So Liz and Matt and I, whilst engaged in one of our regular chats, get around to the topic of CG in movies when Liz brings up this art / psychology concept called the Uncanny Valley. Basically, when human simulacra like robots (and CG animation, ostensibly) look too much like humans, a response of revulsion is automatically engendered in the viewer.

What does that have to do with anything?  Simple, says I–we’re getting closer and closer to that point, as evidenced by the following:

It is now possible to produce a new movie starring Marlon Brando — a virtual Marlon Brando, according to Neil Dessau, chief marketing officer for Advanced Micro Devices. Unveiling the company’s new Ati Radeon graphics card in New York Tuesday, Dessau said that the card will permit directors to control not only the lighting, staging, and dialog of movies digitally but also create virtual actors and easily manipulate their facial expressions. The online edition of Advertising Age quoted Jules Urbach, founder of a firm developing high-quality animation as saying that it is now “possible to bring back actors from the past and realistically put them in new films.”

You catch that?  We’re putting dead actors in modern film.  If that’s the case, then how long unto the permanent collapse of the star system?  Will they have to pay the estates of the actors brought “back from the past”?  Or will they just scoff and say: “Public domain, bitches!  We do what we want!”?

Or will this concept backfire and catch the studios even further off guard, as people refuse to see that latest Marlon Brando movie because they’re so revolted by the Uncanny Valley concept?

Either way, this is going to be shockingly interesting to see.  The legion of concepts now available with this kind of technology are beyond all levels of precedent.

How about a Real World-esque reality tv show featuring dead actors?  Marlon Brando living in a house with Lucille Ball-Arnaz,  Anna Nicole Smith, Andy Kaufman, Chris Farley and John Belushi?

Maybe you’re dying for another Ernest movie, but since Jim Varney went the way of the dodo it wasn’t possible.  Until now!  Jim could be “Hey Vern!”-ing his way through a new direct to video sludge pile by this time next week!

Want to see Raul Julia reprise his Gomez Addams role but can’t because he’s dead?  Oh ho, sez the studio, not any more!  Hey RAUL!  Get your bony undead ass back in the suit and DANCE, little man!  Will Angelica Huston play her devastating Morticia in front of a green screen?  Does it even matter??  She too can be “realistically” inserted in later–why bother with little things like CONSENT?

On the one hand, I’m intrigued by the idea that a major series no longer has to stop due to the death of a lead actor. And yet, at the same time, I’m just horrified at the sheer amount of disrespect it takes to “realistically” involuntarily implant anyone in a film, alive or dead.

Comes down to one interesting question:  Riddle me this, Bat-fans….how do you like the thought of another Heath Ledger Joker-driven Batman?

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