Posted on 12/07/2010 1:40:31 PM PST by FTJM
Hollywood has famously had better luck using makeup to make young actors look old — like Russell Crowe in "A Beautiful Mind" — than making old actors look young. But the ability to manipulate images digitally could prove to be a fountain of youth for some.
In "Tron: Legacy," which opens Dec. 17, 61-year-old actor Jeff Bridges will play Kevin Flynn, at his natural age, and a computerized avatar called "Clu," who hasn't aged since around the time he was first created in the original "Tron" in 1982.
Clu bears Bridges' face, altered to make him about 35 years old, but it's grafted onto a younger actor's body.
While it may be eerie for audiences to see a new performance from a younger-looking Bridges, it was no less strange for the actor himself.
"It's bizarre. It's great news for me, because now it means I can play myself at any age," Bridges said.
There have been digitally created faces before, even on fully animated bodies. Think Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings" or Dobby from "Harry Potter."
But no movie yet has done what The Walt Disney Co.'s "Tron: Legacy" attempts — putting an actor's rejuvenated face on a younger body, and in 3-D no less. Inevitably, the 61-year-old-turned-35-year-old face will be compared to Bridges when he was actually 35.
"With Jeff, we can go rent 'Against All Odds' or 'The Fabulous Baker Boys' or 'Starman,'" visual effects supervisor Eric Barba said. "All this makes it incredibly difficult."
The filmmakers did not want Bridges' Clu looking precisely as he did in 1982. The idea was that some time had elapsed, and Clu was meant to look like Bridges in "Against All Odds," which came out two years after the original "Tron."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Snake, I think they used old Schwarzen-Kennedy footage in T:S rather than use the “actor” (well he sucked while acting as a Governor!) and make him younger with CGI like they are doing with Bridges in Tron.
I saw a sleeper of a movie that does this with a lot of actors. I liked the flick so much I bought it. It’s called Surrogate and stars Bruce Willis. It’s got a very interesting story and some fascinating plot twists and “what if?” scenarios.
I highly recommend it.
It’s not really a remake, it’s a “trying to be closer to the same book”-make.
Stop, before you get Lazmataz excited.
Even with all its flaws, I LOVED the original Tron. I was a mainframe programmer when it came out. That may have been part of the draw. ;)
I am very excited about this one. It’s one of those movies I’d really like to see done “right”.
BTW, I think one of the films biggest flaws was actually an epidemic at Disney back around that time: The score. Watch the old Tron and “The Black Hole” some time. Notice the music that accompanies the action in the latter (or the former, for that matter). It’s laughable.
Agreed on Surrogate. I thought it was going to be a “renter” class movie, turns out I wished I’d caught it in the theater.
>>The original ‘True Grit’ is not a masterpiece of any sort. Wayne was doing self parody.<<
This.
I agree.
You may get a kick out of this. I was never an elvis fan, but this remix and video absolutely blew me away:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-NDXtDUcGQ
I’ve read other reviews of this, however, I’ve read that it’s still not perfect. They say that when CLU talks you can instantly see it’s a computer gened image by the way the mouth works and that his skin is a little to ‘shiny’ as they put it. However, I think they aren’t far away from the time when we won’t be able to tell.
Once they shot that commercial of Fred Astaire dancing with a Red Devil vacuum cleaner, the future was obvious. The estates of actors and other celebs are now copyrighting their voices and images for future reanimation - the days of a rejuvenated cyber-Connery “starring” in a new Bond flick are not far off.
Tron has a major cult following among 2 significant nerd contigents: movie, and tech. Half the kids that saw it when it first came out are in one of those two industries, some are even in computer animation and therefore in both. And they’ve been jonesing for a sequel for a long time.
yah...the Missus and I are going to see True Grit for Christmas. The previews look pretty good, and this is going to be an entirely different movie from the original. It’s pretty ambitious for Jeff Bridges to try and outdo the Duke...
“Fill yore hand, you Son of a Bitch!!”
hee, hee, hee....
Surrogate reminds me of “Point Break”. When I rented each, I had never heard of it, and was blown away by what I saw. There was actually an article quite a few years back about movies that are poorly marketed and never see their potential at the box office. Point break was used as an example. They said it had to do with the lousy title. Nobody knew what “Point Break” meant and it didn’t sound interesting.
BTW, that article was the reason I rented and subsequently bought that one as well.
I don’t know what went on with Surrogate. I was at a RedBox and saw a Bruce Willis movie that looked like Sci-Fi. I said, “It’s a buck. I’m game.” I was really shocked how good it was.
Oh, so is “The Island”. But I’m starting to ramble...
This technology is not new. They’ve been using in entertainment for many years now.
I know that starting with about season 2 of sex and the city, those running the show started digitally enhanching Sara Jessica Parkers face and figure to make her more attractive. The other 3 demanded the same thing quickly. So on the Reruns, DVDs, and Movies, etc....every single frame of them is heavily manipulated to make them look younger, more attractive in the face, and much thinner.
I know the brunette whose probably the best looking one of the bunch is obsessed with her hips being wide, so any front or back shots of her, they used computers to give her the hips and ass of a 18 year old model or would go out of the way to film her waist up.
You’d be shocked if you saw most hollywood actors or tv stars in real life these days. They look almost nothing like what is presented on print and film because of all the digital “touchups”. Face and bodies.
Does Jeff get double pay?
The central plot of “Point Break” was just too preposterous. But I guess it would have been too unattractive to have our slacker anti-heroes finance their free-wheeling lifestyle through drug-dealing or defrauding grannies than with flamboyant bank robberies.
What the hell is the title of that movie a few years back with Al Pacino as a declining auteur whose career is rejuvenated when a dying mad computer geek who is a great fan gives him the software for a virtual femme fatale that can be easily programmed to play any part on screen he wants?
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