You could also argue it's a good time to not have any kids growing up any more. That stuff's expensive.
The whole ILM 'let's bring people back to life thing' has some feeling a disturbance in the Force, thinking that those revered actors of lore should be left their position of glory and not messed with. So I was half and half of the opinion of their use in Rogue One.
Not the coffee cream thing, though.
And I'm not talking about Gold Leader, 'cause I think they could have used old footage from the actual A New Hope film and it would still have worked. I think they used some out takes and here and there and re-voiced him the original actor, too. But for me, I would have just made due with what was in the film and the point would have been made.
I think they could have actually just featured him in a montage of rebel pilots and that would have been cool all by itself.
The whole Red Five dying thing was a stroke of genius, I will admit.
So, there's principally two of them CGI peeps; Leia and Tarkin.
Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin first.
Now, Peter Cushing died many years ago and so, once the decision was made to make Tarkin a primary figure in Rogue One, they had to figure out how. And this could fall under the category of 'just because we can, should we?', because most times once someone gets their hands on a Mac crazy things start happening in the visual department.
Still, in my opinion, they did a great job with both the visual and the voice. They could have handled it by using a hologram type transmission and shot around him so that the obviousness of it being CGI wouldn't come into play so much. Because the things is, by those who know the reality of the actor being dead, you're judged not by the scene but how well you drew the dragon.
In other words, is Jurassic Park a great movie because it had believable dinosaurs in it, or because it was a great movie.
(I wonder if non-Star Wars fans seeing Rogue One even knew her was a CGI character?)
Still, in a strictly movie-going experience sense and from this Star Wars fan, I was admittedly very giddy when I first saw him. And I think they did have to address Tarkin, since he's the main Death Star driver in A New Hope. So, well done and hat's are off.
Princess Leia. This one I'm back and forth with a little more. Personally, even though it's really just one shot of her face and a single line (and the line I could have done without, too, since it's such a "in case you didn't realize I'm a comedian I'm going to tell you a joke now" kind of obvious marketing nod to the franchise.
I'll have to check on this as being an actual fact (vs. a pretend fact like most of what Trump says), but I would venture a strong guess that NONE of the Star Wars films have an actual line in them for another's movie title. So, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is not a line in A New Hope. THE RETURN OF THE JEDI is not a line in Empire. So, Rogue One has to have a line about "giving them hope".
So, ultimately it bugged me more what her line was than the fact that they made a CGI young Leia and threw her in there. Because Leia has class and character and personality; and she's a bad ass ... AND THEY'RE BEING SHOT AT AND ARE TRYING TO ESCAPE!
So she would yell someone like "punch it!" not smile and subtly look up and say something a marketing department or committee would tell her to say.
"Look at camera and say Vader is bad, but have a Coke and a smile"
Leis is NOT a committee people!
So, not only is she delivering a line from a movie franchise - get it? get it? She said 'Hope', because that's the name of the next movie- get it? get it? But the whole scene is out of sync with Vader just slaughtering a dozen rebel soldiers and trying to get those plans back. It's way too mellow.
Still, it's not utterly unwatchable like some JarJar stuff or Threepio as a constructed robot or Boss Nass spitting everywhere, and she's the coolest princess anyway, so I forgive.
Ultimately, I would say Star Wars is in good hands right now.
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