James Earl Jones steps back from voicing Darth Vader, Respeecher step in

While the invasion of Ukraine by Russia rages on, the work done by the incredible team at Respeecher also continues, despite the ever-constant threat of bombings and attacks. Based in Kiev the team, who had already done exemplary work on recreating the voice of a thirty-something Luke Skywalker for The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, set to work on bringing back the deep, menacing tones of Darth Vader for Obi-Wan Kenobi, a mission even more vital to the fictional galaxy of Star Wars given the step-back from the role of veteran actor James Earl Jones.

Respeecher, which uses archival recordings and a proprietary A.I. algorithm to create new dialogue with the voices of performers from long ago. Belyaev was rushing to finish his work as Putin’s troops came across the border. “If everything went bad, we would never make these conversions delivered to Skywalker Sound,” he says. “So I decided to push this data right on the 24th of February.”

Back at Skywalker Sound in Northern California, Matthew Wood was the supervising sound editor on the receiving end of the transmissions from Ukraine. He says that they hired Respeecher because the vocal performances that the start-up generates have an often elusive human touch. “Certainly my main concern was their well-being,” says Wood, who is a 32-year veteran of Lucasfilm. “There are always alternatives that we could pursue that wouldn’t be as good as what they would give us. We never wanted to put them in any kind of additional danger to stay in the office to do something.”

What Respeecher could do better than anyone was re-create the unforgettably menacing way that Jones, now 91, sounded half a lifetime ago. Wood estimates that he’s recorded the actor at least a dozen times over the decades, the last time being a brief line of dialogue in 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker. “He had mentioned he was looking into winding down this particular character,” says Wood. “So how do we move forward?” When he ultimately presented Jones with Respeecher’s work, the actor signed off on using his archival voice recordings to keep Vader alive and vital even by artificial means—appropriate, perhaps, for a character who is half mechanical. Jones is credited for guiding the performance on Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Wood describes his contribution as “a benevolent godfather.” They inform the actor about their plans for Vader and heed his advice on how to stay on the right course.

Mark Mulcaster was fortunate enough to chat with Respeecher CEO Alex Serdiuk on Making Tracks, an episode you can listen to below.