Beloved Hollywood filmmaker Robert Zemeckis wants us to recall the good old days, back when his movies weren't critical flops and commanded hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. And so, in his new, eras-spanning movie "Here," the director reunites his "Forrest Gump" co-stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as if it were still the 90s, with the two actors looking younger than ever.
Or, well, sort of. This feel-good looking movie, as it turns out, has a controversial quirk: to make his stars look young again, Zemeckis leveraged AI-assisted de-aging technology — and the results, which if we're being generous are mixed, come at a time when AI's use in entertainment. In some moments, the AI de-aging looks convincing enough.
Hanks and Wright's characters first come into the picture as a young couple. The production used a generative AI driven tool called Metaphysic Live, which essentially does a "realtime, hypperreal faceswap," in the company's own description, on the actors to age them up or down. Wright was de-aged, for example, with footage of when she was 19 years old,Zemeckis has always been one to toy with the limits of technology in the medium.
Those CGI duds, like "Beowulf" and "Pinnochio," were more labored and less beloved — possibly presaging Zemeckis' foray into AI with "Here." De-aging, AI-powered or not, has always proved divisive, drawing scrutiny in blockbusters ranging from the recent "Indiana Jones" to serious pictures like "The Irishman."
It's not just that it looks bad. Many creatives oppose AI on principle, especially in the movie industry, where Hollywood screenwritersWhat Netflix Did