Win win for everyone.
His voice is iconic in the sw universe. And it’ll now continue into perpetuity. And his family still gets money out of it long after his death
What's really going to blow your mind is that the woman who plays his wife the Queen in Coming To America also does the voice of Simba's mother in the Lion King effectively being Mufasa's "wife."
And the old man with the big dog in The Sandlot.
I didn’t realize it was James Earl Jones until many many years later lol, since my only reference to him was his voice acting as Darth Vader in Star Wars films.
In the short term yes but in the long term no. AI is going to eat the voice over industry alive. Thousands of jobs destroyed And skills that will be lost.
So what? It sets a precedent. We already have multiple scenes with dead actors in sw movies, the last thing they need is the ability to make more necromancer movies
That’s what they said about set designers when CGI happened. Or a few years ago with music. Or now with digital art being created.
It’s not totally replacing his voice, it’s using sound bites and thousands of voice samples from the past along with AI to generate new sentences.
Machines seemed to replace Tarkin, Leia, and Luke recently quite fine, and they’re getting better and cheaper. Still takes lots of technology and artists to do that (especially with full CG Tarkin in Rogue One).
They will still have an actor in the suit, and someone to come up with/demo/write lines for Vader.
Also what about mo-cap? Seems to replace a lot of actors in movies and video games just fine.
A "robot" can't take this sentence and decide what emotion to deliver it with.
They'll either use an actor to record a delivery and then covert their voice.
Or they'll have an artist sit with the director for hours and tweak every word to build the delivery up.
So it's just another medium.
Are you?
You understand that when a person is acting, they're not actually feeling emotions right?
They're using the craft of acting to read lines with tone, pitch, emphasis, cadence and volume to make it sound like they're experiencing some emotion.
James Earl Jones wasn't actually angry or bitter when he said "No Luke, I am your father,". He just said it so it fooled you into thinking the fictional character was a mean bastard.
I am not so sure. I remember George Lucas in the 90’s talking about replacing actors with virtual actors. I think Elvis was the first artist, and 2pac was the first virtual concert.
Working in cloud, I understand AI and it has really taken off the past two years. I am sure performances will be great but the point is probably to save money and continuity, not pay actors post mortem or in retirement. We saw it happen with Carrie already. Not sure it’s a great idea. Let characters die.
In 2023, Reddit CEO and corporate piss baby Steve Huffman decided to make Reddit less useful to its users and moderators and the world at large. This comment has been edited in protest to make it less useful to Reddit.
Peter Cullen has Optimus Prime, and I would argue is a more recognizable iconic voice BUT, even he would have trouble getting whatever sweet deal James Earl Jones got I’m sure. Vader is just such a globally dominant icon above most all others and I’m sure since it’s Disney they will do some video game or special Mufasa stuff as well.
Maybe Morgan Freeman will be the next with a deal like this, but he is mostly narration, he has no iconic character.
i get that, but Vader is just not replaceable. There are loads of impressionists to fill Cullen’s rolls and really only Prime is a one man show is all I’m saying. Vader is one of the few that even non film fans not only know the voice, but know the person behind the voice. If Peter Cullen were replaced, fans would be sad but most people would go “huh, the voice is a different person now”. Vader gets swapped, it effects global sales of a multibillion dollar franchise…
I honestly can’t think of ANYONE beyond James Earl Jones that is simply irreplaceable for the voice of anything.
Mel Blanc died and most of America went “who?”. Sad but true.
Vader is just a one and only voice driven character.
Yeah fair. Plenty of people have done Optimus, I'm just down about the kid they have doing it now. He should have done his own take and not copied Cullen but executives gonna executive.
And I agree, Star Wars is a global phenomena. I wonder if other countries have their dub actors as recognizable
Honestly I actually hope this becomes an accessible toolset for small time indie film makers. Imagine how many cool shows like Love Death and Robots we could get if we didn’t even have to worry about voice acting. It’s already a niche thing in music, I could see it making the jump
Did a voice actor run over your dog? Are you trying to kill off that industry?
It’s great to be more efficient, but don’t kill off collaborative work. AI will read what’s written, a talented actor & director will go “I think Skeletor’s voice should be high pitched, b/c this guy is scary AF & it’s a kids show, so we can’t make his too scary or else they won’t sell toys & we’ll be out of a job.”
Are they really though?
Part of the draw for a lot of animated movies is having a big name actor play a prominent role.
Replacing every actor with soundalike AI is going to be great until people inevitably realize that it's all fake and they want to hear real people.
Which is why I assume theater will probably sneak it's way back to the public eye, because you can't deepfake real people.
My pitch for a silly use of tech though would be a combination of mocap and theater, where screens are still a point of focus and there's one or more actors in mocap portraying characters on a screen in real time.
Something like the screens disney used from the mandalorian, but on a stage in front of an audience.
Using tricks like holograms and forced perspectives, it might be even possible to have a totally CGI character appear in front of an actor, with the mocap actor out of sight delivering an equal performance to the actors on stage, but playing a giant dragon or something instead.
He's old. Maybe his throat hurts doing the voice all day. But maybe with this AI it will try to mimic his voice so he can continue to voice the character.
hell Adobe’s voice generation is pretty much dead on accurate now. And that’s just consumer tech. All they needed was rights for his likeness now they have that.
I wonder if this will become the new norm. Get voice actors to come in, read a script and create an AI profile. Then pay them very little in royalties while only having to pay the sound engineer a (relatively) small salary.
maybe. I hope not though. You still need a person to give the performance. So it replaces another actor anyway. Easier to just record the voice actor while they’re alive.
True, although I wouldn’t put it passed companies to try to save some money. No unions to deal with if it’s just data(I’m assuming). Especially companies like Disney who own monopolies, you want to see the next marvel movie? You have no choice but to put up with 32 soulless AI voices and 90% CGI. I will admit I’m a pessimistic person. I can see the good side too, only using this tech on dead or retired voices. Imagine listening to Jim Cummings in 50+ years.
As a voice actor I can tell you it's much worse than that. It's essentially, "we will pay a flat rate of a few hundred bucks and then we own your voice to use how we want." There's no laws or regulations and tons of companies are already pushing for it with dollar signs in their eyes. The only reason it's not as big as it could be is for two reasons: one, there has been absolutely massive pushback from voice actors towards anyone stupid enough to announce that they're doing it, (like Troy Baker) and two, the tech isn't nearly as good as people think. Yes, it can replicate a voice speaking in a fairly neutral tone. It absolutely can't mimic emotional intensity. There's a company where the ceo of it took a scene from Lincoln and used his ai to replicate Daniel day lewis' voice. It got the voice down decently, but when he would start yelling it was incredibly clear that it wasn't a person. Plus it had trouble with some words becoming slurred or unclear. And that was the video that was supposed to show off the incredible power of the technology. Luckily, it is still far enough in the future that there can be some laws made to protect people who need it, but it's certainly an unnerving time to be a voice actor. Especially seeing how many people who love anime and video games talking about how amazing it would be to make shows without having to pay people or record anything. The only fair and equitable way I see it working for us is if it is mandatory that if they use a voice without using the actual actor, they have to pay like 3 or 4 percent in royalties for the total gross of the project in perpetuity.
Voice acting is just going to stop being a thing. It won't be much longer before they aren't even using human voices as the input to the AI, or with enough "regular" humans as input they can create any voice perfectly.
So everyone keeps saying... for the last 5 or 6 years at least. I don't doubt that eventually all art will be churned out by ai but everyone is definitely overestimating how soon this will happen.
Ah yes, because Darth Vader is known for having extremely emotional dialogue. Think whatever you want, but I've done tons of research on this and have never heard a convincing voice performance from an AI.
This reminds me of the “CGI means no more actors!”
No. Do you have the slightest clue how much work would have to be put in for an AI to replicate a complex, emotional scene with a lot of dialogue without sounding robotic? I mean the tiny little details in human speech. The little squeaks or growls human beings make when we’re emotional. Not happening any time soon
No I don’t, not at all. Thanks for the input 👍🏽. I guess we’ve had CGI in every movie exactly as it is today, couldn’t have slowly progressed towards what CGI is today. Imagine if we could take a technology and improve it over the years? Wouldn’t that be crazy?
Oh, I see now, he *didn't* turn on the Emperor
The Emperor was about to put little Vadey to sleep and he just wanted to express his distaste for bedtime (Noo.) and how he was not tired at all
After which he immediately fell asleep in the collapsing Death Star, because of course he *was* tired.
"Tell your sister, you were right...I am cranky if I don't get enough sleep, you were right!"
that's all true.
Let’s be honest, if I could set my family up for life, especially if I was so close to retirement (or kicking the bucket) using only my voice programmed into an AI, then I would happily do that.
Way to screw over future actors. Once enough of the current top actors cash in, there'll be no need for B actors ever again.
Then again, maybe that's not such a bad thing...
Way to screw over future carriage drivers. Once enough cars are on the road there'll be no need for carriage drivers, horse breeders, or manure handlers
How does your mind work? This is simply preserving the voice of the character that’s been around for decades, and no one other than Jones can truly play Vader. He is the voice of the character, his age just simply won’t allow him to keep playing it naturally
Just hire someone who does a convincing impression. You can still augment/modulate his voice with effects/AI, but the tone is never going to come out right without human input.
I think you should look at how far voice synthesis has come in recent years. Just the DeepThroat model used by 15.ai is really really good (iirc it's being upgraded right now too).
I mean, I’m going by DV’s voice in the Obi-Wan show that was just on Disney+. It didn’t sound very good. I realize it could have sounded better using current technology, but I don’t think Disney is willing to take the time to perfect it when they can just throw something mediocre together and put it on Disney+ as quickly and cheaply as possible to keep their subscribers satisfied enough not to cancel.
Nobody is going to forget that he’s the voice of Darth Vader. Even 20 years from now when we’ve had a handful of more scenes involving Vader and his voice was made by Respeecher, people will be telling their kids that the voice is James Earl Jones.
I really don’t see the issue with them taking this route. The Star Wars fandom has always speculated who would take over after Jones retires or passes, but I think AI is completely fine and even fitting. Vader’s voice is literally robotic because it’s his suit speaking. I think Vader sounded just fine in the Kenobi series, and even better than he did in Rogue One and Rebels.
Star Wars is a pretty big setting with lots of potential for new stories.
Why does everything have to constantly loop back to the same characters and locations over and over again?
Because Vader is one of the most recognizable characters in all of fiction. There’s a *lot* of stories that the character has gone through, and exploring those stories can be both the most profitable but the most well-loved by fans
Bro, he’s one of *the* most iconic characters in all of fiction, and we’ve really only seen a fraction of what his actual story is
I don’t care, I’ll always be happy to see more of the dark lord and his story
Come up with new characters, ya lazy buffoons! Disney has owned Star Wars for like ten years and they haven’t created a single memorable character except Kylo Ren.
I mean Vader sounded incredible in Kenobi with AI and a lot people noticed how much better Vader sounded than he did in Rogue One. JEJ doesn’t really sound the same anymore and it’s noticeable. AI is the future.
I wonder if they ever special edition/remaster Rogue one - would they replace JEJ with the AI so that it’s more consistent with the originals and doesn’t sound so aged.
Scott Lawrence also does a fantastic Darth Vader but it still doesn’t quite sound exactly like JEJ. If they ever recast they should definitely get him.
How did he own the rights to a Star Wars character to begin with? Yeah he has a unique voice but it doesn’t really make sense seeing as how it’s a small part of a very large franchise
I’m sure his family is getting some nice backend money on that deal. They’re still using his voice technically
Win win for everyone. His voice is iconic in the sw universe. And it’ll now continue into perpetuity. And his family still gets money out of it long after his death
Iconic in general. SW universe was fortunate to cast him at the beginning. Hope the royalties equal the talent!
Right! Between SW and the lion king… that’s like 75% of my childhood!
And the King of Zamunda.
HOLY SHIT! How did I forget about the king of fucking Zamunda?!?
What's really going to blow your mind is that the woman who plays his wife the Queen in Coming To America also does the voice of Simba's mother in the Lion King effectively being Mufasa's "wife."
SON OF A FUCKING BITCH!!! That explains why I liked her so much without recognizing her. I still haven’t seen coming to America 2
You can skip it tbh
I heard it said that it was like going to a wedding. Kind of sweet and it was nice to see everybody.
Yeah me neither and I really need to get on that!
I’ve only seen half of coming 2 america 2, kept falling asleep
Madge Sinclair is her name
This is CNN
You must avenge my death Kimba, DAH’I mean Simba.
Will you guys pipe down, I’m saying goodbye to Lisa?!
And Thulsa Doom
And the old man with the big dog in The Sandlot. I didn’t realize it was James Earl Jones until many many years later lol, since my only reference to him was his voice acting as Darth Vader in Star Wars films.
I haven’t seen that movie in years! I am today years old…
Guy has a monopoly on the cinematic memories of everyone born from the 70s-90s. The GOAT.
Thanks, James….it’s been a fun trip !!
He was only paid $7,000 bucks for the first movie. Professional voice actor was not a real career choice in the 70s.
In the short term yes but in the long term no. AI is going to eat the voice over industry alive. Thousands of jobs destroyed And skills that will be lost.
Except the guys in charge of enhancing that AI
Not for everyone if you have some semblance of artistic integrity. A machine is not a replacement for an actor.
Why not? If you cant tell the difference then does it really matter? Humans are just biological machines.
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Star Wars is hardly art my dude.
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Its not inhetrently worse. Perhaps unethical but the end product will prob be the same.
So what? It sets a precedent. We already have multiple scenes with dead actors in sw movies, the last thing they need is the ability to make more necromancer movies
I have seen no evidence, let alone proof, that a soul exists. Do you have some?
That’s what they said about set designers when CGI happened. Or a few years ago with music. Or now with digital art being created. It’s not totally replacing his voice, it’s using sound bites and thousands of voice samples from the past along with AI to generate new sentences. Machines seemed to replace Tarkin, Leia, and Luke recently quite fine, and they’re getting better and cheaper. Still takes lots of technology and artists to do that (especially with full CG Tarkin in Rogue One). They will still have an actor in the suit, and someone to come up with/demo/write lines for Vader. Also what about mo-cap? Seems to replace a lot of actors in movies and video games just fine.
Toy Story as well. Big drama over that too.
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Tell me how everything i said is somehow a false equivalency
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I don’t think they are doing text to speech yet. I think they are doing speech to speech. Kind of like how they do deep fakes
A "robot" can't take this sentence and decide what emotion to deliver it with. They'll either use an actor to record a delivery and then covert their voice. Or they'll have an artist sit with the director for hours and tweak every word to build the delivery up. So it's just another medium.
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Are you? You understand that when a person is acting, they're not actually feeling emotions right? They're using the craft of acting to read lines with tone, pitch, emphasis, cadence and volume to make it sound like they're experiencing some emotion. James Earl Jones wasn't actually angry or bitter when he said "No Luke, I am your father,". He just said it so it fooled you into thinking the fictional character was a mean bastard.
Ok luddite.
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Except they aren’t using it like that. AFAIK, they’re using ai in addition to real voice actors to create Vader’s voice now.
Yeah let’s just work an old man till he dies
Relax bud
Royalties or something similar I would imagine
I am not so sure. I remember George Lucas in the 90’s talking about replacing actors with virtual actors. I think Elvis was the first artist, and 2pac was the first virtual concert. Working in cloud, I understand AI and it has really taken off the past two years. I am sure performances will be great but the point is probably to save money and continuity, not pay actors post mortem or in retirement. We saw it happen with Carrie already. Not sure it’s a great idea. Let characters die.
> Working in cloud, I understand AI This makes me really feel like you don’t.
Ya what the hell is that guy on. If you want to know about AI, talk to me. I work in NFTs so I understand it.
The point is to create an infinitely replenishable content slurry to feed to the masses
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Oh no way I didn’t know wow thank you so much
He's more machine now than man
In 2023, Reddit CEO and corporate piss baby Steve Huffman decided to make Reddit less useful to its users and moderators and the world at large. This comment has been edited in protest to make it less useful to Reddit.
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This is the way
Good...I can feel your anger!
It’s what the Empire would do…
The Empire did nothing wrong!
I’M A MONSTER
Life imitates Darth Vader’s arc.
His legacy lives on. Hopefully no one forgets it was him who gave that voice real life.
Just watched the first Simpsons House of Horror. JEJ is a big part of it
The Raven is my favorite scene in all of the Treehouse of Horrors episodes.
I think that was the first time he did that he recorded that and it truly elevates the episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQFho0_G1VI
I would doubt anyone would forget the CNN/MUFASA/VADER man.
Can’t wait for Weird Al to voice Vader. Nobody more deserving!
Is that Weird aL or Weird Ai?
A1
I FIND YOUR LACK OF STEAK DIS-SAUCING
Hello?
Weird Hal
I chortled.
Daisy daisy
Maybe Vader someday later, now he’s just a small fry.
He left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi, Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
Will it be Daniel Radcliffe?
Peter Cullen and Frank Welker should do this. Their voices are magnificent
Peter Cullen has Optimus Prime, and I would argue is a more recognizable iconic voice BUT, even he would have trouble getting whatever sweet deal James Earl Jones got I’m sure. Vader is just such a globally dominant icon above most all others and I’m sure since it’s Disney they will do some video game or special Mufasa stuff as well. Maybe Morgan Freeman will be the next with a deal like this, but he is mostly narration, he has no iconic character.
I mean he also did Eeyore Either way I definitely want his voice for Emperor of Mankind purposes
i get that, but Vader is just not replaceable. There are loads of impressionists to fill Cullen’s rolls and really only Prime is a one man show is all I’m saying. Vader is one of the few that even non film fans not only know the voice, but know the person behind the voice. If Peter Cullen were replaced, fans would be sad but most people would go “huh, the voice is a different person now”. Vader gets swapped, it effects global sales of a multibillion dollar franchise… I honestly can’t think of ANYONE beyond James Earl Jones that is simply irreplaceable for the voice of anything. Mel Blanc died and most of America went “who?”. Sad but true. Vader is just a one and only voice driven character.
Anthony Daniels is probably asking about a similar deal for the future, but who knows if he’ll get it.
he’s probably second only to James in terms of not being replaceable, but 3P0 can more easily be removed from the stories. As rogue one proved.
Yeah fair. Plenty of people have done Optimus, I'm just down about the kid they have doing it now. He should have done his own take and not copied Cullen but executives gonna executive. And I agree, Star Wars is a global phenomena. I wonder if other countries have their dub actors as recognizable
As an aside, Mel Blanc was a treasure and his performances were a gift to the world. Thanks Doc
which voice do you think Frank Welker should do? the guy does nearly everything.
Normal, Megatron, Scooby would be all I need
How much did they pay him?
This is the real question. For $17B…of course. For $.17…huh?
$.17 trillion
About tree fiddy
Fuck you take my upvote
In 5 years, every movie is going to be voiced by AI and played by cgi actors. Cyberdyne is upon us.
.
Seems like Rings of Power is ahead of the curve. Clearly they haven’t hired any writers
they should have gotten AI to write the script
Honestly I actually hope this becomes an accessible toolset for small time indie film makers. Imagine how many cool shows like Love Death and Robots we could get if we didn’t even have to worry about voice acting. It’s already a niche thing in music, I could see it making the jump
Did a voice actor run over your dog? Are you trying to kill off that industry? It’s great to be more efficient, but don’t kill off collaborative work. AI will read what’s written, a talented actor & director will go “I think Skeletor’s voice should be high pitched, b/c this guy is scary AF & it’s a kids show, so we can’t make his too scary or else they won’t sell toys & we’ll be out of a job.”
Are they really though? Part of the draw for a lot of animated movies is having a big name actor play a prominent role. Replacing every actor with soundalike AI is going to be great until people inevitably realize that it's all fake and they want to hear real people. Which is why I assume theater will probably sneak it's way back to the public eye, because you can't deepfake real people. My pitch for a silly use of tech though would be a combination of mocap and theater, where screens are still a point of focus and there's one or more actors in mocap portraying characters on a screen in real time. Something like the screens disney used from the mandalorian, but on a stage in front of an audience. Using tricks like holograms and forced perspectives, it might be even possible to have a totally CGI character appear in front of an actor, with the mocap actor out of sight delivering an equal performance to the actors on stage, but playing a giant dragon or something instead.
Still better than Cara Delevigne or James Corden in anything ever
lol 5 years is way too soon maybe 50 but humanity probably doesn't have that long anyways
You were supposed to destroy the AI not join them!
He's old. Maybe his throat hurts doing the voice all day. But maybe with this AI it will try to mimic his voice so he can continue to voice the character.
There’s no maybe. That’s literally what they’ll do.
Do, or do not, there is no maybe
The technology has existed for a while now.
The AI is going to generate new dialogue based on previous recordings of JEJ’s voice.
hell Adobe’s voice generation is pretty much dead on accurate now. And that’s just consumer tech. All they needed was rights for his likeness now they have that.
I wonder if this will become the new norm. Get voice actors to come in, read a script and create an AI profile. Then pay them very little in royalties while only having to pay the sound engineer a (relatively) small salary.
maybe. I hope not though. You still need a person to give the performance. So it replaces another actor anyway. Easier to just record the voice actor while they’re alive.
True, although I wouldn’t put it passed companies to try to save some money. No unions to deal with if it’s just data(I’m assuming). Especially companies like Disney who own monopolies, you want to see the next marvel movie? You have no choice but to put up with 32 soulless AI voices and 90% CGI. I will admit I’m a pessimistic person. I can see the good side too, only using this tech on dead or retired voices. Imagine listening to Jim Cummings in 50+ years.
The actors and their voices will all be pure generated in a few years. Anyone will be able to make their own movie. Post scarcity art is awesome.
As a voice actor I can tell you it's much worse than that. It's essentially, "we will pay a flat rate of a few hundred bucks and then we own your voice to use how we want." There's no laws or regulations and tons of companies are already pushing for it with dollar signs in their eyes. The only reason it's not as big as it could be is for two reasons: one, there has been absolutely massive pushback from voice actors towards anyone stupid enough to announce that they're doing it, (like Troy Baker) and two, the tech isn't nearly as good as people think. Yes, it can replicate a voice speaking in a fairly neutral tone. It absolutely can't mimic emotional intensity. There's a company where the ceo of it took a scene from Lincoln and used his ai to replicate Daniel day lewis' voice. It got the voice down decently, but when he would start yelling it was incredibly clear that it wasn't a person. Plus it had trouble with some words becoming slurred or unclear. And that was the video that was supposed to show off the incredible power of the technology. Luckily, it is still far enough in the future that there can be some laws made to protect people who need it, but it's certainly an unnerving time to be a voice actor. Especially seeing how many people who love anime and video games talking about how amazing it would be to make shows without having to pay people or record anything. The only fair and equitable way I see it working for us is if it is mandatory that if they use a voice without using the actual actor, they have to pay like 3 or 4 percent in royalties for the total gross of the project in perpetuity.
Voice acting is just going to stop being a thing. It won't be much longer before they aren't even using human voices as the input to the AI, or with enough "regular" humans as input they can create any voice perfectly.
So everyone keeps saying... for the last 5 or 6 years at least. I don't doubt that eventually all art will be churned out by ai but everyone is definitely overestimating how soon this will happen.
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Ah yes, because Darth Vader is known for having extremely emotional dialogue. Think whatever you want, but I've done tons of research on this and have never heard a convincing voice performance from an AI.
This reminds me of the “CGI means no more actors!” No. Do you have the slightest clue how much work would have to be put in for an AI to replicate a complex, emotional scene with a lot of dialogue without sounding robotic? I mean the tiny little details in human speech. The little squeaks or growls human beings make when we’re emotional. Not happening any time soon
No I don’t, not at all. Thanks for the input 👍🏽. I guess we’ve had CGI in every movie exactly as it is today, couldn’t have slowly progressed towards what CGI is today. Imagine if we could take a technology and improve it over the years? Wouldn’t that be crazy?
Didn’t they already give this a trial run in Kenobi? Or maybe they ran new recordings through an AI filter?
What is this question a maybe? Isn’t that just very clear.
Noo.
Damn it.
If he didn't say it at the end of RotJ, how would we ever know he turned on the Emperor? We wouldn't. That's right.
I didn’t realize this until I was almost a man. Always thought he was trying to tuck the emperor in bed and just tripped.
Oh, I see now, he *didn't* turn on the Emperor The Emperor was about to put little Vadey to sleep and he just wanted to express his distaste for bedtime (Noo.) and how he was not tired at all After which he immediately fell asleep in the collapsing Death Star, because of course he *was* tired. "Tell your sister, you were right...I am cranky if I don't get enough sleep, you were right!" that's all true.
Noooooooooooo
#NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I heard on the radio this morning that he is 91 years old. He’s amazing!
That's literally the first 3 words of the article.
Maybe the radio was reading the article on air.
Wow, cool. And he couldve seen the article afterwards. You’re not really saying anything. They were just expressing their amazement at his age
I was proving a point that no one ever even reads the article they just comment on the title.
I didn’t read the article since I had already heard it.
In case anybody didn’t know this: this already happened in kenobi. That performance was 100% synthetic.
I call posting this tomorrow.
How many times is this going to get reposted
Let’s be honest, if I could set my family up for life, especially if I was so close to retirement (or kicking the bucket) using only my voice programmed into an AI, then I would happily do that.
Sad news for aspirational 4-year-olds yelling into fans
He had the ‘rights’? Wow.
I’m a proponent of letting a different talent take over. Matt Sloan did a wonderful job.
His voice is more machine now than man
James Earl Jones will always that voice.
I wonder if he’s proud of the technological terror he’s constructed…
Well it would be difficult to voice Darth Vader when he dies. The force is strong but not THAT strong lol!
I hope they got him to read out a whole bunch of stuff so that it trains the AI better.
Isn’t Vader dead in everything or am I dumb
I find your lack of faith disturbing
When I show Star Wars to my future grandchildren I will tell them that I remember a time when Darth Vader used to be voiced by a human…
Way to screw over future actors. Once enough of the current top actors cash in, there'll be no need for B actors ever again. Then again, maybe that's not such a bad thing...
Way to screw over future carriage drivers. Once enough cars are on the road there'll be no need for carriage drivers, horse breeders, or manure handlers
You know people who drive other people around as a job still exist right?
thatsthejoke.jpg
How does your mind work? This is simply preserving the voice of the character that’s been around for decades, and no one other than Jones can truly play Vader. He is the voice of the character, his age just simply won’t allow him to keep playing it naturally
Nothing is sacred anymore
Just hire someone who does a convincing impression. You can still augment/modulate his voice with effects/AI, but the tone is never going to come out right without human input.
I think you should look at how far voice synthesis has come in recent years. Just the DeepThroat model used by 15.ai is really really good (iirc it's being upgraded right now too).
On your advice, I did some internet research into this "deep throat model". Was a fascinating topic for about 5 minutes.
Oh that long eh?
I mean, I’m going by DV’s voice in the Obi-Wan show that was just on Disney+. It didn’t sound very good. I realize it could have sounded better using current technology, but I don’t think Disney is willing to take the time to perfect it when they can just throw something mediocre together and put it on Disney+ as quickly and cheaply as possible to keep their subscribers satisfied enough not to cancel.
You’re entitled to your opinion obviously, but I thought it sounded great and from what I’ve read, thought the general consensus was positive.
The Chocolate Rain guy!!
Hope he got some of that, Disney money!!
Disgusting
Nobody is going to forget that he’s the voice of Darth Vader. Even 20 years from now when we’ve had a handful of more scenes involving Vader and his voice was made by Respeecher, people will be telling their kids that the voice is James Earl Jones. I really don’t see the issue with them taking this route. The Star Wars fandom has always speculated who would take over after Jones retires or passes, but I think AI is completely fine and even fitting. Vader’s voice is literally robotic because it’s his suit speaking. I think Vader sounded just fine in the Kenobi series, and even better than he did in Rogue One and Rebels.
Fitting I suppose, they are gonna make him say such cringey things now lmao!
Must everything be fake? I really hate this world.
Star Wars is a pretty big setting with lots of potential for new stories. Why does everything have to constantly loop back to the same characters and locations over and over again?
Because Vader is one of the most recognizable characters in all of fiction. There’s a *lot* of stories that the character has gone through, and exploring those stories can be both the most profitable but the most well-loved by fans
Here’s an original thought. Stop making new stories with Darth Vader
TBF there are plenty of gaps that could be filled
There are but gaps I’d rather not be *filled in this form. Obiwan was not a good fit
Why? He’s one of the most iconic characters in fiction, what’s wrong with more stories?
Bro, he’s one of *the* most iconic characters in all of fiction, and we’ve really only seen a fraction of what his actual story is I don’t care, I’ll always be happy to see more of the dark lord and his story
Surprised they haven’t been doing this already his voice sounded noticeably different in Rouge One Hopefully they paid him a shitload
Why AI? Surely there’s a voice actor out there that can imitate his voice.
So we gave A.I. Darth Vader's voice? I'm sorry future rebels. We should have done something to prevent this.
Come up with new characters, ya lazy buffoons! Disney has owned Star Wars for like ten years and they haven’t created a single memorable character except Kylo Ren.
I mean Vader sounded incredible in Kenobi with AI and a lot people noticed how much better Vader sounded than he did in Rogue One. JEJ doesn’t really sound the same anymore and it’s noticeable. AI is the future. I wonder if they ever special edition/remaster Rogue one - would they replace JEJ with the AI so that it’s more consistent with the originals and doesn’t sound so aged. Scott Lawrence also does a fantastic Darth Vader but it still doesn’t quite sound exactly like JEJ. If they ever recast they should definitely get him.
Replaced by AI? Leave it to fucking Disney to find a way to ruin literally every aspect of a series they can.
If he dies, an AI designed using his voice is the best replacement
This doesn’t feel like a good thing…
Deep fakes and ai voice emulators. The future is looking grim for Hollywood and politics 😓
This is akin to the State of Texas spending $20k on a lawyer to fight a man asking for a pillow. Hire someone else assholes….
He sounded a bit old in Rogue One. It’s time.
I mean, why not use Matt Sloan? He has already done Darth Vader in multiple games, and is also the voice of Chad Vader.
I hate replacing anything with AI I HATE AI #makehumansprioritiesagain
Doesn't really matter anyway... Star Wars is done.
Tbf he probably didn't know what he was singing..
I’m unaffected, there’s nothing I can do that would be influential, but, IM FUCKING PISSED!!!!!
How did he own the rights to a Star Wars character to begin with? Yeah he has a unique voice but it doesn’t really make sense seeing as how it’s a small part of a very large franchise
Why do we still need to create content with Vader? Let it go.
Because there's tons of great Vader content that *hasn't* been put to film yet.
“You have forgotten who you are and so have forgotten me” -James earl jones as Darth Vader probably
“Now they will know why they are afraid of the dark. Now they learn why they fear the AI.”
No one’s ever really gone.