Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould
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Once upon a time, characters designed and acted entirely by a computer would be thought of as pure science fiction. But with the CGI revolution well underway, it’s a fact of movie-going life. Fully CGI characters, once a rarity, now feature in countless big-budget blockbusters released each year – and, arguably, have done so for the past three decades. So which are the best? Whether original characters, de-aged actors or dearly departed stars brought back to the screen, we take a look at our favourite characters who managed to dazzle without setting a foot on set.

By Victoria Luxford

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Gollum (The Middle Earth Saga, 2001-2014) – The performance that established motion capture as an artform. British actor Andy Serkis provided the movements and voice for Gollum, a hobbit who had been twisted and tortured by his love for the Ring of Power, while WETA Workshop animated his truly horrifying image. Twenty years on, the creation remains a marvel of filmmaking that showed what’s possible when technology and art combine. Gollum proved so popular in the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, that he and Serkis were brought back for the Hobbit prequel films as well.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Thanos (The Marvel Universe, 2012-2019) – One of the most fearsome characters on this list, Thanos was first signalled in the end credits of the first Avengers film, shown grinning to the camera. Sporadic appearances followed, but it wasn’t until 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War that we saw the Mad Titan in action. A powerful being obsessed with gaining balance at any cost, this callous alien was played by actor Josh Brolin in motion capture, then animated to truly epic proportions. It’s hard to assess whether an alien can be judged as ‘realistic’, but most Marvel fans agree he was an impressive sight.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Tiger (The Life of Pi, 2012) – You didn’t think that was a real tiger, did you? Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning film is about the friendship that develops between a young boy (Suraj Sharma) and a tiger stranded aboard a lifeboat at sea. Putting a child on set with a live tiger would have been a safety risk for obvious reasons, however, so a stand-in puppet was used, while an animated full-sized tiger was added to the film in the editing stages. The effect was so convincing, there were reports of audience members worrying that either Sharma or the tiger – or both – had been put in harm’s way for the sake of art!

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Grand Moff Tarkin (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, 2016) – When Gareth Edwards created Star Wars prequel Rogue One in 2016, it came almost 40 years after the events it was setting up. As such, there was the tricky prospect of bringing back characters whose actors were either much older or had passed away. The character Grand Moff Tarkin, a senior figure in the evil Galactic Empire, was vital to the story, but the actor who played him, Peter Cushing, had died in 1994. Miraculously, a combination of motion capture and archive footage of Cushing brought the actor “back to life” – with the blessing of his estate, of course – in a way that no movie had done before.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Dr. Egon Spengler (Ghostbusters: Afterlife, 2021) – The Ghostbusters sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife faced a similar issue, as one of the original Ghostbusters stars, Harold Ramis, had died in 2014. Stand-ins, makeup and ultimately a very convincing CGI animation helped bring him back (so to speak) for the film’s climax, which portrayed his character, Egon Spengler, as a ghost. While bringing departed actors ‘back to life’ is a contentious issue for some movie fans, most agree this was a fitting tribute to a man who meant so much.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Caesar (The Planet of The Apes franchise, 2011-2017) – How do you centre an entire trilogy of films around animals? That was the issue for the Planet of the Apes prequels in the 2010s, which sought to tell the story of the events leading to the 1968 hit Planet of the Apes, from the perspective of an ape named Caesar. Andy Serkis, the motion capture legend behind Gollum, had previous experience playing a bigger ape in 2005’s King Kong, but Caesar would involve creating a rounded performance using CGI to portray an evolved ape that had human characteristics but still looked realistic. The results were impressive, and the successful trilogy is testament to that work.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Maz Kanata (The Star Wars saga, 2015-2019) – She’s one of the most famous faces on the planet, yet Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o was unrecognisable as the small alien creature Maz Kanata in the Star Wars sequels. Capturing her performance and shrinking it down to a much smaller size, the character served as a kind of successor to Yoda in the trilogy led by Rey (Daisy Ridley) and her fellow adventurers. For a franchise that pioneered the use of special effects, it’s an appropriate evolution.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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CLU (Tron Legacy, 2010) – One of the first examples of de-aging in movies, Jeff Bridges fought against his younger self in a sequel to the influential 1980s sci-fi hit. He plays CLU, a digital copy of Kevin Flynn (Bridges) who has gone mad with power. It was an impressive feat for the time, and although advances have been made since then, the beginnings of a movie revolution are clear to see.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Smaug (The Hobbit trilogy, 2012-2014) – Smaug, a dragon obsessed with hoarding gold, is the charismatic and fearsome villain of The Hobbit films – and an opponent of that stature should be played by a highly talented actor. Enter: Benedict Cumberbatch, who not only provided the voice for Smaug, but also moved around like a dragon in order to get a more three-dimensional performance. While CGI dragons are a reasonably common effect now, popping up in everything from animated family movies to Game of Thrones, Smaug left a bigger impression than most.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Optimus Prime (The Transformers franchise, 2008-) – For many years, technology hadn’t been advanced enough to realise the popular 1980s Transformers cartoon and toy line in live action. In 2008, director Michael Bay changed all that, finally creating a photorealistic version of the heroic Autobots, led by the iconic Optimus Prime. He was even able to enlist Peter Cullen, the voice of the character in the cartoons, in order to make the dreams of fans around the world come true, as well as kickstart a movie franchise that continues to this day.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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The Na’vi (The Avatar Franchise, 2009-Present) – From a technical standpoint, the Na’vi are one of the most ambitious and spectacular character creations in movie history. Director James Cameron created a whole race for his epic sci-fi movies, complete with their own languages, tribes and customs, all achieved through motion capture animation. While many on this list are companions to the lead characters, The Na’vi are the stars themselves.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Davy Jones (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, 2006) – For centuries, the legend of Davy Jones has struck fear into the hearts of sailors the world over. The success of The Pirates of The Caribbean movies meant that this legend should be brought to life, but in a truly unique fashion. British actor Bill Nighy played the character, only with computer animation making him into a squid-like figure who was fearsome to behold. Even with better technology available today, it’s an impressive portrayal that sticks out as one of the Pirates Universe’s finest moments.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Indiana Jones (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, 2023) – Time catches up with all of us, and by the time Harrison Ford came to the fifth Indiana Jones film, he was in his eighties and could no longer convincingly play the action hero he once was… or could he? Using stand-ins and a de-aged performance from Ford, The Dial of Destiny’s opening sequence featured a stunningly accurate rendering of a young Indiana Jones, so realistic it’s hard to believe it isn’t lost footage. It’s likely that this will become more common as time goes on in an industry that likes its heroes to be timeless.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Superman (The Flash, 2023) – One of the great “what if?” moments in Hollywood was answered with DC movie The Flash, which featured a brief CGI creation of Nicolas Cage as Superman. For fans – and Cage himself – this was a role 25 years in the making: the Oscar winner was meant to play Superman in a cancelled 1998 production directed by Tim Burton. Appearing as his younger self in the costume intended for the film, we got a small glimpse of what might have been.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould.
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Groot (The Marvel Universe, 2014-2023) – While technically two characters, given that Baby Groot took over from his older predecessor, the lovable sentient tree voiced by Vin Diesel has been a favourite for many years, bringing fans to tears despite only ever saying three words: “I am Groot”. Despite the limited dialogue, Diesel threw himself into the role, even wearing stilts to get the feeling of being a character over eight feet tall.

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Virtual Stars: 15 Digital Movie Characters Who Broke The Mould

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