Val Kilmer has been resurrected on screen through artificial intelligence, appearing in a new film years after his passing. The development has stirred complex emotions in Alan Lasky, a visual effects veteran who worked with Kilmer on the 2000 sci-fi film Red Planet—an experience he calls the worst of his career.
Lasky spent three months in Australia's Great Simpson Desert alongside Kilmer and Tom Sizemore, enduring extreme heat while filming what he describes as a nightmare production. The ordeal was so grueling that it drove Lasky out of the visual effects industry entirely.
Now, an AI-generated version of Kilmer is appearing in cinemas, a prospect Lasky finds deeply unsettling. "We're messing with something we shouldn't be," he says, echoing concerns raised by other industry insiders. Lasky himself compares the situation to the cyberpunk dystopia of Neuromancer.
The technology behind this digital resurrection uses AI to recreate an actor's likeness and performance, raising ethical questions about consent, legacy, and the future of filmmaking. For Lasky, it's a surreal twist on a painful chapter of his past.