It’s almost tough to tell the difference in some shots.
Shamook
Solo: A Star Wars Story was a disappointment for many, garnering a mediocre critical response and lower-than-expected box office returns.
You feel sorry for Alden Ehrenreich in particular, who was given the impossible task of filling Harrison Ford’s shoes as Han Solo. A huge part of what made Han Solo work as a character was Ford’s charisma. Do you try and replicate that charisma, by imitating Ford’s movements perfectly? Or do you attempt to bring your own spin to the character and risk alienating existing fans?
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Or do you utilize modern deepfake technology and literally imprint Ford’s face onto Ehrenreich’s body?
That’s what YouTuber Shamook did and it looks… surprisingly great.
Usually there’s an uncanny valley property to most deepfake videos. This one feels a lot more subtle and — dare I say it — real. That’s partly because Ehrenreich has already been designed to look like Han Solo, so adding Ford’s actual face just exacerbates the effect.
The only weird part? No Han Solo voice. That is, for sure, distracting. That being said, it’s amazing the difference it makes seeing Harrison Ford’s face in this context. I always felt like Solo: A Star Wars Story was an underrated movie, but I’d definitely love to see a full length version with deepfake Ford in the lead, just as an experiment.
This isn’t the first time someone has attempted to deepfake Harrison Ford into Solo: A Star Wars Story, but this new one feels a lot more sophisticated. Deepfakes like this are becoming all the more common. Just last week we saw “JFK” discuss Rick and Morty, and last month MIT released a deepfake of “Nixon” reading out a preprepared speech written in case the Apollo 11 mission failed. We live in strange times.
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