The Star Wars saga has always utilized the wealth of British acting talent, including the likes of Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Ian McDiarmid, Sir Alec Guiness, the recently passed Christopher Lee and, of course his hammer horror co-star Peter Cushing. Cushing, whom died in 1994 played Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Cushing had enjoyed a lucrative career before Star Wars scaring audiences in classic horror movies such as 1958's adaptation of Dracula, as well as appearing as classic British characters such as Sherlock Holmes in 1959's Hound of the Baskervilles and the 1968 TV series, and as Doctor Who in two TV movies; Doctor Who and the Daleks, and Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150.
According to reports from UK Newspaper The Daily Mail, the British director of last years monster hit Godzilla, Gareth Edwards is looking to feature Cushing's character of Grand Moff Tarkin in his forthcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. While this makes sense considering the movies plot telling of the legendary mission to retrieve the plans of the Empires deadly space station weapon known as the Death star, the worrying aspect of the report is that director Edwards is looking to digitally recreate the actor/character.
Despite the fact that the CGI industry has been a staple of Hollywood for over twenty years now, the mastery of the technology is far from perfected, especially when it comes to recreating the human form, and even more so the face. A look (pictured above) at recent attempts from Tron, Fast and Furious 7 and this years Terminator Genisys, shows that the effect is far from perfect, though other attempts in Captain America and Ant-Man so much more promise.
One could argue that instead of relying heavily on the promise of CGI director Edwards could use the more traditional make up effects, such as those used on actor Wayne Pygram to recreate Tarkin for the closing moments of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (pictured below). Using an actor of similar build and height to Cushing circa 1979, whom is also capable of emulating Cushings nuances and voice could prove much more beneficial and cheaper than a digital recreation, but again the final effect will be far from perfect.
Another option would be to marry both technologies, utilising the advantages of each to eliminate the weaknesses of both. Using the aforementioned "man in a mask" with digital manipulation and polishing could create a multilayered effect that could closely enough emulate Cushings enigmatic performance while tricking the eyes of the audience as to which technology has been used. But unfortunately this cross-technique has never been used before.
Of course there is one final problem, during filming for Star Wars Cushing, after finding the Imperial boots too uncomfortable, was wearing slippers in most of his scenes. Thus, unless Tarkin is never going to walk anywhere and if Edwards does commit to digitally recreating the character then animators will have to study Cushing performances from his extensive back catalogue of movies. However, should Edwards follow our advice an actor would, at a cheaper price be able to emulate Cushings walk.
