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Paul Walker will still appear in ‘Fast & Furious 7′: The ethics of replacing an actor with CGI

Despite not completing work on “Fast & Furious 7” due to his untimely death in November 2013, late actor Paul Walker will still appear in the upcoming installment of the blockbuster action-adventure franchise.

The New York Daily News reports that Walker’s character, Brian O’Connor, will still be a major part of “Fast & Furious 7,” thanks to the use of body doubles and computer generated imagery.

“They have hired four actors with bodies very similar to Paul’s physique and they will be used for movement and as a base,” an insider close to production told the newspaper. “Paul’s face and voice will be used on top using CGI.”

While it’s admirable that the producers of “Fast 7” want to give Walker’s character a satisfying send-off (Brian will reportedly retire from the professional car mercenary business at some point in the film), the lengths to which the production seems to be going to include the character borders on exploitation. The true extent of Walker’s role in the upcoming movie is still unknown, but it’s a forgone conclusion that the marketing for “Fast & Furious 7” will highlight the fact that it’s the late actor’s last role. We can't help but imagine a commercial declaring, “See Paul Walker in his final role,” juxtaposed with a shot of a ghoulish CG approximation of the actor.

The slightly macabre process will also put Walker’s longtime “Fast & Furious” co-stars in the very uncomfortable position of acting opposite their late friend -- or an actor pretending to be their late friend. Add to that the entire team of visual effects artists who will be hired to painstakingly create a virtual version of the deceased actor, and the whole thing just seems kind of creepy.

Sadly, replacing a deceased actor with a digital double is not a new phenomenon. This sort of digital stop-gap measure has rarely worked well in the past, and, despite a massive production budget, it’s unlikely that it will work well in the case of “Fast & Furious 7” either.

The most notable instance of an actor being replaced by body doubles and CG took place during the production of the 1994 supernatural revenge film "The Crow." In a situation similar to “Fast & Furious 7,” star Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee) was killed in the middle of shooting (an on-set accident involving an improperly loaded handgun resulted in the actor’s death). Producers were forced to use then cutting-edge digital effects and lookalikes to complete the film. Lee had shot most of his scenes already, but the few scenes that did include a CG version of his face pasted onto a doubles body didn’t look very good. The process only served to make viewers more aware of Lee’s death.

Filmmakers have dealt with an actor dying in the middle of production before the advent of digital technology, too, but their solutions were a little more rudimentary at the time. Prior to his death in 1973, martial arts star Bruce Lee (father of Brandon) shot more than 100 minutes of footage on a personal project called “Game of Death.” Lee put the production on hold to star in the classic “Enter the Dragon,” but died before filming could resume.

Lee's death spawned a whole host of unfortunate knock-offs, impersonators, and send-ups that did nothing but exploit the actor's death. Not willing to let a nearly-completed Bruce Lee movie sit on the shelf at the height of his popularity, producers used footage from other movies and shot additional scenes using lookalikes and poorly superimposed paper cutouts of Lee's face to put the martial arts star back into his unfinished movie. “Game of Death” was released in 1978, five years after Lee’s untimely passing.

Is doing this ethical? Walker undoubtedly would have wanted "Fast 7" to continue without him, but no matter how well intentioned the digital fakery is, it can't help but come off as a little bit exploitative. A quick scan of Twitter reveals that many fans of “Fast & Furious” aren’t enthusiastic about the prospect of a CGI Walker, but many folks have decided to reserve judgment for now. No one associated with the film has officially weighed in on this report yet.

What do you think? Should the producers of "Fast & Furious 7" resurrect Paul Walker with visual effects and body doubles? Let us know in the comments.