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Watch how 'Rogue One' brought back young Princess Leia, Tarkin

A video reveals how Industrial Light and Magic used actors and CGI to make characters look as they did back in 1977.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
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Gael Cooper

With the recent loss of Carrie Fisher, her character Princess Leia's appearance in "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" is getting a fresh look. A video from ABC News reveals how a 1977-era Fisher, as well as the late Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin, managed to appear in the new film as they did when the original "Star Wars" was filmed.

More on 'Rogue One'

Cushing died in 1994, and while Fisher was still with us at the time of filming, nearly 40 years had passed since the then-19-year-old first played Leia. Star Wars fans are known for scrutinizing detail, so anything less than perfection would never pass muster. Computers to the rescue!

"Making digital humans is one of the hardest things you can do," says Paul Giacoppo of Industrial Light and Magic, the special-effects company founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas. "We were very, very immediately excited and immediately terrified."

As the video shows, actor Guy Henry studied up on Cushing's performance in the original film and performed his lines from the new movie. ILM employees built on Henry's video and voice work, and also utilized a mold cast from Cushing's face when he performed in the 1984 film "Top Secret!"

Fisher's brief cameo was helped along by Norwegian actress Ingvild Deila, as well as computer manipulation. ILM's John Knoll says Fisher not only assisted in the process, she "loved" the final result.