval for his appearances (not wanting Big Finish to force his version of the Master with as much Camp as he was written with during the 5th and 6th Doctor's Era).
It wasn't an issue of Money as some have claimed, as Ainley was a wealthy man of means, and his role of The Master was a personal hobby for him.
Your hair looks so pretty! ♥
The sad truth is that we're getting to the point where some actors probably will sign away the rights to their likeness before they pass away. It's going to continue, whether we like it or not.
Your point about this restricting the incentive they might have to try something new and different and the many sequels and remakes really reminded me of the biggest issue I had with the premise of Ready Player One (80ies nostalgia for 80ies nostalgia's sake, basically), which is interesting because I actually liked the recent Rescue Rangers movie, as cameo-heavy as it was. I can understand them being risk-averse, and even the point that "oh that was always a part of the entertainment industry, any entertainment industry, and even fields that are close to it like arts, music and literature sometimes" (90ies-early 2000s boybands, anyone?), but that doesn't mean I can't find it sad and disappointing sometimes when they fall into that trap.
The earliest example of this I'm aware of was in the 1937 film "Saratoga". Jean Harlow had filmed about 90% of her scenes when she collapsed on set and later died of renal failure, aged 26. The studio wanted to reshoot with a different actress, but her fans wanted the film to be released. They finished it with body and voice doubles.
This is a good faith question: What's your opinion on things like Mickey Mouse's voice? He's had multiple actors over the years all mimicking the same voice, as have other classic characters. Would that be the same thing? Especially in the context of the Doctor Who audio adventures, essentially it's the same thing isn't it? They're playing the same character so they mimic the voice of that character, right?
It’s really not the same thing when it’s 1) strictly a vocal performance and 2) it was a put on voice to begin with. My issue isn’t continuing characters, it’s manipulative profiting off the deceased by proceeding as if they’re still alive and recreating not a character but a person, a human being’s likeness.
Funny you're mentioning Charley Pollard as I had just preordered an upcoming 8th Doctor Audio Drama with her as the companion, so she's not been completely abandoned by Big Finish.
She's in the live read through next week.
@AlmightyCRJ I'm actually surprised that Big Finish decided to do 'The Stuff of Legend' as an 8th Doctor and Charley story rather than a 6th Doctor and Charley story even though this year is the 40th anniversary of the 6th Doctor's Era.
I feel the same way about AI voices of dead people. Unless you have their express permission, don't. Just don't
Thank you for the video, Vera!
When watching "Rogue One" for the first time, I did only realize Moff Tarkin being a digital recreation of Peter Cushing's likeness after see him for third or fourth time in the movie. However, after that, every time the character did appear again, he would stick out like a sore thumb to me. "He comes the CG-face man again" in my mind. It was very distracting! In the case of "Ghostbusters: Afterlife", one of my personal issues with the Harold Ramis' recreation (besides the anti-ethical aspect of it) was how it does not resemble at all the actor's physical appearance in his old age, especially how Ramis was not physically "fit". The movie did just take a younger Egon Spengler, and give him a beard and white hair.
My personal opinion about using characters which their iconic actors did pass away is: just recast them with new (real human) actors. It will break the suspension of disbelief of nobody. And even if people are okay with recreating dead actors' likeness, at the end, it is just nostalgia bomb. As Vera explained, currently, the big movie studios are mostly just making prequels/sequels, remakes and already established franchises. They do not want to take risks and make new content. It is very creatively bankrupt!
I remember seeing Rogue One in theaters and when Tarkin came on screen I was totally mind boggled because I was like *isnt he dead?!* and it kinda threw me for the rest of the movie until I could get out of the theater and google what the hell I was seeing. And now that I know he's animated it's a little spooky
Some random thoughts I have:
1) This is potentially going to be a field day in cases like Marilyn Monroe, whose rights are owned, not by her next-of-kin, but by a production company (which plays a large part in so many films which are exploitative and arguably diminishing her reputation, e.g. the recent Netflix film, Blonde). In her specific case, she went through enough and I wish people would let her rest, but this definitely won't help.
2) One example you didn't mention but that came to mind straight away was that of Heather O'Rourke, who died at the age of 12, after she'd finished shooting Poltergeist 3 in 1988. The director initially shelved the movie out of respect for her but was pressured by MGM to reshoot the ending to up its rating, using a stand-in. I just remember watching the scenes with the stand-in and just getting such an icky feeling. This case would have some justification for this but honestly, it just makes me feel so gross.
Marilyn was in fact the very first actress (alongside Humphrey Bogart) to be digitally recreated, all the way back in 1987 for a short movie Rendez-Vous in Montréal.
Monroe's estate went her shrink if I remember right and than to his wife who he married after her death and had no connection to Monroe. Than it went to some company that runs a bunch of dead actors estates. Personal I think she should be in the public domain by now.
That said I am surprised they haven't tried to finish her unfinished movie. It was at Fox and Disney now owns Fox and their the ones playing with tech to do such a thing.
I think I feel that recasts are a bit of a gray area. I totally get your point about artistic circlejerking though, and I agree that it introduced the temptation you brought up to the guy at Big Finish. I think for me it’s more like…sometimes it is interesting to bring a character back that was played by someone who passed away, and if you’re going to do that, please for the love of god just recast. Dont De-Age, dont do any of this crap, just recast.
I think it’s also more nuanced with voice performances in particular. Again I agree that artistically it’s a concern; morally I just consider recasts acceptable (in moderation. Sounds like Big Finish was doing it en masse and that I don’t think is good on any level)
I dont really feel Big finish is the same as re-creating a dead actor I mean for one thing it's not cgi or ai it's a actual living person do it and also feel like it's more respectful and less ghoulish since ut feels less "were gonna decimate his corpse" and more "were seeing new adventures of that character" you feel me.
@@jadenbryant9283 do you mean you don’t feel it *is* the same?
@@TheAdamSplitter yeah.
So there is a very unique circumstance that is going to bring up this subject again potentially but not in the Hollywood space. The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of video games that are basically like interactive movies, and a big selling/marketing point of the games is that there are usually notable screen actors playing some of the major characters. Every character is not just voiced by the actors but the actor's likeness is used and they provide mocap for them. Except in the case of one character who spans all of the games known as The Curator - essentially a kind of narrator and in game guide tying all the anthology pieces together. While his likeness and some of the facial capture was portrayed by Tony Pankhurst, he is voiced by another actor, Pip Torrens. 4 games have been released the 5th is already late in development and due to come out next year with at least 8 games planned. Unfortunately Tony passed away earlier this year, and if he did have to provide any new scans/animations for the 5th game, these have likely already been done with how far along in development it is. But I am curious just how Supermassive Games will handle this going forward, as the curator is a hugely influential and important character to all the games and essentially they would just be doing what they had always done in each game before - only using his likeness while Pip Torrens brings the voice and part of the mocap to the role. Or if they might choose to replace his face model with a new person. It raises a lot of questions about what options there are in these situations where recasting isn't as clear cut as just a new actor and whether removing Tony's part in the creation of the curator as a character would feel more disrespectful than keeping him there.
I'm admittedly not that familiar with the Alien franchise (and haven't seen Romulus), but this sounds like a case where it's particularly unnecessary to use Ian Holm's exact likeness. Even if he's the same model of android, he's not literally the same character. It would make way more sense to just hire a similar looking actor and dress him up the same.
Elizabeth Sladen's daughter is used by Big Finish as a sound alike.
The Same goes for Caroline John's daughter voicing Liz Shaw in Big Finish (who is also Geoffrey Beevers' daughter as well).
In your section on the history of this sort of thing, I was surprised that you did not mention either The Crow (1994) or The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Brandon Lee was replaced in a few scenes with body doubles or old school face replacement in order to finish what they could after his death. There were several scenes (most notably the train scenes with the skull conductor) that had not had his parts filmed yet that wound up cut completely. For Imaginarium, they opted instead to almost completely recast Heath Ledger in a fairly creative way. Both of these were productions where the actor died in the course of filming and therefore had already agreed to be in the film, but they are fairly big-name productions that had to deal with this event and probably warranted some mention.
I remember Trilbee Reviews and Mr. Sunday Movies did videos on this topic when Rogue One was new.
This is reminding me of a plot point in Chuck Tingle's new horror novel "Bury Your Guys" where an AI recreation of an actor who passed away years prior was the lead of a movie that was nominated for an academy award (meaning the AI recreation was nominated for like Best Actor or whatever). Felt too ridiculous but now I'm more likely to think he was on the money.
Agree. Use to finish mostly complete final performances if it doesn't reach Ed Wood proportions.
14:12 - Absolutely true. Permission has to be given, as is the example with Disney's Once Upon a Studio short in which these used unused recordings of Robin Williams as the Genie and his family actually gave permission for that. (And I guess the same was done for other archive recordings used in the short)
And also there it was a anniversary thing and genie doesn't say that much and they did get many of the actors who originally played these characters back as much as they could from what it seems.
@@jadenbryant9283 Yes, sometimes mixing it up. Like Donald Duck and Winnie the Pooh had both lines where it was the OG recording and a new recording by the current voice actor.
@@timrob12 yeah and also it seems like they wanted to make the characters sound as much like they did in there first appearance with just how many actors they got back holy crap.
@@jadenbryant9283 Some really cool ones in there, I wasn't expecting Tom Hulce back as Quasimodo for example.
i've always hated this practice, a lot. it's aesthetically and *spiritually* off that death does not release actors from work obligations. it has always felt apocalyptic. seeing a dead person in a movie makes me feel like i'm literally in hell
This is definitely a topic I see with a lot of shades of grey.
I definitely can see the point of view about limiting creativity by media producers having another resource to justify being less creative because they're afraid of the unfamiliar.
But also sometimes a character has more stories to tell. It makes sense if you're going to use them to make efforts to establish it's the same character as before even if a different performer is needed.
Like if a character in a mask is recast, do we need to arbitrarily change their design because the original actor didn't return? I would say no.
But a character in a mask is intentionally distanced from a portrayal by someone without one. So the 'ownership' of their likeness makes sense as an issue when that element isn't there.
But if you recast them with someone who is an incredibly close look-alike even without makeup is that wrong even if they play the part well? I would also tend to say no.
I guess where I get lost in the grey is that recasting happens. Some semblance to the previous actor is likely. So as we get closer and closer to a match does that change the ethics around it? Especially when a real actor is involved. I understand why it's so concerning when a real actor isn't involved, which becomes more and more possible. But especially in voice-work you absolutely end up with performers who most people could not tell the difference between the original actor or not and I don't really see that as wrong.
Definitely agree regarding Big Finish, I mean take Torchwood as an example with Eve Myles not having the time to record and the blacklisting of both John Barrowman and the character of Captain Jack (Meaning they couldn't recast the role even if BF wanted to try that avenue), Big Finish have been forced to explore new ideas with the IP, and you've got a team of mostly BF original characters leading the likes Torchwood: Among Us (The official continuation of Torchwood), Torchwood: Soho (A Spin-off focused on 1920's Torchwood), and Torchwood One (Yvonne Hartman's Torchwood at Canary Wharf).
Perhaps these sets don't sell as well as the ones that featured Jack and Gwen, but they're really making the Torchwood section of the Whoniverse feel larger and more interesting.
Though I feel like comparing it to A.Recreating old actors was kinda stupid and kinda disrespectful in its own right.
I just watched alien romulus, and the Rook android took me out of the movie SO BADLY. It 100% ruined the immersion for me. It was completely unnecessary 😬
If this practice does continue, can't actors just put in their final Will and Testament that they don't want to be digitally recreated for anything? Or on the other side, give permission as long as their estate approves?
Ehhhhhhhhh legality of those things are iffy. They can absolutely specify who controls the rights after they pass but by and large those controllers aren’t beholden to do what the original person wanted. Wills really only hold up on issues of “who gets what” and any additional specifications are often unenforceable.
I give sky captain points because it was the first movie I saw, as a jaded young cinephile, that introduced a second female character that was clearly attractive to the male protagonist, and who seemed unbothered by romantic conflict, and DID NOT kill her off just to make the OTP work. I appreciated that. I was genuinely surprised. It would have been nice if it had been a better movie overall.
I have no issue whatsoever with bringing back dead actors provided that their estates give their blessings.
Beyond that I absolutely love the fact that Kerry Conran gave the late sir Laurence Ovilier a final performance in his films Sky Captain and I always said it would be nice if Buster Jones could reprise his role as Blaster in a future Transformers film.
You talked about Big Finish using sound-a-likes for dead Doctor actors... but not the TV show using look-a-likes for the first Doctor. Do you think that's accectable? What about something like 'An Adventure In Time And Space' where people are playing the actors not characters? Is that different? Is it worse?
she gave that a pass because David Bradley played the real-life william hartnell in a biopic called adventures in Space and time.
A CGI actor is never going to bring anything to the performance that a director didn’t ask for. And even a body double or even most rights holders are probably not going to say anything like “I don’t think my character would do X; I think they’d do Y instead.”
I think you are being a bit hard on the Big Finish way of doing things. If anything, that is the most acceptable way of doing it. Even if they are characters we know well, they are openly being portrayed by new actors, and we're promoting the new actors doing this. (Yes there is the "ooh look it’s Elizabeth Sladen's Daughter playing her mother's character," I am on the fence on whether that’s endearing or not).
are we to say that we can never make new stories featuring these old characters because the original actor isn’t available?
And it all leads me to the pondering where we stand on David Bradley unofficially being the official stand in for the first Doctor whenever he needs to show up? Where do we draw the line here. Is this fine because it’s a new camera facing actor? Why is it ok for him but not Stephen Noonan, or Tim Trelor?
It feels a bit snooty to talk about Big Finish's big selling point being the fact they have the original actors, and imply that anyone else is inferior and not worth anyone's time. Sure, the big selling point was the fact they had the original actors…. At first. They’ve surely grown beyond being reliant on that. The selling point is now, these are new Doctor Who adventures (with the added bonus that the original actors are involved), and as part of their growth they’ve expanded their range to include stuff that wouldn't otherwise have been available. I can’t be the only one who found their stuff and was disappointed that characters like Sarah Jane or Dodo were not featured at all. If we are to never have any new stories featuring those characters won’t they just get forgotten?
As an aside was there ever any complaints of this nature over the Early Adventures range? These started out more like audiobooks, with a narrator and a very small supporting cast, which soon became full cast adventures, yet no one was officially cast as the Doctor. The narrator, usually Frazer Hines or Peter Purves, would provide the Doctor's lines and in doing so would do an impression of the deceased actor. I may be biased because this range features one of my favourite stories in Daughter of the Gods (a crossover between the first and second Doctor). If we are to never allow for recasting, stories like this could never happen.
Yeah that kinda summarises my thoughts on that also She gave a pass on David Bradley because he played the real-life William Hartnell in the biopic an adventure in space and time.
I remember Sky Captain!! I was super freaked out by it as a kid because I had a huge fear of robots