James Earl Jones’ voice will live on through controversial technology after his death-Brooke Ivey Johnson-Entertainment – Metro

James Earl Jones signed the rights to his voice over to an A.I. company (Picture: Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images)

Few speaking voices are as singularly iconic as James Earl Jones’ deep, resonant bass. 

The actor, who died this week at 93 years old, was made iconic as the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. James Earl Jones’ famous voice will live on through artificial intelligence

He then went on to give another memorable voice-acting performance as Mufasa in Disney’s The Lion King.  

Even though the actor has died, his beloved voice may just continue to live on through the power of AI. 

The miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi, which premiered in the summer of 2022, featured Jones’ voice – but some fans noticed something about his performance seemed strange. 

It was soon revealed that Jones had signed over the rights to his voice to a Ukrainian startup called Respeecher.

An A.I. version of Jones’ voice was previously used in a Star Wars mini-series (Picture: Getty Images)

The company used A.I. and Jones’ archival work to create brand new content in the actor’s voice, essentially ‘cloning’ his voice. 

Fans have mixed feelings on the technological advancement, with some thinking it dishonours Jones’ legacy to insert his voice into projects posthumously.

X user @NEETaku86_Vt emotionally wrote: ‘Everything your light touched became Kingdom. You made it cool for us to embrace our Dark Side. Your voice both guided & inspired multiple generations. No AI will EVER replace or replicate James Earl Jones!!’

@sammuelvv posted: ‘One of the saddest parts of James Earl Jones passing is that two years ago for Kenobi he signed away the rights to his voice to an AI company and now Disney can puppeteer his voice whenever they want :(‘

@BatchRejection also shared their hesitancy: ‘James Earl Jones agreed to let Disney use AI to recreate his voice. I’m unsure if it’s for Star Wars or for anything. He was trying to make sure his family was taken care of after his death, but that’s a lot of power to give to a corporation. They can now make him say anything.’

@aleatorio__13 wondered why Disney wouldn’t just hire new actors for the role, writing: ‘I’m pretty sure there are many talented VAs out there that could do an amazing job voicing Vader in the future… Why not just use them without the AI?’

Fans are torn on whether using Jones’ voice with A.I. dishonours the actor’s legacy (Picture: Getty Images)

But some social media users think the arrangement is positive, given that Jones approved of the use of his voice.

@SketchFox7 posted: ‘I know he approved this, so I’m ok with it, hope he & eventually his family see profit from this. One of the few times I’ll approve of AI over something real.’

 A sound editor on the project,  Matthew Wood told Vanity Fair of the decision to use A.I. with Jones’ voice: ‘He had mentioned he was looking into winding down this particular character. So how do we move forward?’

He continued: ‘I had archival material from Mark in that era. We had clean recorded ADR from the original films, a book on tape he’d done from those eras, and then also Star Wars radio plays he had done back in that time.

The actor died this week at the age of 93 (Picture: Getty Images)

‘I was able to get clean recordings of that, feed it into the system, and they were able to slice it up and feed their neural network to learn this data.’

Jones’ live action credits included The Great White Hope, Field of Dreams, The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, as well as the TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth and Roots: The Next Generation.

In 1977, during post-production of the first Star Wars movie, George Lucas brought in James Earl Jones to provide the voice of Darth Vader.

Initially, Lucas had cast the 6’6″ David Prowse for the role, but after filming concluded, he realized he needed a ‘darker’ voice, as Jones later shared.

Jones was one of the few actors to accomplish an EGOT (Picture: Bettmann Archive)

‘Not in terms of ethnic, but in terms of timbre. And the rumor is that he thought of Orson Welles,’ Jones later elaborated.

‘But he probably thought that Orson might be too recognizable, so what he ends up doing is picking a voice that was born in Mississippi, raised in Michigan, and was a stutterer. And that happened to be my voice.’

Jones would go on to voice Vader in more than six other projects, including four additional Star Wars films, The Star Wars Holiday Special, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and several episodes of the animated series Star Wars Rebels.

Jones’ representatives from Independent Artist Group confirmed the news of the actor’s death to Deadline on September 9th.

The actor’s voice became iconic as the character of Darth Vader (Picture: Jim Spellman/WireImage)

He is one of the very few stars to have achieved EGOT status, after multiple Emmys, a Grammy, an Oscar, and three Tony Awards throughout his long career.

He won his two Tonys for his performances in a production of The Great White Hope in 1969 and for plating Troy Maxson in August Wilson’s Fences.

Jones also received a Special Tony Award in 2017, which sat alongside his honorary Academy Award of 2012.

He won two Emmy’s in 1991 for lead actor in a drama series for Gabriel’s Fire and supporting actor in a miniseries or a special for Heat Wave.

While it remains unclear if the franchise has any further immediate plans to use Jones’ voice, the actor will continue to live on through his iconic performances.

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