can a legend live forever?

In a recent Entertainment Weekly interview about his new movie Avatar, James Cameron talks about how with the new technology he utilized, he was able to seamlessly translate an actor’s performance into a synthetic computer-generated character.

Cameron makes a point that although they chose to use this technology to create blue CGI aliens, they could have just as easily made the computer-generated character look like a human:

“If we had put the same energy into creating a human as we put into creating the Na’vi, it would have been 100 percent indistinguishable from reality. The question is, why the hell would you do that? Why not just photograph an actor? Well let’s say Clint Eastwood really wanted to do one last Dirty Harry movie, looking the way he did in 1975. He could absolutely do it now. And that would be cool.”

I’ve heard of this notion of having movie stars play a younger CGI version of themselves, but it scares me a little, for several reasons.

1. Will it lead to someday just having computerized characters take over every part in every movie, so acting is rendered obsolete?

2. How will we foster new movie stars or icons if we don’t allow them to break through in roles of their own, since we’re too busy putting older movie stars in movies?

3. Will it be more of a distraction than anything else to have recognizable movie stars at a younger age taking on lead roles in new movies?

Only time will tell. But we're safe for now. Big blue aliens are no Eastwood.