Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny star John Rhys-Davies revealed he expects AI to resurrect him on the big screen once he's dead.
Rhys-Davies, who reprises the Sallah role in Dial of Destiny, predicted that AI-powered technology will generate posthumous performances by him at MCM London Comic Con in October 2022. "I'm already digitized," he said. "Very soon when I'm dead, unscrupulous studios will make a John Rhys-Davies 'type' who will be able to sort of use John Rhys-Davies' vocabulary. We can replay his voice, and then you'll have a John Rhys-Davies that they don't have to pay for, which is always a good thing as far as the business is concerned." At the same time, Rhys-Davies also noted the potential benefits of AI, such as providing a way for people to interact with their deceased loved ones.
Rhys-Davies' Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny co-star Harrison Ford offered a similarly mixed appraisal of AI's capabilities, as well as modern visual effects in general, in a recent interview. According to Ford, the technology itself matters less than how it is used. "[W]e have the capacity to generate more enemies than anyone would ever face before. More airplanes in the sky than anyone would ever see. But what happens is you lose human scale," Ford explained. "And if you lose that, you lose the audience’s ability to experience, consistent with the characters, the story that you’re telling. It's too easy."
Harrison Ford On Indiana Jones' De-Aged Indy
Despite his reservations, Ford was still full of praise for effect house Industrial Light & Magic's efforts to digitally de-age him for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny's opening flashback sequence. The Hollywood legend even went as far as to describe his digital doppelganger as being indistinguishable from the genuine article. "Every frame of the film[s]… that we've made together … could be mined with, here we go again, artificial intelligence. And they could find the right angle, the right light, so that it's my mouth, my eyes, my face, married. It's not photoshopped or anything. It doesn't look that way. It's real."
Ford won't rely on ILM's cutting-edge tech to bring the young Indiana Jones back for a sixth installment, though. The 80-year-old actor confirmed that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will be his final outing as Indy in May 2023 and hasn't budged from that position since. Ford recently said he was retiring from the role to avoid "doing the same thing over and over again" and expressed gratitude towards the Indiana Jones fanbase for backing the franchise for more than 40 years.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is in cinemas now.
Source: MCM London Comic Con, via Popverse