For over 100 years, Leo the Lion has introduced Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films with a triumphant roar as the studio’s mascot. But this week to its branding since 2012, with a highly polished metallic gold finish, and for the first time, footage of a live lion . The advent of photo-realistic computer graphics, ushered in by blockbusters like Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park decades ago, finally gave Hollywood a solution to a problem it’s been dealing with since motion pictures became a highly profitable business. Bankable movie stars are still just human beings and eventually, they get old and stop making movies. Modern visual effects could, at least , extend a movie stars’ career for decades, even after they’re dead. As much as creating realistic human beings with a believable and emotive performance in a computer is a technical problem, putting a digital double of a deceased celebrity in a movie is a moral one. The families and estates of famous Hollywood stars don’t want Hollywood studios to have free rein over where these performers appear after they’re gone. Seeing Christopher Plummer show up in a Taco Bell ad in a few years wouldn’t exactly add to his legacy. So to date, we’ve mostly seen CG used as a way to de-age celebrities for flashback sequences, such as a younger version of Kurt Russel in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, or a wrinkle-less Michael Douglas in Ant-Man and the Wasp, or as a way for actors to safely perform dangerous stunts without the need for extensive on-set riggings and safety equipment., For the first time in over six decades, the lion has been reimagined in an evolution of MGM's renowned logo. In a somewhat controversial move, Leo (yep, he has a name) has been rendered in CGI – and the transformation is causing some alarm online., Other studios will change the colors or throw digital effects over the logo to sort of blend it into the opening of the movie--the Matrix all green WB logo seemed like a big deal to me back in 1999..