Star Wars fans united in mourning earlier this year when the legendary James Earl Jones passed away at the age of 93.
To limit Jones' list of roles and accomplishments to just Star Wars would be to do a disservice to a stellar career, but to many he will always be best known as the voice of Darth Vader.
Of course, while Jones provided that inimitable voice, there have been others involved with playing Vader over the years.
The original trilogy saw David Prowse provide the physical performance of Vader, before Hayden Christensen took over in Revenge of the Sith. Not a huge surprise, in Christensen's case, given he played Anakin Skywalker before donning the life-support suit.
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Christensen returned to the role in a much greater capacity in the Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney Plus miniseries. Now, fans are thrilled to learn Christensen is ready and willing to continue playing Vader.
When asked if he’d return to the franchise, Christensen told Variety, “If it means that I got to do more with Ewan, then that’s a no-brainer, but I really hope that he continues with the character.”
“Hayden Christensen delivered one of the best and most heartfelt performances I’ve ever seen in Star Wars as Darth Vader. The guy is an absolute legend so I ain’t passing up the idea to not see him play Darth Vader again,” wrote Twitter user RoGuesOne77 in response to the news..
“Exactly - this is what I want when I say I want a Vader series. I want to see the psychological/spiritual aspect of him through the years,” added spaced_cherry.
Clearly, it would seem Star Wars has the perfect 'new' Darth Vader ready to go for future projects. In physical form, at least. As for the voice? Well, Jones' Vader voice will live on through AI, which is going to prove divisive, I expect.
Personally, I feel like no other actor could truly match Jones' Vader voice. But I'd also much rather see another actor try, at least, before we go straight to AI.
