Legendary actor James Earl Jones is looking to retire from the many projects he’s worked on over the years, and that includes Star Wars.
The voice actor recently signed over the voice rights to his Darth Vader character, which means Lucasfilm and Disney will be able to digitally alter his voice to recreate new scenes featuring the iconic Dark Lord of the Sith without Jones’ involvement.
James Earl Jones Retires From ‘Star Wars’ Darth Vader Character
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News of Jones’ retirement was first announced by a Vanity Fair article that revealed he had signed the voice rights of Darth Vader to Lucasfilm and Respeecher. Respeecher is a Ukrainian company that uses AI programs and pre-recorded audio clips to create new dialogue to recreate characters’ voices when their voice actors have either aged or died.
This method was recently used to recreate the voice of a young Luke Skywalker in “The Book of Boba Fett,” even though Mark Hamill is still alive and actively working. The technique was also used to enhance Darth Vader’s voice for his scenes in the Disney+ live-action series “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” as Jones is now 91 years old.
Jones first voiced Darth Vader for 1977’s “A New Hope” and reprized the role again for “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.” He also voiced Darth Vader in various other Star Wars projects, including 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and the animated series “Rebels.”
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A sound editor at Lucasfilm, Matthew Wood, has worked with the company for 32 years and has recorded Jones’ voice several times over the decades. The last time they worked together was to record some lines for 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker,” which was the last Star Wars movie to hit theaters and ended the nine-episode Skywalker Saga.
After Wood showed Jones what Respeecher could do, Jones agreed to sign away his voice rights to keep the character of Darth Vader alive for decades to come. “[James] has mentioned that he is looking into reducing this particular character,” Wood revealed. “So how can we move forward?”
While it’s possible that Disney could always recast the role of Darth Vader, the EGOT winner’s voice has become too synonymous with the character and now that he’s signed away the rights to his voice, the character of Darth Vader can continue to delight – and frighten. – audience for years to come.
Jones Just Made $7,000 To Voice Darth Vader In ‘Star Wars’
The New York Post recently shared a resurfaced clip from the American Film Institute, which shows Jones talking about how much “Star Wars” creator George Lucas decided to pay him to take on the role of a lifetime, and as it turns out, it was only $7,000 dollars.
Although Jones was the voice of Darth Vader, actor David Prowse wore Darth Vader’s iconic suit in “A New Hope,” which was released over 45 years ago on May 25, 1977. Sadly, Prowse passed away in 2020 at the age of 85. Although Prowse had already been cast for filling the suit, Lucas didn’t feel that his voice was right for the part.
“George wanted, pardon the expression, a dark voice,” Jones explained. “So he hired a guy born in Mississippi, raised in Michigan, who stutters. And that’s his voice. That’s me.”
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Although $7,000 dollars seemed like a small amount, Jones was very happy at the time. “I’m lucky, out of all these so-called disabled people, for a job that pays $7,000! I thought that was good money,” Jones said. “And I got to be the voice in the movie!”
In its sequel, 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back,” Jones revealed that he and Lucas actually had a disagreement about how Darth Vader should sound. Jones wanted to make Vader’s voice more “subtle” and “more psychologically oriented” behind the mask, “but Lucas saw it differently.”
“He said, ‘We don’t know what we’re doing right, so let’s try what we do … What we found is that you have to keep his voice on a very narrow band because he’s not human, really,'” recalled Jones.
While fans are sad to see James Earl Jones on the brink of retirement, they are relieved to see that Darth Vader’s character will live on in a galaxy far, far away.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
