When Should Hollywood De-Age?
Five Rules For Turning Back The Hands of Time
Hollywood is obsessed with dredging up the past. For almost a decade, cinephiles and casual moviegoers have lamented that originality in the movie business has dried up like water on Arakkis.
The most recent evidence to support this claim is the overabundance of de-aging in film and television. Starting in earnest in the mid-aughts as an airbrushing technique for quick cut-away scenes, de-aging has become central to many modern-day movies. Now, the success of whole movies, such as Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman, lies in the effectiveness of the de-aging process.
It is a controversial practice that has often annoyed those who accuse Hollywood of being too interested in nostalgia while, on the other hand, being embraced by most audiences who relish the chance to encounter actors in the present as they were in the past.
The fact is that de-aging is here to stay, whether we like it or not. There is no way to put this genie back in the bottle. But after the recent glutton of de-aging, it’s important to ask: When should de-aging be used?
It’s a question that I’ve been wrestling with ever since Billy Joel’s latest music video dropped earlier this month, which deploys de-aging/ deep faking to various degrees of success.
There are a few rules that, if followed, could give filmmakers and craftspeople greater clarity on how to use this revelatory tool to enhance the movie-going experience instead of distracting from it.
In offering these de-aging rules, I’ll be looking at a short list of films and creative projects that use de-aging extensively: the movies The Irishman and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, television’s The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett and the Billy Joel music video for “Turn The Lights Back On.”
Rule 1. Use when essential
If de-aging an actor is not essential to the story, don’t do it. It’s as easy as that.
Rule 2. Use sparingly
Nowadays, the oft-touted instances of de-aging actors have been exercises in nostalgia. It’s thrilling to see Robert De Niro and Harrison Ford back in their prime. It’s a rush to see Return of the Jedi-era Luke Skywalker again.
But this wistful return to the past is also an emotional decision. Moviegoers and *gulps in pain* content consumers yearn for the comfort of their first encounters with these characters. So, it’s easy to understand why filmmakers overindulge in de-aging in a good-natured attempt to give the audiences what they want.
The next rule, then, is to use the tool sparingly. Twenty-minute action sequences featuring an eighty-year-old playing a 35/40-year-old is not the way to recapture the essence of the past.
Using de-aging as little as possible heightens the emotional impact of the creative choice. The now-famous scene from the end of season two of The Mandalorian is an excellent example of using de-aging sparsely for maximum emotional impact. Admittedly, the quality of the de-aging is bad, but what has made this scene memorable for many is the feeling of catharsis that occurs when the de-aging is revealed.
All eight episodes of the season lead to only 45 seconds. For many fans, the scarcity of the effect made it more impactful when they reunited with Luke Skywalker from their childhood.
Yes, there’s a catharsis when we see these characters—but that nostalgic awe wears off quickly. Skywalker’s 45-second scene at the end of season two of The Mandalorian was ruined by an expanded role in The Book of Boba Fett, and the novelty of seeing Joe Pesci and Al Pacino de-aged felt tedious by hour three of The Irishman. De-aging should be like attending a party you’re not thrilled about: make a memorable appearance for a few moments, then gracefully take your leave.
Rule 3. The less talking, the better
The best moments of de-aging I’ve seen have been those where the human mouth moves very little. It’s a weird thing to observe, but it’s true. Consider this shot from Dial of Destiny as a purely bodily movement. Indy is simply turning around in the frame. There’s no speaking, no opportunity to break the allusion. It’s a quick shot, but because of that, it’s the only moment in the picture that you genuinely think you’ve been transported back in time.
The de-aging across all these movies and projects works to a point. They’re a spell cast until we are reminded they’re supposed to be real people, not memories. And the thing that often breaks the spell is when the mouth moves—almost making these real people look like video game characters.
And while most of the music video for “Turn The Lights Back On” uses deep-fake instead of de-aging (which, yes, if kind of different but kind of the same), the final moment around 0:33 is incredibly impactful because it feels real.
And why does it feel real?
The camera is pulling away from the 70s-era Billy Joel, and the shape of the mouth moves enough to say “back on.” There’s no elaborate facial movement, and thanks to the camera, there is less time for the audience to have the spell broken. Filmmakers should consider using de-aging only when the movement of the performances demands as little movement of the mouth as possible.
Rule 4. The less moving, the better
There are few things more painful than seeing a 76 year old Robert De Niro attempting to beat someone up like he did in his Goodfellas days, but that’s exactly what we got in 2019’s The Irishman. In the scene, De Niro (playing mobster Frank Sheeran) beats up a grocer at a local shop who shoved his daughter. It’s filmed is as a wide shot with only one quick cut to a reaction shot. The result is painful.
All respect to DeNiro, but it’s clear the two-time Oscar winner is not in great shape. It reveals another big problem with de-aging: the feat almost never translates to de-aging the body or the voice. Most attempts at de-aging keep the original actors aged physicality and voice, with the occasional exception of a very wide shot or AI-assisted audio manipulation.
Let’s be honest, folks: a young person’s face on an old person’s body is a haunting sight. Much like the movement of a mouth, it breaks the fleeting spell that the audience is under. It snaps them back to reality. Filmmakers should keep movements simple (like the above mentioned shot from Dial of Destiny) and quick—and no wide shots when a body double can’t be found.
Rule 5. If a younger actor can do it, let them!
In 2015, Harrison Ford co-starred with Blake Lively in the romantic fantasy The Age of Adaline. Livley’s titular character, 107 years old and unable to age after a mysterious accident, forms a deep romantic connection with a man—only to discover that his father is a man (Ford) whom Adaline loved forty years earlier. In flashback scenes that reveal how Ford and Lively’s characters met, the filmmakers cast the Australian actor and impressionist Anthony Ingruber. The resemblance went viral.
Now, why do I say this?
Ingruber was cast for both his acting skills and close resemblance to Ford. But when it came time to consider how to film the elaborate opening to Dial of Destiny, the filmmakers opted to spend tens of millions of dollars to de-age (but not de-voice) Ford. They only used Ingruber, a perfectly capable actor, as Ford’s body double. Lucasfilm would have been wise to cast the young performer instead of trying to de-age the legend. This would have been a smart move in a rich tradition for the franchise. After all, who can forget River Phoenix’s brilliant portrayal of a young Indiana Jones in Last Crusade?
Choosing de-aging instead of recasting also deprives other strong performers of finding their place within the world these films create. As Variety noted last year:
Following today’s trends, Marlon Brando would have been de-aged to play the Corleone patriarch in “The Godfather Part II,” depriving the world of Robert DeNiro’s Oscar-winning turn.
What are your thoughts on de-aging? Does it go too far, or not far enough? Let us know in the comments below!
Great as always son!