Okay maybe Iâm late to the outrage train here.
But let me be the next person to sayÂ
Bad on so many many levels
First off, bad for actors everywhere, because theyâre saying âposthumously castâ as if thatâs actually James Dean. Theyâre listing ââJames Deanâ in the credits! But it is not James Dean, it is a really convincing puppet. So what does that mean for all living, human actors? If I can animate your likeness convincingly enough, youâre no longer you. Youâre a name and face I can slap on anything I want. Letitia Wright could be shooting Black Panther 2 in one part of the world, while Letitia Wright could be posing for a close-up in a completely different part of the world via computer imagery. Theyâre both Letitia Wright! Who cares if one is cobbled together by pixels? If it looks and walks and talks the same wayâ
Oh but WAIT a minute! It does not look, talk, and walk the same way! It canât. Especially not the James Dean-puppet.Â
I mean. Digitally insert someone else into a movie, and maybe the mistake wouldnât be so glaring. But you canât put James Dean on the casting list if all you have is pixels. You know why? Because James Dean was infamous for being really sucky to work with for most directors. Theyâd tell him to say one thing and heâd say another. Theyâd tell him to go stand over there and look at the camera and heâd go stand over there and look out the window. And it was gold. The other actors were confused and the directors were happy to get his disobedience on film because it was better than what was in the screenplay! He freaked RONALD FREAKIN REAGAN out when they did a TV show together because he wouldnât stick to the script.
Hereâs an excerpt from what the director of his last film, Giant, experienced with James Dean, as told by a Texas-attitude coach:
And that, ladies nâ gentlemen, is THIS:
Which is, by the way, the bumper image for Giant.Â
You cannot take James Dean, who was a creative genius, and make him from scratch. Thereâs something human about really good actors that comes across onscreen, and when they act just a little different from whatâs written on paper, or put their own spin on whatâs written on paper, and cameras happen to catch it, almost by accident? Thatâs movie magic! Digitally puppeting the actor who was literally known for refusing to be micro-managed is bad and horrible.
And in conclusion, itâs CREEPY.