A new rumor has stated that Lucasfilm will announce a new series of Disney+ shorts starring Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Leia Organa at the upcoming Star Wars Celebration.
Shaun O’Rourke, an industry professional who, according to his IMDb bio, has "over 20 years of experience" working with renowned companies like Warner Bros., Disney and Netflix, recently posted on YouTube claiming to have heard "a rumor of new Disney+ series announcement coming at Star Wars Celebration of a series of short films with Luke, Han, and Leia." The post also included the hashtags #DeepFake and #CGI as well as a de-aged image of Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones, Mark Hamill's Luke and Carrie Fisher's Leia, suggesting that these rumored live-action shorts will be set during the Original Trilogy timeline and use deepfake technology to create era-appropriate versions of the main trio. However, until officially confirmed or debunked by Lucasfilm, this rumor should be taken with a grain of salt.
Ford, Hamill and Fisher first starred as their respective Star Wars characters in the eponymous 1977 film, which was written and directed by George Lucas. The film, which was a resounding success with audiences and critics, follows Luke Skywalker as he was drawn into a galactic conflict between the Empire and Rebel Alliance. All three actors reprised their roles in Star Wars' first two follow-ups -- 1980's The Empire Strikes Back and 1983's Return of the Jedi -- which were also well-received and profitable. Ford, Hamill and Fisher later returned for Disney and Lucasfilm's sequels, which were released between 2015 and 2019 and concluded the "Skywalker Saga."
Star Wars' Official Deepfakes
Lucasfilm has experimented with deepfake technology since 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which superimposed the digital likenesses of Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher on Guy Henry's Grand Moff Tarkin and Ingvild Deila's Princess Leia Organa, respectively. A de-aged version of Leia also appeared in 2019's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker alongside a younger version of Hamill's Luke.
Following the completion of the Disney Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Hamill returned for a surprise cameo as Luke Skywalker in the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian. The actor portrayed Luke in reference footage captured on the Disney+ series' set, which was then replicated by a younger actor, Max Lloyd Jones. Jones' head was later digitally replaced with a de-aged version of Hamill's likeness from the 1980s. This process was also used for Hamill's Luke Skywalker cameo in The Book of Boba Fett.
Although deepfake technology was used in the upcoming Indiana Jones movie for a flashback scene involving Ford's titular character raiding a Nazi castle in the 1940s, Lucasfilm has yet to use the same methods in a Star Wars project featuring Han Solo. Instead, Alden Ehrenreich portrayed a younger version of Ford's fan-favorite smuggler in 2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story, which was set a decade before the events of the Original Trilogy. However, following Solo's poor reception among fans and at the box office, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy stated that legacy characters will not be recast moving forward.
The next Star Wars Celebration will be held at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre in London, United Kingdom, between April 7 and 10, 2023.
Source: YouTube