Long ago, in 1955, Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges passed away, leaving the remaining Stooges to fulfill their contracts for four more Three Stooges shorts by using stand-ins, reused footage, and clever editing to cover up the fact that they were a Stooge short. The use of a "Fake Shemp" (a term coined by Sam Raimi) has become commonplace in Hollywood over the years, though the techniques have become more refined over time. In the CGI age, studios now use digital doubles to resurrect the deceased or absent stars - examples include Oliver Reed in "Gladiator," Paul Walker in "Furious 7," Harold Ramis in "Ghostbusters: Afterlife," and Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher in "Rogue One."
Nobody seems to have much of a problem when Fake Shemp techniques are used to finish up projects that late actors had already agreed to do. However, when it comes to resurrecting the dead onscreen later on, things tend to get controversial. Back in 1997, Dirt Devil created a commercial with footage from 1951's "Royal Wedding," that made Fred Astaire appear to be dancing with a vacuum cleaner. Many, including Astaire's daughter, were critical of the ad and its possible implications for Astaire's legacy. Subsequently we've had Audrey Hepburn selling chocolate, Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor selling Volkswagens, and a few Beatles resurrected to promote the Beatles edition of Rock Band. And as technology has improved, we're starting to get some full digital recreations of these celebrities acting in ways they never could have in real life. Sometimes it looks a little odd, and sometimes it's downright creepy. Seeing Gene Kelly's famous "Singin' in the Rain" number updated with hip-hop moves looks bizarre.
It's only very recently that the technology has improved to the point where these digital doubles can be used to create anything resembling a full performance. In the 2000s, we had Lawrence Olivier as the villain in "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" and Marlon Brandon in "Superman Returns," but these appearances were achieved by manipulating existing footage, and were very, very limited. The roles were also very minor, so no one put up much of a fuss. Deepfakes and digital de-aging have allowed younger versions of Samuel L. Jackson and Mark Hamill to show up in "Captain Marvel" and "The Mandalorian" respectively, with the full cooperation and participation of those actors. However, we're a long way off from the fantasies of totally simulated or recreated actors from movies like "S1m0ne," and "The Congress." At this point, putting a different actor in makeup and prosthetics, like Robert Carlyle as John Lennon in "Yesterday," will still achieve better results. And it's certainly cheaper.
However, I expect that fully digital performances are an inevitability, given enough time and money. We're not quite there technologically, but we're getting closer. Digital doubles have been around long enough now that we're used to seeing them in many contexts. It's already been proven that more complex resurrections can be done, and in a few cases it's actually been planned for. Majel Barrett was recently heard voicing the Enterprise computer again in episodes of "Picard." She'd recorded a library of phenomes before her death in 2008, so that future "Star Trek" installments could continue to use her voice. Actors for big blockbusters are regularly getting full body scans of themselves done so that digital artists can plug them into fight scenes and special effects sequences, and it's not so hard to imagine that image rights in perpetuity are just around the corner. I'm sure Marvel has enough digital assets to put Chadwick Boseman back on our screens in some form, but right now nobody wants that.
In the future, who knows? Public sentiment, more than anything else, determines when the use of a digital double is acceptable. Even with Harold Ramis's family supporting the venture, the extremely well rendered digital Egon in "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" had plenty of detractors. If actors themselves get fully onboard with the idea, attitudes may change. However, there are always people who are going to find the idea of digital resurrections unappealing, no matter how good they look.
My own feelings remain decidedly mixed. It's exciting that the technology is improving, but like so many other things, the implications are messy and the industry is almost certainly not ready for it. Like everything else in the digital toolbox, it's great when used respectfully and terrible when it's not. I'd love to see Shemp Howard onscreen again, reunited with the Stooges. But if it's for the purposes of selling car insurance or crypto? I shudder at the thought.
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