Is this a copyright issue? If I (or an AI at my direction) make a picture of a humanoid mouse that looks like Mickey Mouse but it is not a copy of any previous Mickey Mouse image, that would seem to me (again, not a lawyer) to be a trademark or IP violation, not a copyright violation.
The logic, as I understand it, is based in "points of similarity". This can be understood a bit more easily in words or music - you don't have to steal an
entire book or tune to be infringing - if you take enough recognizable segments, you're still in trouble.
So, basically, if you take enough bits so that when folks look at it, they think, "that is clearly Mickey Mouse," you are in trouble, even if the specific pose or setting he's in is different.
Again, I don't think it is copyright here. See the image generated by
@trappedslider above. I am 99.999% certain that Disney and LucasFilm have never produced such an image.
Again, don't think in terms of the entire image at once. Think in how many ways this is similar to other pictures of Darth Vader.
For example, imagine "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was protected by copyright. And I publish:
Mary had a little lamb,
Bop shu wadda wah, bop shu wadda wah
It's fleece was white as snow
Bop shu wadda wah, bop shu wadda wah
And everywhere that Mary danced
Doooo wahhhhh!
The lamb was sure to boogie!
Clearly, that isn't exactly the original. I've added some stuff, and changed some bits. But enough of the original is there to be a problem.