While Blade Runner 2049 made us wait a long time to see Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard again, we always knew he was showing up eventually. What no one expected was his love interest from the original film, Sean Young‘s Rachael, was going to show up too, and that she would look exactly like she did in 1982. In a movie full of stunning visuals it might have been the most impressive sequence of them all, and a new VFX reel shows how they managed to bring her back.
This video from Movie Picture Company, which we came across at The A.V. Club, walks through the complicated process they used to “replicate” Rachael without her looking a day older, and without her falling into the uncanny valley that has plagued other similar attempts. It involved using English actress Loren Peta on set, scanning both her face and Sean Young’s, and closely studying Rachael’s mannerisms in the original.
It’s hard not to look at the end result here and compare it to the strange quality of Princess Leia at the end of Rogue One, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. Visual effects supervisor John Nelson told EW the two-minute sequence took a year to complete.
All that workd was worth it though. When I saw the movie the first time she looked so realistic I thought they had found an actress who looked exactly like Sean Young. It didn’t even occur to me it was computer generated.
It’s amazing they only thing wrong with her really was the color of her eyes.
What did you think of this scene when you saw the movie? Let us know in the comments below.
Need More Blade Runner Business?
- Check out these insanely detailed miniatures!
- We went in-depth on the meaning of life in Blade Runner.
- And finally, here’s our review of 2049.
Featured Image: Warner Bros/Sony
