One issue this raises is that of likeness rights. California has a law that grants postmortem right of publicity for 70 years after an individual’s death, but Cushing, having died in the UK, isn’t covered by it. Lucasfilm secured his estate’s permission anyway, putting two citations in Rogue One’s closing credits. Variety even reports that Cushing’s former secretary and current estate manager was impressed and emotionally affected by the results, saying that “whoever put it together were absolutely fantastic.” So there’s no rights dispute here - but it still sits uncomfortably.

A thornier problem, one that’s more ethical than legal, involves passing one actor’s work off as another’s. I'm sure Guy Henry gave a solid performance, but he doesn’t appear in the movie. He won’t even get attention, as Andy Serkis frequently does, for creating a new and unique character - or even a new take on an old one. Rather, he was hired to impersonate Peter Cushing, and to channel that impersonation through a photorealistic replica of the deceased actor.

Does Henry’s performance reflect how Cushing would have approached the role? We’re meant to believe it does. Otherwise, why create the double? But Rogue One’s Tarkin is merely an imitation filtered through a facsimile. We see Peter Cushing, yet none of Cushing’s personal creative process was involved in building that performance. To me, that feels dishonest.

Did Mon Mothma escape the CGI treatment solely because Genevieve O’Reilly played her in the prequels? Alden Ehrenreich has been cast as a young Han Solo, but would Lucasfilm just digitally de-age Harrison Ford if they could afford to do it at that scale? And will we ever see Guy Henry’s Tarkin?