I saw Rogue One a couple of times in the theater and then again just last week to test our new TV and Netflix’s HD streaming. Neither Tarkin nor Leia looked especially realistic to me upon my first viewing in the theater, and I was somewhat surprised that people (not knowing, perhaps, that Cushing had been dead for more than two decades and Fisher, while still alive at the time of Rogue One’s filming, looked nothing like she did in 1977) thought they were real people.
To me, the eyes are an immediate giveaway. Humans (and many other mammals) perform a lot of emotive communication with their eyes, eyelids and brows. It’s why, until Spider-Man’s appearance in Captain America: Civil War and his own *Homecoming *movie, superheroes and villains with masks that cover their face spend a good time of their movies with their masks off or partially damaged so the audience can see their eyes and overall facial expressions. In print, comic book artists can draw the emotional expressions in the masks (look at what Batman does with his eyes and eyebrows behind a supposedly rigid mask, for instance), but that can’t be easily translated to the screen (until Spidey and, to a lesser but still impressive extent, Deadpool).
While the CGI Tarkin and Leia are light years better than the dead-eyed CGI folk in, say The Polar Express (2004) and *Beowulf *(2007), there’s still a long way to go. In Rogue One’s case, simply reducing the size of the CGI characters’ eyes by maybe 5 percent would’ve helped a lot. Tarkin also moved very stiffly (Leia’s character didn’t walk around); as it was, though, both were a little too close to a Margaret Keane production to be realistic. In the video comparing the digital Tarkin to the real one linked above, you can see that just the coloration in the area immediately adjacent to Cushing’s eyes in the original is incredibly complex, because it’s natural and organic – CGI can’t quite capture that effect, let alone what the eyes and muscles around the eyes can do.
Based on the improvements in CGI facial characteristics in the last 10 years, though, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to be completely fooled by an entirely CGI character in another five years or so.
Dreadfully bad movie. I just hope Peter Cushing’s family (if he had one) got some money from Disney using his image. Every Star Wars movie since “Return” manages to be worse than its predecessor
The most interesting character in the film who had the strongest on-screen motivation, Galen, was barely in the movie. Galen, or Jyn in Galen’s position as chief scientist and played by an older, more distinguished actress, should have been the main character so that there could have been an actual internal conflict to go along with the external one.
There might be something to this. To the people who thought Tarkin looked wrong, was it that he didn’t look like Cushing, or that he didn’t look like a person? Leia, I did wonder about (though her appearance was too brief for me to reach any conclusions), because I’m more familiar with her, but I was never particularly invested in Tarkin, nor in any of Cushing’s other work, so I didn’t.
I liked the movie, but both Tarkin and Leia fell into the Uncanny Valley for me. Better if they had recast Tarkin, and just showed Leia from behind, using the one-word soundbite from Carrie Fisher.
When I saw it, at the end, I was actually thinking “So are they just going to show Leia from behind?”, and was then a little surprised when they showed her face. At which point I started thinking to myself “Huh, I wonder how they did that”, and roll credits.
Which makes me think that making the first shot of her from behind like that was the wrong choice, because it distracted me by causing me to think outside of the movie. Granted, I wasn’t distracted for very long, but you probably still don’t want your audience’s last thought as the movie is ending to be distracted.
Rogue One wasn’t bad, it just mostly bored me. I’ve watched it three times and I still barely remember anything other than the Vader slaughter at the end, which was awesome.
The Force Awakens looked great and maybe even *was *great for the first half. But it took me 6 viewings to realize I do in fact hate hate hate it as a whole.
I don’t remember anything much about the prequels except that i don’t need to see them again.
The original trilogy I still watch fairly regularly, Empire of course being the best.
So best to least:
Empire
New Hope
Jedi
.
.
.
Rogue One
.
.
.
Force awakens
…
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.
.
.
Who cares what order the last 3 are in.
ETA: as for Tarkin, I barely remember him in Rogue One, so I certainly don’t remember any issues with the CGIedness.