Harrison Ford’s newest Indiana Jones movie will take his character back in time to 1944 and 1969 when he was a younger version of himself. But instead of relying on makeup to make him look true to his on-screen age, LucasFilms used state-of-the-art special effects and puts Ford’s “actual face” on camera.
The 1923 actor met with Steven Colbert earlier this week and tried his best to describe the technology, but he admitted that he’s still not sure exactly how it all worked.
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“They have this artificial intelligence program that can go through every foot of film that Lucasfilm owns,” Ford explained. “Because I did a bunch of movies for them, they have all this footage, including film that wasn’t printed. So they can mine it from where the light is coming from, from the expression.”
Harrison Ford has been starring in George Lucas films, including the Indiana Jones and Star Wars franchises, for decades. So the legendary movie maker has thousands of hours of Ford film through the years, which means his AI was able to find enough images of the actor’s face with the perfect lighting and shadows to fill the entire Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiney.
“I don’t know how they do it. But that’s my actual face,” Ford added. “Then I put little dots on my face and I say the words and they make [it]. It’s fantastic.”
‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiney’ Takes Harrison Ford Back More Than 50 Years
Producer Kathleen Kennedy spoke with Empire magazine about the tedious details that went into perfecting the movie. She noted that all the work was done so the audience wouldn’t even notice.
“My hope is that, although it will be talked about in terms of technology, you just watch it and go, ‘Oh my God. They just found footage. This was a thing they shot 40 years ago,’” she said in October 2022. “We’re dropping you into an adventure, something Indy is looking for. And instantly you have that feeling, ‘I’m in an Indiana Jones movie.’”
The movie, which is the fifth in the series, puts Indiana Jones in the time of the great space race where the heroic archeologist must defend the world against a Nazi re-emergence.
The Lucasfilm production paired with Disney to create Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiney. The movie debuts nationwide on June 30, 2023.
