www.inverse.com: Rogue One was a revolutionary Star Wars movie for several reasons. It proved Star Wars could succeed at the box office beyond the flagship saga, it fleshed out a crucial part of the timeline leading up to A New Hope and, although no one knew it at the time, it led to the creation of Andor, the best Star Wars show on Disney+.
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The issue of human recreation using AI and deepfakes is an incredibly controversial topic at the moment, and while I am (typically) incredibly against the technology, as I fear the wider repercussions of it, this case is a rare one where I see no ethical issue with its usage. In fact, I take strong issue with the lawsuit against Disney (a first for me, Disney is usually in the wrong in most of their lawsuits), as I believe the ethical dilemma in this situation is not whether Disney was right to use Cushing's likeness, as they did, in my opinion, all of the morally necessary due diligence, but whether or not a company is allowed to claim complete ownership of a person's image. [To clerify, in my opinion, the use of someone's image requires two things: consent and compensation. Cushing's estate gave permission, which is consent. (Cushing is dead, he is not the one being affected by the use of the image. it is his family who needs to consent to seeing their loved one's image in that way, and by extension, it is their responsibility to act in a way they believe honors him best. that is all the consent that is necessary). And Disney compensated the estate, which is compensation.] Francis claims that, because Cushing signed an exclusive contract prior to his death that stated that Francis needed to approve Cushings' future appearances (one that may or may not have been permanent, the article did not say), any use of his image after his death needed to be approved by Francis. Ergo, a man who once employed Cushing claims that he now owns Cushings image beyond his death, permanently, regardless of the wishes of his surviving family and estate. This, in my mind, is beyond unethical, as it takes away the agency of an independent individual (their ability to consent, as mentioned above) at a time where the individual has no way of defending themself. Contracts of that type should end at death, and the fact that this suit is being brought up after Cushing's estate is no longer able to fight for him is even more despicable.
Aside from the issues of AI recreations I think the fact that the special effects company was able to get a hold of the model of Cushing's face after so many years is impressive that it was still around. Having the ability to recreate faces feels really cool that technology has advanced that far. I remember watching Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and being incredibly emotion over seeing a young Princess Leia again after Carrie Fisher's passing, which would not be possible without this tech. However, knowing that the body double underneath was her daughter does shed a different context. In this situation I understand the issue of claiming a contract from the original movies in the 70s still covers an appearance in 2016, I feel like I overall don't understand why Francis is choosing now to file a suit against the company. I can see how if this movie was being made now after Cushing and his estates executors have passed away being a problem, but it seem like the company had done some due diligence to pay for rights to use the image. I'm hesitant to say a large corporation is correct in any context, but I feel as though I'm missing some logic here.
I became a Star Wars fan in middle school, and I remember Rogue One being my favorite film in the series for a while. I knew that Princess Leia was digitally recreated for the ending scene of the film, but I don’t remember being aware that the same was done for Tarkin. I am not personally a huge fan of AI being utilized for these types of situations, but I’m not sure if I have a problem with this particular case. Cushing already played the role of Tarkin in previous films, and Disney did give him credit and ask his estate for permission. There doesn’t seem to be a legal basis for Francis to sue, especially since the article brings up the timing of the suit.
On an ethical level however, digitally recreating Cushing does give me pause, but what is ethical and what is legal doesn’t always line up, and honestly AI has been used for a lot worse than this.
When Rogue One came out, I was absolutely obsessed, and it was such a significant part of the Star Wars franchise to me; however, I have also forever wondered why they tried to use this computer reconstruction for Tarkin. I think Cushing had died somewhere around 1994, and so obviously there was not someone to play this role, but they instead used ILM and CGI to bring him back for the movie, which in my opinion is just so weird because he's literally dead and you're just using him with no permission whatsoever. What's crazy to me is that they secured a facial mold of him for a movie he had done so many years ago just to use it as a model for this movie. Disney claimed that the contract Cushing signed covered Rogue One as well. However, I just think it's weird that they went over people's heads to get molds and different actors to literally replace a dead mean, and regardless of having permission from Cushing's estate, it's still kind of scary that this was 1977 CGI, but now with modern-day AI, what is the movie industry really capable of recreating?
This is such an interesting concept. What comes to mind for me? Is the fact that they knew to ask Carey Fisher, and later to ask James Earl Jones before his recent death, that there voice and face might still be used after they are gone. However, in this case there was not consent. At a time where they knew consent would be ideal if not needed. However, they did get as close to consent as possible by getting permission from the executors of his estate. So it sounds like Disney did their job in this case. However, I think what important is of consent prior to any death. At the same time, it is worth considering the possibility that by consenting to have ones face and voice used after death, it could lead to companies the same performances over and over again, as opposed to allowing for new performance to come in, and make names for themselves.
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