After watching Tron and recently hearing Goerge Lucas talk about using actors images and voice after they die I started thinking. In the future will their be a need for actors at all? Will the digital age and age of perfection and costs lead to the elimination of paid actors?

I saw my first fully 3D re-creation of an actor with Terminator Salvation. Arnold was completely animated. I don't know if the films creators paid Arnold a cut for using his likeness but it was one of the big parts of the film to me. Then to see how far we have gone and can now digitally recreate people very realistically within a few years it will become nearly impossible to duplicate.

The first obstacle to this digital world is voice acting. Most computer animated characters require voice actors. However I'm sure the technology already exists where you could replicate someones voice. Could we tell the difference if someone read say 200 words to a computer in various different expressions that computer could probubly then  replicate the voice. Their for if a person recorded their voice then died the company could continue using both their digital likeness and voice.

Then one of the positives come in. Actors can always act but couldn't a computer programmer and 3D art team create a better and more realistic experiance? I've seen tons of 3D animated films where the characters are starting to look so life like and computer animators are getting better and better at mimicking human emotions by the day. So instead of hiring some AAA+ actor for 20+ Million why not hire a no name one for like 10k then replicate his voice and image digitally and do all the acting for him? The acting would probubly be almost as good as the real life actor and people probubly wouldn't notice too much of a difference.

Then image imagine having an actor who never ages , he can play any role from old geizer (Artificially aged) to child (Digitally turned younger). You could do for example a trilogy where the actor appears to be the same age for the whole trilogy. You could go back ten years later and make a sequel and the actor would still look and sound the same.

Third cost? As pointed out some big name actors get paid millions for their performances sometimes higher then 20+Mill. But a studio could digitally recreate the character and make tons of movies for alot cheaper then hiring the actor every time. This would be cheaper for the films developers and in turn keep budgets lower or from rising dramatically over the next few years.

Lastly the actors and actresses themselves. They could enter contracts to use their likeness and voice for perhaps a cut like 1% of viewers. Meaning they would make a ton of money for virtually doing nothing at all. Say the studio decides to make a trilogy for the film you worked on. You don't need to do anything they animate everything and you get paid a certain amount. This also cuts the need for actors instead companies could hire models who look beautiful or even computer generate characters. The potential for making money increases for smaller time actors and films would want to differentiate between studios and such by using different models and actors. This means more money for the less popular actors and models.

So what do you think? Is their room for actors/actresses in the future? Or will everything get digitized? Or maybe their will be both, can actors compete equally with computer generated actors?

No,actor's can't be replaced.Some people want to make good movies,not just a shit-load of money,you know...(Yeah that's kinda hard to believe,but it's the truth.)

No, actors will just not be way overpaid since they have compitition coming.

Avatar was a great AAA movie and the majority of the characters were computer animated. Sure the actors often wore tracking suits but theirs no reason that in the near future they couldn't create a film like avatar using human computerised characters?

Also as I said you could create trilogies even trio trilogies all the while keeping the character the same age. This would expand movie makers abilities big time and help them make way better movies. I'm sure directors and producers can create great movies with minimal use of actors over the next ten or so years.

Competition from what?  Their digital selves?  Not likely.  You're going to have to pay any actor what they want for their likeness (thank you Willard), and their "voice" is pointless.

You need real actors to act, and of course you need a good director to direct your actors.  Your (TC) mr. first paragraph George Lucas is not one of those directors. 

Yeah,GTA IV was also an AAA game according to the reviews,but it's a 8/10 game at the most.

And The Social Network scored higher than Avatar,your point is?

In my opinion,Avatar was considered ''great'' just because of how good it looked in 3D.

The animation did not act itself. The actors in Avatar did the acting.

So yes, there is plenty of room for actors in the future. Will they be drawing paychecks like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, and on? Maybe or maybe not. Time will tell.

The thing is will they need actors? Once they have the likeness and voice of an actor they could use pretty much anyone to make those scenes. Stunt men and newbie actors might be used instead of big actors. Not to mention if they completely animated the character from start to finish using no ones likeness, they could even go cheaper.

But your right time will tell, not to mention I'm sure alot of the actors and producers will fight the use of animated characters in stead of actors. But I think thats the natural evolution.

Is there Room For Humans in the Future?