A YouTuber who specializes in deepfakes has earned themselves a job at Lucasfilm after embarrassing the experts at Industrial Light & Magic with a series of deepfake videos that demonstrate how much better Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Wilhuff Tarkin could have looked in modern Star Wars releases such as The Mandalorian and Rogue One. Shamook’s new position was confirmed in a statement delivered by Lucasfilm this week, which noted that ILM has been “investing in both machine learning and A.I. as a means to produce compelling visual effects work.” While it’s the Star Wars content that brought them the most attention, Shamook’s deepfakes channel features many other interesting deepfakes that show different actors in notable roles. These include Tom Cruise as Iron Man and Will Smith as Neo (from The Matrix), both of whom were originally intended to star in those roles.
“As some of you may already know, I joined ILM/Lucasfilm a few months ago and haven’t had the time to work on any new YouTube content,” Shamook wrote in a comment this month. “Now I’ve settled into my job, uploads should start increasing again. They’ll still be slow, but hopefully not months apart. Enjoy!”
Source: IndieWire