Alden Ehrenreich gave Han Solo a fresh face in this year’s prequel Solo: A Star Wars Story, but many fans missed Harrison Ford’s original take on the iconic character. Of course, Ford’s a bit too old to be playing a young Solo, but thanks to deepfake technology, YouTube channel derpfakes (via io9) gives us glimpse of how Han Solo’s backstory would’ve panned out if Ford played the role back in the ’70s.
Derpfakes previously rendered Harrison Ford as Han Solo using footage from the trailer, but now that the full movie is available, there’s more to work with including the very banter-filled gambling scene with Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian. Using stills and footage of a 1977 Harrison Ford, derpfakes recreated the “most convincing young Solo” possible. Some commenters say this is the Solo they imagined, while some say this makes them appreciate Ehrenreich’s performance even more. Either way, it’s pretty darn cool.
While deepfake can be used for fun reimaginings, the technology is controversial, with the trend of rendering pornographic images of non-consenting individuals on the rise. Reddit banned subreddit r/deepfakes back in February to try to limit the influx of non-consensual explicit edits. Tumblr also issued updated community guidelines in a similar attempt to curtail these images.
When in good hands, though, this tech lets people play with footage and create some pretty cool edits.