Entertainment Weekly reports that a new movie using a CGI Bruce Lee has been approved by his estate. The movie will be feature length, and a combination of real and CGI-created footage. The lead role will be entirely CGI, but is the first to be based on a real person -- a major difference between this movie and one like Final Fantasy or Shrek.
The article also discusses Spielberg's choice to edit ET and highlights some additional uses of CGI in the movies. What the article doesn't address is what interests me the most: Can historical replicas really be faithful to the original? Then again, I finished Kiln People yesterday, so I've got dittos on the mind ;) The Link: http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,185640~1~0~somesurprisesaboutcgi,00.html A quote: "That's not the only case of computer-generated imaging that's poking purists in the eyes. Earlier this month, the family of kung-fu star Bruce Lee -- who died in 1973 of a brain edema on the set of ''Game of Death'' -- approved ''Dragon Warrior, a $50 million action tale starring an all-CGI Lee that would become the first feature film to resurrect a deceased character in a headlining role. (Lee's family did not return calls for comment.) Not that resuscitating Lee will be a snap. ''Using a synthetic character is an enormous challenge,'' says John Berton, visual-effects supervisor at George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic. ''To make a synthetic character look like a human being is doubly enormous. Then to make it look like an understood character or image -- like John Wayne or Bruce Lee -- you've tripled the complexity.'' Aside from a high price tag and unforeseen technical challenges, a new Lee film kicks up an ethical quandary. ''I'm horrified,'' says film critic Leonard Maltin. ''You're talking about inventing a performance by somebody who's dead. It's eerie and inappropriate.'' Jon Mary Had a Little Lamb... Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was slightly grey, It didn't have a father, just some borrowed DNA. It sort of had a mother, though the ovum was on loan, It was not so much a lambkin, as a little lamby clone. And soon it had a fellow clone, and soon it had some more, They followed her to school one day, all cramming through the door. It made the children laugh and sing, the teachers found it droll, There were too many lamby clones, for Mary to control. No other could control the sheep, since their programs didn't vary, So the scientists resolved it all, by simply cloning Mary. But now they feel quite sheepish, those scientists unwary, One problem solved, but what to do, with Mary, Mary, Mary...
