James Earl Jones Retires as The Voice of Darth Vader and Signs Over the Rights To His Voice

James Earl Jones has one of the most distinctive voices in the history of movies and one of his most iconic roles was providing the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise. Well, after nearly 40 years of playing this character, Jones, who is 91 years old, is retiring.

Vanity Fair also reports that the actor has signed over the rights to his voice to Lucasfilm so that they can continue to use his voice using new AI technology. Matthew Wood of Lucasfilm said that the actor “wished to keep Vader alive.” Wood went on to say: “He had mentioned he was looking into winding down this particular character. So how do we move forward?”

We all know this was going to happen, Jones isn’t going to be around forever, but with the help of AI technology, his voice will be. It’s kinda cool that Jones came to Lucasfilm wanting to make sure that his voice of Vader could live on long after he’s gone.

There’s no way that Star Wars is done telling stories with Darth Vader. I have no idea when we’ll see the legendary villain again, but one day he will, and whenever he does from here on out, it will sound like the Vader we’ve always known and loved.