James Earl Jones has hung up his lightsaber as he has retired from the role of Darth Vader, but his voice shall live on due to technology.
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One of the most famous voices in all of movie history, James Earl Jones has reportedly stepped back from the role of Darth Vader. According to a new report from Vanity Fair, Jones has retired from the role, but not before making some plans for his voice to carry on.
Jones has reportedly signed over the rights to all of his archival recordings of Darth Vader as well as giving Lucasfilm all the necessary rights to recreate his voice as new technologies become available. Unbeknownst to audiences, we have already encountered this in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. A company in Ukraine named Respeecher specializes in using AI to recreate voices and handled all of Vader’s dialog in the recent series.
While arguments can be made that one actor shouldn’t dominate a role for eternity, we think you would be hard pressed to find many Star Wars fans that would argue about hearing Vader’s voice stay the same for all eternity.
Rumors persist that we will see Vader appear again in the upcoming Ahsoka series, so don’t be too surprised if you hear the new AI voice again in the near future.
