James Earl Jones Retires as Voice of Darth Vader; Approved Use of Voice With New Tech in ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ and Beyond
The long time iconic voice of Darth Vader, James Earl Jones, has retired from voicing the character, presenting Lucasfilm with difficult decisions on how to voice the most legendary villain in film history moving forward. Thanks to new and evolving technology used in The Mandalorian, Jones’ signature timbre will continue to be the voice of Vader without the actor having to record lines. The test has already been passed, as this approach was used seamlessly for Vader in Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Darth Vader’s voice in Obi-Wan Kenobi was created the same way Luke Skywalker’s voice was produced in both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. It consisted of employing a Ukrainian company called Respeecher to create a deep learning algorithm that would be fed off with Luke/Vader dialogue from the original trilogy and synthesize new lines of dialogue with the same tonality. A sort of audio deep-fake. The credits for the third episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi confirmed Respeecher was part of the process. But the question remained: how involved was James Earl Jones, who was also credited in the episode and whose voice was being emulated?
A new story by Vanity Fair has confirmed that Jones had no involvement with the new lines of dialogue for Vader, and that it was all digitally created. The actor, 91, was looking to finally say farewell to the beloved character after his cameo in The Rise of Skywalker, and Lucasfilm gave him the perfect exit. He just had to sign off on the company using his archival voice recordings, which he did after examining Respeecher’s past work.
The most impressive part of the story is, perhaps, that of unsung hero Bogdan Belyaev, the Respeecher employee that was tasked with recreating Vader’s voice through the company’s algorithm and that was caught in the middle of the Russian invasion. On the other side of the world, Skywalker Sound’s Matthew Wood was responsible for overseeing Belyaev’s work, but once Russian troops crossed the border on February 24th, the Ukrainian’s safety was more important than any work they were doing, as Wood recalled:
“Certainly my main concern was their well-being. There are always alternatives that we could pursue that wouldn’t be as good as what they would give us. We never wanted to put them in any kind of additional danger to stay in the office to do something.”
After that, he started pulling back on their requests — before the war started, Lucasfilm, represented by Wood and Obi-Wan Kenobi director Deborah Chow, would be sending constant fine-tuning petitions to Respeecher to get the dialogue exactly right. When the war kicked off and their safety was at risk, letting them know they would like a specific part of one line a bit different wasn’t as important. But Belyaev pushed back, as he said:
“Let’s work, let’s work in the face of this adversity, let’s persevere.”
It was also very important for Respeecher CEO Alex Serdiuk, as he told Vanity Fair:
“We create places to work for people, we create jobs, we pay them money, we contribute to the Ukrainian economy, and that’s quite meaningful. But also, hopefully more people will hear about Ukraine—about our tech community, about our start-ups—because of it.”
When the series finally debuted on Disney Plus, the entire Respeecher staff had a moment to celebrate their colleague’s work. Shortly after, Belyaev began volunteering to aid victims of the war. He’s currently residing in Lviv, which has been affected by the invasion but not to the extent that other places in Ukraine have. Looking back, he says:
“Why did I do it? It’s a big honor to work with Lucasfilm, and I’ve been a fan of Star Wars since I was a kid. Even if it’s war, there’s no excuse for you to be the troublemaker of what you loved from childhood.”
According to Vanity Fair, Jones’ family was more than thrilled with the result and interpreted it as an homage to the actor’s legacy in voicing the character. The Star Wars franchise has been used as a non-violent way to fight wars since 1977, and with Respeecher, Lucasfilm might have done it in real life now, by keeping the flame alive for Belyaev and the rest of the company. They keep working, mostly on top-secret projects at the moment, so we’ll hopefully get to see their name on the credits of another Star Wars project soon.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
John Hoey is the Lead Editor and Senior Writer for Star Wars News Net and the host of The Resistance Broadcast podcast
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