Following James Earl Jones’ death, fans looked back on the actor’s iconic career. However, with his passing comes news on deals that he made with companies before his death.
Over his extensive career, Jones appeared in a massive array of films, even lending his talent to animation and voice acting. One of his most well known roles was performing the voice of one of cinema’s most iconic villains, Darth Vader, in the original Star Wars trilogy.
However, despite Jones’ passing away, there is speculation that his voice could be used in brand new projects for franchises such as Star Wars or Lion King.
One aspect fueling the speculation of Jones’ voice being reused was the approach to his lines in the Disney+ series, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Although Jones’ voice was used for Darth Vader in the series, he didn’t actually record any new lines.
Reportedly, he agreed to allow his voice in older projects to be used to craft new lines for the show, with AI being used to generate the voice in the process.
Hollywood Reporter made note that Disney has used a similar method before, back in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. CGI was used to recreate the likeness of Peter Cushing, who played Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars, so the character could be featured again in the film.
However, Hollywood Reporter also noted that Disney is stuck in some hot water over recreating Cushing’s likeness, who’d been dead for over 20 years by Rogue One’s release. The case was reportedly deemed to go to trial later on.
Despite the usage of CGI and the allowance from an estate, which was seen in Ian Holm’s appearance in Alien: Romulus this year, using that or a similar technique to capture a performance has been debated heavily as of late.
There has recently been legislation passed, not only in the realm of film but in the music industry as well, to protect likeness and voice within entertainment from AI replication. SAG-AFTRA even backed a bill in California that, reportedly, was very similar to the circumstances they came to on the topic to end the strike last year.
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