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George Lucas Planning To Resuscitate Dead Actors For Future Films?

The Huffington Post   First Posted: 12/08/10 11:40 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 07:15 PM ET

George Lucas Dead Actors

George Lucas wants to round up a bunch of dead actors and resurrect them onscreen, says comedy veteran Mel Smith, who directed the 1994 Lucasfilm Radioland Murders.

"George is obsessed with [CGI] [...] He's been buying up the film rights to dead movie stars in the hope of using computer trickery to put them all together in a movie, so you'd have Orson Welles and Barbara Stanwyck appear alongside today's stars," Smith told Britain's Daily Mail during a recent interview.

Given Lucas's penchant for over-the-top computer effects, Smith's statement seems plausible.

However, Spout points out that Lucas was singing a very different tune in 2002, when he told the BBC, "A computer can duplicate Tom Hanks, for example, and we already use that technology a little for stunts and difficult scenes. But if you bring back Marilyn Monroe, what you would have is a caricature."

A spokesperson for Lucasfilm told OnTheRedCarpet.com that the rumor is "false," though Lucas himself has not come forward on the issue.

For now, it looks like Star Wars in 3D is the craziest thing we can expect from George Lucas for a while.

[h/t The Sun via NBC Bay Area]

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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Howard53545
11:33 AM on 12/11/2010
Actors and actresses watch out. Clark Gable would be cheap compared to Clooney.
07:39 PM on 12/10/2010
Add this idea to the ever-growing pile of artistic ideas that prove we are creatively bankrupt.

Does he not realize how shocking it would be to see, say, Spencer Tracey acting next to Brad Pitt? It was a whole other world, time, custom, culture, back then. It would be utterly creepy and he'd have to tweak Tracey's facial muscles, etc. in order to make them fit 21st C perceptions and expectations. And that would be totally goulish and gross!
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jeffcarroll
I mostly tweet about social media (social media po
04:55 PM on 12/10/2010
wow. not a good look.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
mojo filter
12:54 PM on 12/10/2010
Everything else in his movies is CGI. Now Lucas can make movies without any human interaction at all. All technology. Too bad computers can't help with scripts.
11:41 AM on 12/10/2010
Including Yoda?
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
CheapTrick
Them or Us.
09:00 AM on 12/10/2010
Maybe he can use CGI to superimpose a story into "Episode III?"

That was just a big, pointless toy commercial.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
SocialNote47
05:44 AM on 12/10/2010
i think this is a cool idea..
09:19 PM on 12/09/2010
MORE of Senator Padmé Amidala! Not overjoyed about "Black Swan".
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
silverwolf13
I know that I do not know.
08:35 PM on 12/09/2010
Anything to get out of having to pay a living actor.
04:20 PM on 12/09/2010
Please, someone stop this man. Han shot first!
04:19 PM on 12/09/2010
"George is obssessed with CGI."

Yeah, we gathered that. His most recent endeavors have proven he's not really interested in actual filmmaking, just gimmicks and technology. James Cameron has a similar problem, but at least his films are entertaining.
03:58 PM on 12/09/2010
Start with yourself George.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
tonedef
Tragically, my micro-bio remains empty, soulless,
03:29 PM on 12/09/2010
I have mixed feelings about either altering or resurrecting elements from the past.

For example: It was tacky/tasteless enough when Lucas made Greedo shoot first in the Star Wars cantina scene from the computer-enhanced re-release of Star Wars back in the '90s. Using computer-animated dead actors in new original work is a whole other level of tack/tasteless. ...or is it??

I remember seeing Watchmen, one of the (imo) the finest science fiction or comic book movies ever made. In the opening credits, they computer-animated President Kennedy so he could be seen shaking hands with one of the main characters. I found that to be a pretty cool use of the technology.

So I'm on the fence.
03:09 PM on 12/09/2010
Whatever Lucas does I'm for it.

I literaly have 3-format copies of every Star Wars movie...vhs, dvd, widescreen, tv screen.

I'm waiting for Blueray or perhaps LCD version formats. I'll wait and wait till they come out.
09:12 PM on 12/09/2010
but do you have them in the original form? or did you throw those away when he re-edited them... and when he RE-re-edited them.. did you toss those out too?

George would be VERY unhappy with you if you hold on to his "bad versions"... and im sure you dont want to make your master unhappy.

im going to lock the basement door and turn off the lights.. you just sit down there and think about this for a while
02:40 PM on 12/09/2010
That sounds absolutely terrible.