Indiana Jones 5: title, trailer and the Ai that revolutionizes the age of the actors

Indiana Jones 5

The first trailer for Indiana Jones 5 has finally arrived. Or rather, of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny , this is the official title of the fifth chapter of the saga starring Harrison Ford and which will arrive in Italian cinemas in the summer of 2023 with the title of Indiana Jones and the Wheel of Destiny . The new film, written and directed by James Mangold ( Logan. Ford vs. Ferrari ), will be the last time we see Ford play the mythical adventurer archaeologist, who this time will be joined by his goddaughter played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. John Rhys-Davies will also return from the past in the role of Sallah, the cunning Egyptian excavator seen in The Lost Ark and The Last Crusade and who now seems to want to convince Indy to embrace the adventures of the past.

Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

From the scenes of the previous films to the reinterpretation of the legendary John Williams soundtrack, passing through parodic quotations of cult scenes (the final one here with the whip and guns subverts the mythical moment when Jones shoots a knife-waving assassin), the clip is brimming with nostalgia and throwback references. While it is clear that the protagonist will have to face new dangers and new enemies, especially those embodied by Mads Mikkelsen and Antonio Banderas, this fifth chapter will link up with Indiana Jones' past, showing him at different times in his life. This is possible thanks to refined de-aging techniques, through which the face of Ford, now in his eighties, has been digitally modified to appear younger.

It is no coincidence that Disney has always presented the results of its new cutting-edge research. In fact, its researchers have developed Fran (Face Re-Aging Network), an artificial intelligence system that makes it easier for actors on stage and above all in movement. Until now, the so-called re-aging , i.e. the modification of a performer's features to make him younger or older than his actual age, required a long and laborious work on the part of the special effects workers. Now it seems that Fran only takes 5 seconds to modify the personal data aspect of an actor: obviously the retouching artists can intervene further to make the result even more realistic, but most of the work is done by the AI, which instantly operates the scene after scene.

In the past, to obtain a similar result, experiments had been made with neural networks or machine learning systems, but these had the defect of working better on still images rather than on moving ones, where often they would lose sharpness or fail to recognize the same face for an extended time. The promise from the Disney developers, on the other hand, is that of a “practical, fully automatic and ready-to-use method during filming for the re-aging of video images” . As can be seen in the video below, as well as in the example of Indiana Jones 5 , the results are quite surprising, of an incomparable fluidity and likelihood.

Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

According to what was explained by the technical team of the Mickey Mouse house, which constantly looks for new techniques to make their shooting more efficient, it would have been to train Fran's neural network starting from a set of data relating to real people, because it would have required numerous pairs of images of the same person taken in the same expressions, poses, lighting and backgrounds in two different ages. Instead the researchers used a database of randomly created synthetic faces that were subsequently rejuvenated or aged. In this way Fran can analyze any face and predict which parts will be characterized by aging, thus applying wrinkles or other signs of aging in the most appropriate locations, without the need for continuous realignments.

Since 2006, the number of actors being digitally rejuvenated or aged on screen has been increasing exponentially, particularly in cinema but also in series and commercials. It is no coincidence that Disney has taken this particular aspect of special affections to heart: these studios have been among the most frequent users of these techniques, for example with Mark Hamill's cameo at the end of the second season of The Mandalorian. But many other production companies are busy on this front: Engadget reports that The Irishman, Scorsese's film for Netflix, has spent 200 million dollars just to digitally rejuvenate Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci. It is natural that Disney wants to find a technology that makes these processes much faster, more agile and above all cheaper. With Fran, it seems that she has finally achieved the desired result.