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Comment by jmcgough | Hacker News Reader

I was pretty blown away by it in theaters - crazy to see Tarkin, Leia, and Mothma, looking and sounding almost exactly as they did in in Episode 4 all those years ago.

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I think quick cameos are really doable right now. Leia was fin in Rogue One, but the more Tarkin appeared on screen, the more "off" he felt to me. The animators definitely made it across uncanny valley and most of the way up the other, but I think we're still a little short of the top for extended appearances along side real people.

Maybe I'm blind, but I didn't know Tarkin was CGI until someone told me several days after I'd seen the film.

Most of the people here have convinced themselves that they could tell and it was awful. However, I bet if there was some sort of scientific comparison, a lot fewer people would guess right.

I am willing to bet you would get different results if you broke the people up into groups of people who watch eyes and people who read lips. I think the eyes were way more convincing than the lips. People who lip read could tell something was off. I also wonder if it would work better if they superimposed human lips onto the cgi face.

Perhaps more interesting are the people who can't understand that their own perceptual blind-spots are not universal standards. This is especially interesting in the social realm, but I think what makes this example so interesting is it may fall somewhere in between (physical and social.)

My wife has never seen the original trilogy, and she exclaimed "Is he CG??" 200ms after grand moff's face was on the screen.

Come on guys, both characters were deep in the uncanny valley.

That may well be true... but the uncanny valley isn't the same for everyone. Tarkin looked great to me. For the two seconds she's on screen, Leia looked fine, if oddly happy given the situation. I'm guessing there's a LOT of variance between people's perception of the uncanny valley.

I found Tarkin pretty distracting from the start. I don't think other people I was with noticed though, so maybe it wasn't a bad choice.

This is Star Wars...uncanny CGI can't offend too many fans.

The first 3 star wars movies was made mostly with props (miniatures). The next 3 were CGI.

http://themovieblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/lucas-gre...

Except unless you own a copy of the VHS release before 1997 you are stuck with bad CGI in the original three.

Which is certainly sad. Anyone born since around 1995 has probably only seen the awful song scene in Episode 6 version.

> The first 3 star wars movies was made mostly with props (miniatures).

If you bought them decades ago.

I found Leia really hit the uncanny valley, for me. Shudder.

P.S. I'm commenting on this with specificity, here, because the thread is already a spoiler in this regard.

Mothma was a real actress who was a bit of a doppelgänger :)

Actually Mon Mothma was played by the dead-ringer for Caroline Blakiston, Genevieve O'Reilly.

She also plays Mothma in a deleted scene in Episode III.

Mon Mothma didn't appear until Return of the Jedi.

Think we'll see the side story that lead to the data she presented to the Rebels in that episode?

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