7 Star Wars Actors Who Quit

James Earl Jones has of course provided the iconic voice of Darth Vader for almost an entire half-century, across a bevy of Star Wars media from movies to TV shows, video games, and so on.

But last summer, Jones confirmed that he had officially retired from voicing Vader, and that his final time personally portraying the character was in 2019's The Rise of Skywalker.

However, what makes Jones' departure especially interesting is that he came to an agreement with Disney for his voice to be licensed out in perpetuity, with cutting-edge AI software being used to generate new dialogue using Jones' existing voice recordings as a reference.

The tech was first used in last year's Obi-Wan Kenobi series, and let's be honest, would you have had any idea it wasn't Jones voicing Vader unless somebody told you?

Though it's certainly understandable to be skeptical of AI's role in the future of Hollywood, this nevertheless seems like one of the more sensible and considered cases, where Vader can continue to live on as we know him in new stories even without Jones' direct involvement.