An artificial intelligence audio producer responds to the question of whether James Earl Jones returned to voice Darth Vader in Obi-Wan Kenobi. The latest Star Wars television series sees Ewan McGregor reprise his role as the titular hero. Set 10 years after the events of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, the timeline allows for characters from both the prequel trilogy, as well as the original trilogy to make an appearance. One such character is Darth Vader, now played by Hayden Christensen, who portrayed Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi that betrayed his people and joined the evil Emperor as the terrifying dark lord.
With Darth Vader's return to Star Wars, Jones was also needed to lend his voice for new dialogue for the villain. When the Emperor's right hand man was cast for the original 1977 film, David Prowse was hired due to his height and build. However, director George Lucas did not find his voice imposing enough, so he hired Jones to apply his unique manner of speaking to give the character a frightening appeal. However, as the actor is now 91 years old, many have wondered if Jones' voice was applied to the character via artificial means.
In a recent interview with Inverse, audio producer and Ukrainian tech company Respeecher founder, Alex Serdiuk, discussed how their AI speech synthesizing technology was used in Obi-Wan Kenobi. In the credits of episode 3, Respeecher is listed among the credits. Coincidentally, that episode is the first in which Darth Vader properly appears in the show. When asked about what work the Ukrainian company did on the show, the Serdiuk remained coy about their involvement. Read what the audio producer said below.
"I can’t say yes or no on James Earl Jones."
"[There are] lots of secrets still with Obi-Wan Kenobi. But we were uploading data packets [for Obi-Wan Kenobi] to Skywalker Sound when the invasion began."
The company's vague answer is telling, implying that the assumption that Jones' voice was synthesized from hours and hours of audio recordings may be true. Obi-Wan Kenobi would not be the first Star Wars show to use Respeecher to recreate a prominent character's voice. Lucasfilm turned to the company twice before when adding convincing dialogue for Luke Skywalker's return in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. Through the AI process, Mark Hamill's voice reproduction was near accurate as the character sounded like the much younger version of the actor from over 30 years prior.
Although Jones is still available to work, using Respeecher voice synthesizing technology is understandable. Due to the actor's advanced age, his voice has changed significantly since his earliest performance as Darth Vader in 1977's original Star Wars movie. This was evident for his return to the role in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Using Respeecher will be necessary to clean up his voice to recreate a younger Darth Vader that is similar in age to the one in the original Star Wars trilogy. Regardless of how the voice was achieved, audiences were pleased to once again hear Jones' voice reverberate from the iconic character as Darth Vader takes on his master once more in Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Source: Inverse
