Ranking Every De-aging Movie Effect Ever

Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy was, by all accounts, a trainwreck both on and off of the screen. Because of the exceedingly late-in-game decision to expand it from two films to three, Jackson and his crew had to work overtime to fill the story with enough fluff to fill a full more three hours of footage.

One of those late additions was tacking on Orlando Bloom's Legolas to the latter two films. But seeing as Legolas is an elf (creatures that have much longer lifespans than hobbits), Bloom needed to not only look as young as he did in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he needed to look even younger. To cope with this, they used de-aging technology on the entirety of Bloom's performances in both The Desolation of Smaug and The Battle of the Five Armies.

On the one hand, you can hardly notice it. But on the other hand, you can hardly notice it. The effect isn't egregious, it's hardly even there. Bloom doesn't look as young as he did in Fellowship, he looks significantly older. His face is wider, his chin line more defined, and his eyes have this off-putting glazed-over appearance for the entirety of his role.

If the film wasn't going to actually utilize the tech to make a difference, they should have just cut their losses and left Bloom as he was, because that's essentially what it looks like anyway.