SAG-AFTRA has gone on strike for many reasons, but one that stands out to me is an effort to make digital copies of extras and maintain the rights to use them in perpetuity. There are many implications of this, from people losing an opportunity to work, to Ethical implications ex:your likeness is used in a movie/tv show/commercial you would not want to be involved in.
I wanted to take a look at some of the past examples of entertainers likeness’ being used posthumously.
Fred Astaire Vaccuum Commercial
Bob Ross Paints the Mountain Dew
Carrie Fisher Rogue 1 Turns out this is incorrect, Fisher passed after filming of Rogue 1. It was Rise of the Skywalker
There are definitly more examples out there, if you know of any, post them here.
On a personal note, I find this all to be deeply unethical without specific permission granted by the entertainer.
Some souces:
Actors are digitally preserving themselves to continue their careers beyond the grave
Dead celebrities are being digitally resurrected — and the ethics are murky
The Bob Ross Mountain Dew video is incredibly eerie. Don’t think Bob Ross would have ever done anything like that.
Everything I’d ever read about the Bob Ross “company” that manages his used to be so protective of his likeness being used anywhere he wouldn’t approve. I guess if you’re offered enough money, you can become okay with anything.
Unethical does not even begin to cut it. It’s firmly in horrifying territory for me.
If a construction company taxidermied their dead workers into animatronics and used those unholy puppets to perform the same job, it wouldn’t shock me more.
It’s pretty creepy to want to use people’s likeness forever, so it can be used for any purpose in the future. It’s perfectly fair for these actors to be pissed.
Companies will never do the right thing without being forced to do it, it’s just not in their nature. So having strikes and forcing their hand along with regulation is the only real solution
Maybe if Hollywood would stop doing endless sequels and reboots, they wouldn’t need to own the digital likenesses of actors forever…
Carrie Fisher died after the premiere of Rogue 1, so she doesn’t belong on this list.
You are absolutely correct, and I’m going to change the body of the party to reflect that.
I knew I had read about Carrie Fisher doing apostomus performance and mistook her de-aging in Rogue One as that performance. Turns out it was Rise of the Skywalker that included previously shot footage which was her posthumous performance. https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/12/31/how-was-carrie-fisher-in-star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-cgi
