DISNEY REPLACES JAMES EARL JONES’S VOICE AS DARTH VADER WITH AI:

Actor James Earl Jones will no longer be tapped to voice his iconic Star Wars character Darth Vader thanks to artificial intelligence.

The 91-year-old actor has already provided plenty of archival recordings via the films that began in 1977, television series, animated programs, video games, and Disney’s various theme park rides. Now, Ukrainian start-up Respeecher will combine those recordings with artificial technology to provide a voice for Darth Vader that sounds similar to Jones’s voice.

Respeecher has already begun using the synthesized voice for the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi while keeping the actor in the credits of each episode the voice is featured in. Jones last voiced the character during the 2019 film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

It’s not all that surprising — Jones’ voice sounded awfully old in 2016’s Rogue One, which was written as a prequel to 1977’s Star Wars. (Watch the films back to back; thanks to digital effects and an unlimited budget, Vader is an absolute killing machine in Rogue One, yet moves at a much more lumbering pace in Star Wars, but his voice sounds much younger — as Jones was much younger — in the 1977 film.)

Combined with the digital effects that recreated the late Peter Cushing and a young Carrie Fisher for Rogue One, audio technology such as Respeecher will be bringing many more legendary actors alive again in digital form, just as Arthur C. Clarke predicted in the 1980s.