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Lord of the Rings fans have praised a decision to bring back Christopher Lee as Saruman by using archive footage rather than artificial intelligence.
Lee died in 2015, aged 93, having played Saruman in five different Lord of the Rings films. from The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001 to The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in 2014, which was the last film he starred in to be released during his lifetime.
Despite his death, Lee’s voice will actually appear in the forthcoming anime prequel film The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex director Kenji Kamiyama.
Speaking to Lord of the Rings fansite The One Ring, screenwriter Philippa Boyens moved to reassure fans that Lee’s legacy as the character would not be tainted by the use of AI but they will instead be using archive footage.
Boynes said: “I reached out to Gitte (Lee’s wife), who is sadly no longer with us, and she said the thing that I think Peter [Jackson] felt in his heart. Christopher would’ve wanted this.”
She added: “We based it on a line from The Hobbit… and we thought, okay, that’s a line we can see how many takes he did of that. Can we use it? Can we find a new read on it and change it up a little bit? And our brilliant guys did that. But it is an authentic bit of Christoper Lee’s performance that it’s based on that line.”
The decision has been widely praised by fans of the franchise for refraining from using AI, something that the likes of Star Wars have been criticised for, in comparison.
“Using archival recordings instead of AI? Another proof of Lord of The Rings being the best franchise ever,” one fan wrote.
Another said: “No AI! That’s great. Christopher Lee is a legend.”
A third added: “This is how you use a deceased actor. Unused dialogue or cut takes, and find a way to work around it. There’s been a few movies that have done this pretty effectively over the years, and it also uses no AI.”
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The new film, which is set to be released on 13 December, is set 183 years before the events of the main Lord of the Rings trilogy and tells the story of Helm Hammerhand, a king of Rohan, whose family are forced to defend their land against an army of Dunlendings.
The anime will feature the voice talents of Brian Cox, Luke Pasqualino, Miranda Otto, Shaun Dooley and Gaia Wise among others.
