[HN Gopher] 'Indiana Jones 5' will feature a de-aged Harrison Fo...
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       'Indiana Jones 5' will feature a de-aged Harrison Ford for the
       first 25 minutes
        
       Author : aheck
       Score  : 38 points
       Date   : 2023-04-26 20:43 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.engadget.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.engadget.com)
        
       | javajosh wrote:
       | On first principles, this is unfortunate. A good example of how
       | technology enables the old to maintain a grip on power. I
       | generally like Harrison Ford and his movies, but deciding to
       | continue with this franchise feels wrong, somehow. Undignified.
       | Similar to Biden running again or Feinstein (or RGB!) not
       | retiring.
       | 
       | Let go, man.
        
         | lotsofpulp wrote:
         | Real politicians being elected and leading people in real life
         | is not similar to a movie studio trying to squeeze money from a
         | nostalgic audience for a pure luxury purchase that no one has
         | to buy.
        
           | PKop wrote:
           | Film and TV is a multi billion dollar industry that produces,
           | whether purposeful or not, whether with nefarious intentions
           | or not, mass media propaganda, memes and narratives that
           | millions of people around the world consume, and which then
           | informs their views on and understanding of the world,
           | history, culture, the human condition etc. To say their is no
           | power involved in this process is naive.
           | 
           | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
           | 
           | "... the father of public relations". His best-known
           | campaigns include a 1929 effort to promote female smoking by
           | branding cigarettes as feminist "Torches of Freedom", and his
           | work for the United Fruit Company in the 1950s, connected
           | with the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically
           | elected Guatemalan government in 1954. He worked for dozens
           | of major American corporations including Procter & Gamble and
           | General Electric, and for government agencies, politicians,
           | and nonprofit organizations.
           | 
           | Of his many books, Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and
           | Propaganda (1928) gained special attention as early efforts
           | to define and theorize the field of public relations. Citing
           | works of writers such as Gustave Le Bon, Wilfred Trotter,
           | Walter Lippmann, and Sigmund Freud (his own double uncle), he
           | described the masses as irrational and subject to herd
           | instinct--and he outlined how skilled practitioners could use
           | crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them in
           | desired ways."
           | 
           | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Randolph
           | 
           | Marc Bernays Randolph - an American tech entrepreneur,
           | advisor and speaker.[1] He is the cofounder and first CEO of
           | Netflix. Another paternal great-uncle of Randolph was Edward
           | Bernays, an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public
           | relations and propaganda.
        
           | yieldcrv wrote:
           | Analogies compare _dissimilar_ things with a common attribute
           | 
           | Up to you to figure out the context or point out how there
           | are _no_ common attributes, or just how you don't understand
           | it for clarification, there's almost never a reason to
           | unilaterally correct a person making an analogy
        
         | sho_hn wrote:
         | He's said it's the last time he will play the character, and
         | that he won't be involved with the upcoming TV show. In a quite
         | stern way, saying he "expects that it will be the last time you
         | see the character", i.e. making sure that future digital
         | resurrections will get bad press for going against his will.
        
         | yamtaddle wrote:
         | 4 should have been a hand-off to a grown up Short Round, who'd
         | carry the franchise from there. '60s geopolitics were full of
         | conflicts and great power games in relatively-wild regions
         | featuring the ruins of cool ancient civilizations and such,
         | would have been great. Southeast Asia, parts of Africa, some
         | stuff going down in South America, tons of fertile soil for
         | '60s-updated Indy. Put it in the early 60s and Short Round
         | ("Actually, I go by Wan Li these days--Junior.") could start at
         | about the same (fictional) age Indy did in the first three
         | movies.
         | 
         | Instead we got... what we got.
        
       | legerdemain wrote:
       | Likeness courtesy of Harrison Ford.
       | 
       | Body movement by Jackie Bradshaw.
       | 
       | Facial acting and expressions from Tony Armstrong.
       | 
       | Nose performance (closeups) by Vic Ganderton.
       | 
       | Hands: Industrial Light & Magic
        
       | oblak wrote:
       | At best, we might get another awesome south park episode out of
       | this
        
       | excalibur wrote:
       | > Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
       | 
       | Tell me you're under 30 without telling me you're under 30.
        
         | orra wrote:
         | Next people will be calling "Star Wars" "A New Hope" or
         | "Episode 4"!
        
         | strictnein wrote:
         | Agreed, but... Paramount refers to it that way as well.
         | 
         | "INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK"
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xQSIdSRlAk
         | Get ready for edge-of-your-seat thrills in Indiana Jones and
         | the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
        
           | hairofadog wrote:
           | I don't know if it's true but I thought I read somewhere that
           | they changed it so it could be sorted alphabetically in video
           | stores, because people would go to the _I_ 's for _Indiana
           | Jones_ , but then _Raiders_ would be way over there. Not a
           | great reason and possibly not even true, but that 's the way
           | I heard it.
        
       | slibhb wrote:
       | Didn't work so well in The Irishman:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqGV0IuodWE
       | 
       | Something uncanny about his face. Takes me out of the scene.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | lanartri wrote:
       | ford is benjamin button at movies anymore
        
       | cm2187 wrote:
       | De-aging doesn't really work when the actors have the tonus of a
       | 80yo like in The Irishman. You get those young looking actors
       | that are mostly static, slow moving and struggling to stand up.
        
         | Freire_Herval wrote:
         | [dead]
        
         | diogenescynic wrote:
         | The fight scenes in The Irishman were so embarrassing.
        
       | atleastoptimal wrote:
       | Lucasfilm/Disney is hoping positive reviews of this tech will
       | allow them to make unlimited CGI/AI/Deepfake movies in the future
       | starring any actor from the past at any age, eliminating the need
       | for an actor's involvement beyond a likeness rights contract.
        
         | drybjed wrote:
         | Who knew that The Congress (2013)[1] would be so prescient...
         | 
         | [1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/
        
         | adam_arthur wrote:
         | Yes, they and others certainly will.
         | 
         | Generative AI will bring about widespread deflation in the cost
         | of entertainment... which will be great for society. Can't
         | really put the genie back in the bottle once it's out.
         | 
         | Why even pay licensing fees to existing actors? Just create
         | your own personas to repackage. Of course there's some value in
         | the immediate term to using recognizable likenesses, but not
         | likely to be a longer lived trend.
         | 
         | We can look back 10, 20, 100 years and easily recognize the
         | huge benefits technology has brought to society, and still
         | whenever something new gets created there are people that will
         | fight it tooth and nail over very shortsighted concerns.
        
           | lordnacho wrote:
           | I wonder if it will extend to generating off-screen content
           | like interviews and paparazzi photos.
           | 
           | I think you're right though, it will happen. Probably in some
           | cheap corner where it makes economic sense, then to the
           | bigger roles. Perhaps you don't want to manage thousands of
           | extras for battle scenes, paying them and feeding them. Just
           | generate them. Then eventually you also end up doing away
           | with minor speaking roles, then the big ones.
           | 
           | The plot can also be generated. If you like fantasy, the AI
           | can generate a new world for you with its own lore.
        
             | adam_arthur wrote:
             | Yeah, all kinds of applications.
             | 
             | Fully generated and high quality voice acting for games.
             | Likely much more realism and ease to open world generation,
             | without using traditional procedural generation techniques
             | or hand creating everything.
             | 
             | Extras in movies and TV shows adding realism on a low
             | budget. Voice overs of all kind.
             | 
             | Virtual friends who give you attention without asking for
             | anything in return. Human like AI to play games with.
             | 
             | Content is the most important and impactful thing in the
             | average person's life as it relates to leisure. The impact
             | of mass deflation and an explosion in both quality and
             | quantity of content shouldn't be underestimated.
             | 
             | Much of society's problems can be solved by raising
             | standards of living and giving people the means to live a
             | more enjoyable life on less money.
        
           | freitzkriesler2 wrote:
           | The only deflation will occur for the producers and corporate
           | owners. You, me, and everyone else will pay the same prices
           | while 95% of these who went into making movies will be
           | unemployed.
        
             | adam_arthur wrote:
             | Look up what a "competitive market" is, and the
             | implications on cost to the consumer.
             | 
             | To be more direct, if content is cheap for everyone to
             | produce, then they will have to compete on price to get
             | consumers to engage with their content. This is obvious
             | from both historical record and first principles.
             | 
             | Look at margins in any mature industry with high levels of
             | competition.
             | 
             | Its also clear from history that unemployment created by
             | technology gets absorbed into other types of roles. How can
             | the US have close to an all time low unemployment rate
             | after the industrial revolution obviated so many factory
             | jobs?
             | 
             | People who fight technology have no understanding of
             | history. Some lose, most win
        
               | freitzkriesler2 wrote:
               | >> Look up what a "competitive market" is, and the
               | implications on cost to the consumer.
               | 
               | I'll pass since I have more important things to do.
               | 
               | I've worked with the industry (entertainment that is) and
               | it is graft covered in glitz. Trust me, the major studios
               | including Netflix all collude with one another. They'll
               | use AI to drive down their costs while slowly creeping up
               | their streaming fees.
               | 
               | Deflation for me and not for thee is the name of the
               | game, especially when it comes to AI.
        
           | londons_explore wrote:
           | > deflation in the cost of entertainment
           | 
           | Or will it lead to an increase in the quality of the results?
           | 
           | Anyone can make a very funny homemade movie on a shoestring
           | budget in their backyard... But those aren't the movies that
           | earn all the profits.
           | 
           | Entertainment is a battle for attention, and whoever spends
           | most tends to win most attention. And the amount you can
           | spend depends on your expected revenue, which in turn is some
           | chunk of everyone's entertainment budgets.
           | 
           | So... If you invent a clever way to make movies cheaper... It
           | won't make movies cheaper to make - it will just make the
           | resulting films more elaborate.
        
             | adam_arthur wrote:
             | The two are effectively the same. If you produce a more
             | valuable good with the same or fewer inputs, thats
             | deflationary in real terms.
             | 
             | There will always be content across the quality spectrum.
             | Look at the hundreds of videos of Presidents playing video
             | games or harry potter by balenciaga on youtube. These would
             | never exist at this scale without generative AI due to
             | level of effort required to create them versus ability to
             | monetize the result.
             | 
             | Suddenly many types of content are able to be created in a
             | rapid and cost efficient way that weren't previously
             | possible. Greater supply of content versus roughly neutral
             | demand leads to lower prices (on average)
        
         | rnk wrote:
         | Harrison Ford keep saying this is the last one with Indiana
         | Jones. It seems like he must have been careful to avoid signing
         | over the rights to have a virtual Harrison Ford. At the very
         | least he would be against it. I guess he's deep. Fake
         | characters are going to get good enough that we can't tell them
         | part and I'll be cheaper eventually than paying a real actor.
         | And I don't look forward to that.
        
           | epolanski wrote:
           | Why not put some other generative AI oon top of that to
           | further fuel the age of average?
           | 
           | https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average
        
         | dmreedy wrote:
         | I was thinking about this the other day as my family was
         | watching the Obi Wan TV show.
         | 
         | Darth Vader is in it, and he's a composite of I think only two
         | actors this time; Hayden Christensen doing the physical
         | performance, and a James Earl Jones-trained voice filter on him
         | when he was in full costume. James Earl Jones got a line in the
         | credits, but I'm not sure he read any lines.
         | 
         | Got me wondering if LLM technology and its successors might
         | yield fictional character/actor composites that no longer
         | correspond to physical people anymore, Hatsune Miku, or
         | Gorillaz-style. If there will be a time when Darth Vader is
         | credited as being performed by Darth Vader. He already _is_ a
         | composite as it stands.
         | 
         | When too for the Marvel cast?
        
       | commandlinefan wrote:
       | I imagine this technology is only going to get better - I suspect
       | it won't be long before Harrison Ford appears in dozens of movies
       | every year even after his death.
        
       | freitzkriesler2 wrote:
       | Why deage when we can just have AI replace them entirely?
        
         | ASalazarMX wrote:
         | What makes you think that isn't the ultimate goal? Little by
         | little CGI will cross more lines. Fully virtual actors are
         | probably the wet dream of Hollywood.
        
           | freitzkriesler2 wrote:
           | That's what I was implying. Might as well go full ham.
        
       | melling wrote:
       | They keep referring to Indiana Jones being in his 30's but the
       | character was supposedly born in 1899 so that puts him at 45 in
       | 1944.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_(character)#:~:t...).
       | 
       | "Mangold would "shoot Harrison on a Monday as, you know, a
       | 79-year-old playing a 35-year-old, and I could see dailies by
       | Wednesday with his head already replaced."
        
         | yamtaddle wrote:
         | They must be thinking of the age he was (roughly) in the first
         | two movies, with 1936 and 1935 settings (respectively). He'd be
         | 35 or 36 for _Temple_ , and 36 or 37 for _Raiders_.
        
           | melling wrote:
           | And he played 39 for the Last Crusade in 1989 (shot in
           | 1988?). Ford was born in 1942 so the de-aging puts him at the
           | same age as the Last Crusade.
        
         | bluefirebrand wrote:
         | What's the point of getting a 79 year old to physically do the
         | acting if it's all digital after anyways?
        
           | Aloha wrote:
           | After watching Harrison Ford on 1923, it's because he mostly
           | moves like someone half his age still, but also, he moves
           | like _Harrison Ford_.
        
             | ASalazarMX wrote:
             | I've watched Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, with Owen
             | Wilson acting like the usual Woody Allen insert. Good
             | actors can convincingly imitate other actors.
        
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       (page generated 2023-04-26 23:03 UTC)