5. Deepfake Exploration
So how to pull it off? Well, fascinatingly enough, Lucasfilm spent a lot of time exploring deep fake technology. That’s when you put a bunch of footage and imagery from other projects into a computer, and A.I. extrapolates it frame by frame to maps an appropriate expression over new footage. A VFX worker named Landis Fields was secretly locked in a room at Lucasfilm to explore using deep fake technology to recrate Luke, using 4K footage from the films, old interviews and more. In the end though, the team didn’t feel like the technology was quite ready yet, and went with the traditional deaging they’d used in other films like Rogue One.
(Side note, even just based on the footage seen in the documentary, I disagree with that sentiment. The deep fake, even in rough form, was excellent.)
