This Is How AI De-Aged Harrison Ford for 'Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny'

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Legacy actors and their movies have enjoyed a resurgence in recent years to the extent that sequels are being created after even longer gaps.  One such legacy movie is Indiana Jones, played by none other than Harrison Ford of Star Wars fame. While most movies have challenges to overcome like producing a quality movie, one challenge in creating legacy movie sequels is the actors' age and preserving relatively consistent character appearances, given the gaps between movies. The process involves archival footage, CGI technology, and artificial intelligence. Recently, the 80-year-old actor sat with Stephen Colbert to discuss de-aging.

Ford elaborates:

“That is my actual face. At that age. They have this artificial intelligence program. It can go through every foot of film Lucasfilm owns, because I did a bunch of movies for them. They have all this footage, including film that wasn't printed. They could mine from where the light is coming from, the expression. But that's my actual face. I put little dots on my face and I say the words and they make it. It's fantastic.”

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The de-aging process has become more familiar with projects involving legacy actors. This could be because large franchises like Star Wars, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, etc., involve timeline placements. They need their actors to look like they did years ago. For example, Star Wars: Rogue One used body doubles and face insertion technology to recreate Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin and the late Carrie Fisher’s Leia Organa to allow the movie to fit appropriately into the timeline of the original trilogy. As the upcoming Indiana Jones film will take place in 1969 during the Space Race, de-aging will be required to maintain character continuity. Fans will have the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of de-aging on June 30 when Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny arrives in theaters on June 30. 

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