From the cringe-inducing Jar Jar Binks to unconvincing virtual Leia and Luke, Disney’s history with CG characters is, shall we say, mixed. But that’s not stopping them from replacing one of the most recognizable voices in cinema history, Darth Vader, with an AI-powered voice replica based on James Earl Jones.
\nThe retirement of Jones, now 91, from the role, is of course well-earned. But if Disney continues to have its way (and there is no force in the world that can stop it), Vader is far from done. It would be unthinkable to recast the character, but if Jones is done, what can they do?
\nThe solution is Respeecher, a Ukrainian company that trains text-to-speech machine learning models with the (licensed and released) recordings of actors who, for whatever reason, will no longer play a part.
\nVanity Fair just ran a great story on how the company managed to put together the Vader replacement voice for Disney’s \u201cObi-Wan Kenobi\u201d \u2014 while the country was being invaded by Russia. Interesting enough, but others noted that it serves as confirmation that the iconic voice of Vader would officially from now on be rendered by AI.
\nThis is far from the first case where a well-known actor has had their voice synthesized or altered in this way. Another notable recent example is \u201cTop Gun: Maverick,\u201d in which the voice of Val Kilmer (reprising his role as Iceman) was synthesized due to the actor’s medical condition.
\nThat sounded good, but a handful of whispered lines aren’t quite the same as a 1:1 replacement for a voice even children have known (and feared) for decades. Can a small company working at the cutting edge of machine learning tech pull it off?
\nYou can judge for yourself \u2014 here’s one compilation of clips \u2014 and to me it seems pretty solid. The main criticism of that show wasn’t Vader’s voice, that’s for sure. If you weren’t expecting anything, you would probably just assume it was Jones speaking the lines, not another actor’s voice being modified to fit the bill.
\nThe giveaway is that it doesn’t actually sound like Jones does now \u2014 it sounds like he did in the ’70s and ’80s when the original trilogy came out. That’s what anyone seeing Obi-Wan and Vader fight will expect, probably, but it’s a bit strange to think about.
\nIt opens up a whole new can of worms. Sure, an actor may license their voice work for a character, but what about when that character ages? What about a totally different character they voice, but that there is some similarity to? What recourse do they have if their voice synthesis files leak and people are using it willy-nilly?<\/p>\n
Spotify is acquiring Sonantic, the AI voice platform used to simulate Val Kilmer’s voice in \u2018Top Gun: Maverick’<\/p>\n