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No. No one in Hollywood has the Necronomicon (that we know of), so we won’t get a terrifying rotted corpse that used to be the late actor Peter Cushing stumbling around the set of Star Wars: Rogue One. But he is going to reprise his role as Grand Moff Tarkin. Or so they say…

According to The Daily Mail’s source, Rogue One will push the limits of CGI technology to digitally recreate Peter Cushing, who died of cancer in 1994, as Tarkin. They are literally going to pull a Tron Legacy and make their own young Jeff Bridges. This could be really cool, or super creepy and lame. Here’s what the Mail’s source has to say on the subject:

This is one of the most complex and costly CGI re-creations ever. Cushing is a pivotal plot line as he was the one to create Darth Vader and there’s a whole back story that will come out.

Pretty sure Darth Sidious created Darth Vader. Perhaps they mean the Death Star? We’ll find out soon enough. The source also talks about going through some of Cushing’s other films to use as reference for his legs and feet.

They are going through hours and hours of old footage from the horror movies to recreate his legs and feet to produce realistic movements. It is eerie to see someone who has been dead for so long come to life on a screen.

Fun piece of Star Wars trivia: Cushing did not like wearing the uncomfortable riding boots officers had to wear on the Death Star. He wore slippers instead, making the cameramen shoot the actor from the knees up and with him standing behind the conference table.

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Recreating an actor via movie magic isn’t totally unfounded. We’ve already referenced Tron Legacy creating a young version of Jeff Bridges. Terminator Genisys brings back the younger version of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Gladiator used CGI to bring back Oliver Reed, who died from a heart attack during filming.

The above examples makes sense, but why bring back Peter Cushing to play Tarkin? I get that he’s an iconic character, and that his look is iconic in the Star Wars franchise. However, they already recast Tarkin with Wayne Pygram, who played the character in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Why not use him again? You see, there’s this thing called makeup. It can do wonders on a person’s appearance.

Source: The Daily Mail

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Christina E. Janke

Christina is the co-host of “Intro to Geek” on Shauncastic and Editor-in-Chief at Agents of Geek. Her love of all things Mass Effect knows no bounds. She also carries an obsession with comic books, video games, and quirky television shows. Her heroes are Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Gail Simone. She hopes to be just like them when she grows up.