James Earl Jones Signed Over Darth Vader's Voice Rights, Retiring from Star Wars

[HipHopStan]

When Star Wars originally came out, he did not want to receive credit because he felt his role was very minimal to the film yet the thing most people remember about Vader is his voice (along with the helmet and breathing sound effect.) He's 91, and I'm surprised he's been able to stay on point with the Vader voice as his Mufasa in the live action version of The Lion King sounded old and tired.

More people seem to know him for his voice than his films, which is a shame because he's been in a lot of great films like Star Wars, The Lion King, Conan the Barbarian, Field of Dreams, Coming to America, (I haven't seen The Great White Hope for which he received an Oscar nod for) but I still feel like, as an actor, he's a bit underrated for whatever reason.

(EDIT - I forgot The Sandlot as well. This guy has been a part of the many films I grew up watching.)

The day that he passes will be a sad one for sure.

 

[Return of the Jedi]

Good for him, he's 91. The fact that he did Vader's voice as long as he did is admirable.

I feel sorry for whoever voices Vader after him though. Fanboys will 100% automatically hate.

Bro, you’re missing the point. James Earl Jones is giving his voice to the mouse. They’re going to turn his voice into JARVIS and there will NEVER be a successor voice actor.

I don’t know what the implications of this technology will be for humanity in the long term, but I get JEJ supporting his family.

 

[pcpking]

Bro, you’re missing the point. James Earl Jones is giving his voice to the mouse. They’re going to turn his voice into JARVIS and there will NEVER be a successor voice actor.

I don’t know what the implications of this technology will be for humanity in the long term, but I get JEJ supporting his family.

So he sold his voice to Disney? Man I wonder what that check look like.

 

[acri1]

Bro, you’re missing the point. James Earl Jones is giving his voice to the mouse. They’re going to turn his voice into JARVIS and there will NEVER be a successor voice actor.

I don’t know what the implications of this technology will be for humanity in the long term, but I get JEJ supporting his family.

He's 91 he can't continue to do the voice forever.

This probably would've eventually happened eventually even if he didn't sign it over. It would just be his estate doing it instead of him.

 

[The_Sheff]

One day this tech is gonna get cheap enough to download to your phone. They better have a way to differentiate an AI voice from a real one.

 

[acri1]

One day this tech is gonna get cheap enough to download to your phone. They better have a way to differentiate an AI voice from a real one.

I'm not that worried about the entertainment aspect, but imagine people leaking "clips" of audio of things their political opponent supposedly said and nobody being able to tell what's real or fake. Could fukk up politics even more than it already is (if that's possible).