#like. can we take off the damn spirk goggles and look at this for what it's doing? the precedent it is creating? please?

[favvn]

What continues to anger me about Otoy's methods, regardless of if they use computer generated imagery, AI, physical prosthetics, or a combination is that it makes a morbid mockery of Leonard Nimoy's physical appearance.

Above: L Nimoy (1979) in Star Trek: TMP (left), early Lawrence Selleck (2022) screen test (right)

The performers wore meticulously recreated costumes, makeup and prosthetics, to reflect their character’s evolution through key “in-universe” periods of Star Trek history as it was fleshed out by Roddenberry during the 60’s and 70’s: the Cage (1964), Where no Man has Gone Before (1965), The Man Trap (1966), The Menagerie (1967), The Animated Series (1972) and finally the Motion Picture (1979). (source)

This is all from Otoy's 2022 production 765874 Memory Wall. From my understanding, they used both these physical prosthetics and digital imagery for 765874 Unification.

Pardon my use of alliteration for effect, but I don't mean that these are distasteful depictions of him as a person and his depiction of the character of Spock, but that they have made his natural, physical appearance into a costume piece that someone can put on and take off as needed. And Otoy has done so to other actors who have long since passed, simply because people with money and the people who control the actors' estates/legacy/image sign-off on these projects. The actors themselves, whose likeness will continue to be circulated in new media long after their death, have no actual say in this, but! Their heirs are okay with it, so it must be okay, right? Right?

What Otoy and similar projects do is completely different than the old practice of reruns of an actor's shows, re-releases of their films, reprints of photographs of them, etc. This type of thing already has a long-established practice for generating residuals for the estate. But Otoy and other productions like it is new territory, and it is sickening that the families of these celebrities agree to it because this goes further than Nimoy and Otoy. There's the CGI Audrey Hepburn chocolate commercial. There's the Gap commercial that used footage of her from Funny Face. Marilyn Monroe has been used in commercials long past her death as well. The list sadly goes on.

At what point is a celebrity allowed to be dead? At what point can we allow them to rest, without clamoring for more content and trotting out a shell of their image for it? If a celebrity's image, likeness, and voice can be used long after their death, do they still own the rights to their own body, their own voice? If we are fine with this for celebrities, what comes next for the rest of us?