SIT Animation: Traci Meek: January 2017

Rogue One
Lots of CGI in this movie, of course,and because it's a prequel filmed 40 years after the original Star Wars, there are characters whose actors have aged or died. To bring the story full-circle, they've used two techniques: CGI face-swap and recasting.

Peter Cushing CGI explained

Actor Guy Henry was hired to be the on set Moff Tarkin and imitate his voice. He's a good match for Peter Cushing (who died in 1994). But then ILM replaced his face with a CGI "mask".

Which doesn't blink or have dilating pupils, doesn't emote, doesn't seem to do any physical acting at all, looks like plastic... I could go on because I hated the result. It's like they just wanted a moving mannequin to drape the CGI face on. If the character was that necessary to the plot, surely a PERFORMANCE was also necessary. Peter Cushing's acting in the first movie made the world more real because a thinking person was behind all the space battles and he kept Darth Vader grounded,

Mon Mothma's original actor, Caroline Blakiston, was recast with a look alike actress Genevieve O'Reilley in Rogue One, and it looks great. She could have been aged up, but it's a small gripe. I get that it's the same character and there's a performance. They also replaced two of the Rebel pilots but this time the CGI face swap worked- I could have sworn they just recycled old footage. The fast-paced editing definitely helped because there was no chance to enter the Uncanny Valley (that point where fake humans look super creepy).

A GREAT CGI performance was created by filming Alan Tudyk in a mocap suit as he played droid K2SO on set. The link to the featurette talks about how the animators pulled performance bits out of the footage and gave the droid blinks and eye shifts that showed the thought process behind his words. It created a fantastic character and I never thought he was CGI; totally fooled me.

Alan Tudyk as K2SO
creature and digital effects collaboration

Other stuff I've watched since school ended:

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Great character development with the CGI critters like the Niffler, and fabulous magic made real with Newt Scamander's suitcase.
Moana

"Shiny" crab and Maui's tiny tattoo self

Lego Dimensions games
Here's somebody's dream come true: a video game that mixes worlds kids, parents AND grandparents are interested in. All the fantasy worlds (or, as many as they could get the rights to) you can imagine mixing characters, set pieces, and scenarios.