Hasta La Gadget!

After 45 years of voicing one of the most iconic characters in cinema history, James Earl Jones has said goodbye to Darth Vader. At 91, the legendary actor recently told Disney he was “looking into winding down this particular character.” That forced the company to ask itself how do you even replace Jones? The answer Disney eventually settled on, with the actor’s consent, involved an AI program.

If you’ve seen any of the recent Star Wars shows, you’ve heard the work of Respeecher. It’s a Ukrainian startup that uses archival recordings and a “proprietary AI algorithm” to create new dialogue featuring the voices of “performers from long ago.” In the case of Jones, the company worked with Lucasfilm to recreate his voice as it had sounded when film audiences first heard Darth Vader in 1977.

According to Vanity Fair, Jones had signed off on Disney using recordings of his voice and Respeecher’s software to “keep Vader alive.” Lucasfilm veteran Matthew Wood told the outlet that James guided the Sith Lord’s performance in Obi-Wan Kenobi, acting as “a benevolent godfather,” but it was ultimately the AI that gave Vader his voice in many of the scenes.

While there’s something to be said about preserving Vader’s voice, Disney’s decision to use an AI to do so is likely to add fuel to disagreements over how such technology should be used in creative fields. For instance, Getty Images recently banned AI-generated art over copyright concerns. With Jones, there’s the possibility we could hear him voice Vader long after he passes away. 

The Oscar-winning actor said incidents like that have “really f**king annoyed” her over the years.

More than six years after its PC debut and five years after arriving on iOS and Android, Netflix is making Oxenfree freely available to those with a subscription to its streaming service. Starting today, you can download the new “Netflix Edition” of the game from the iOS and Android app stores. New to this version of Oxenfree is expanded localization support. All told, you can now play the game with subtitles in more than 30 languages.  

Oxenfree joins Netflix’s growing catalog of games but is particularly notable for being an in-house release. The company acquired Oxenfree developer Night School Studio last year. Despite what seems like little interest from subscribers, Netflix is moving forward with its gaming ambitions. The company will release Desta: The Memories Between, the latest project from Monument Valley developer Ustwo, on September 27th. It also teased that the critically acclaimed Kentucky Route Zero would “soon” be available for free as well. 

China has underscored its commitment to its claim to Taiwan.

The Witcher: Blood Origin, a prequel to Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novel series, will debut on December 25th, the streamer announced today during its Tudum event. Netflix also revealed that English actress Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting, Starstruck) is part of the cast. Driver will narrate the events of the series and may even appear in The Witcher, which will return next summer. Driver said her character plays a pivotal part “in connecting Blood Origin’s past with The Witcher’s future.”       

Set thousands of years before the story of Geralt and Ciri, Blood Origin will center on the Conjunction of the Spheres, the moment in the Witcher universe where humans, elves and monsters all come to inhabit the fantasy world of the series. Actress Michelle Yeoh stars as Scian, the elven protagonist of the tale. Originally slated to run six episodes, Blood Origin will instead be four episodes long.