Disney and Lucasfilm are using AI to keep James Earl Jones’ iconic Darth Vader voice alive.
According to a Friday report from Vanity Fair, James Earl Jones, the well-known voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars films, has agreed to give up the rights to his voice recordings in order for AI to recreate his voice.
According to the Vanity Fair article, Jones, 91, has been actively working with Lucasfilm and the Ukrainian firm Respeecher on using AI to take his Darth Vader voice and keep it alive through machine learning. In the Disney Plus series Obi-Wan Kenobi, Respeecher’s technology helped recreate Jones’ Darth Vader voice, and in The Book of Boba Fett, it was utilized to recreate a youthful Luke Skywalker’s voice.
Jones offered crucial direction for Obi-Wan Kenobi, according to an interview with Skywalker Sound’s supervising sound editor, Matthew Wood, for the study.
An inquiry for comment was not immediately answered by Disney, the company that owns Lucasfilm.
Lucasfilm was purchased by Disney in 2012 for $4.05 billion. Since then, the filmmaker and theme park developer has produced two spinoffs and three full-length main series movies.
With the exception of Solo: A Star Wars Story, each of these endeavors earned more than $1 billion. The Force Awakens, the first movie in the Skywalker Saga, made over $2 billion worldwide. Disney had recovered its Star Wars investment by the year 2018.
The company has also created multiple television and animated shows, including the recently released Andor, as well as theme park attractions. As Disney continues to expand its Star Wars entertainment portfolio, it’s turning to technology to keep characters alive for a new generation of audiences as the actors age or pass away.
SOURCE: www.ghnewslive.com
