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Hello, and welcome to a special episode for really both of the superhero effects and the Star Wars generations podcasts. First of all, we're back from hiatus. Thank you so much for your patience as we work through a lot of things and just kind of took a little bit of a break. But we have a lot of great episodes lined up for you in both podcasts. But then we heard that James Earl Jones had passed away. And for both myself and for Ricky Hayashi, my co-host on superhero ethics who's joining me today, James Earl Jones has been a super important figure for a lot of our lives in particular due to his connections with Star Wars and being the voice of Darth Vader. But beyond that, this man was an incredible actor who had all sorts of great effects and we want to talk about that. But we also realized that with his death we're now opening a very interesting new chapter in the discussions about AI and what role it has to play in the creation of movies and TV shows and things like that. And I say that because, as some of you may well know, he made a deal in the last years of his life with Disney Star Wars by which they recorded his voice saying, I guess, you know, all the things that were needed so that they now have the ability and the legal right that he gave to use his voice in perpetuity to create things that are said by Darth Vader. And so when we looked at both of those things, as well as a cool new show that's just dropped, we're mostly going to talk about it in another episode, but it's a little bit relevant to this conversation as well, we realized we wanted to talk in this podcast about both of these questions in terms of James Earl Jones and his meaning for Star Wars fans and for just fans in general, but also what with his death, what we think about this new chapter of AI and creative media and where that's going to go. And so, Reiki, let me just start by saying, talk to us about how you felt when you heard that James Earl Jones had passed away. Well, any death is bring some sadness, for sure, just like human life, ceasing to exist. And when it's a public figure, there is kind of reckoning of their life. And in this case, James Earl Jones, in my opinion, led a very positive and fruitful life and contributed to the arts in a way that so many people can appreciate. And as you said, as Star Wars fans, the most iconic voice in the franchise. And there's so many other amazing things that he did. For me personally, I said my favorite James Earl Jones role and moment was in the movie Field of Dreams, where he gives this speech at the end, like it's like three minutes talking about baseball and its place in American history and how, you know, it's to me one of the most iconic movie speeches of all time. And one of my favorite movies, partly for that reason. And then of course, a lot of people will identify with the Lion King, right? Mufasa, Simba's father, and so many other roles. So it's always sad, but we have this legacy that we can remember him by, which I think is very special. We really do. We really do. And I have a couple of my experiences outside of Star Wars that really struck with me about him, both other things that I've seen him in, and also he was the speaker at my college graduation, which was just an incredible moment. And I'll say one more about both of those, but let's just start with Star Wars itself and talk about why he was so important there. And one of the first things I'll say is, and I'm often talking about how much I enjoy books on tape, Audible and things like that. And the Star Wars books, they've been doing a lot to basically produce them. So it's not just one person reading a book. It's the person will often do different voices, but sometimes they get different voice actors for different parts. There's often a lot of sound effects or music in storing parts, things like that. Like they're really kind of almost audio play as readings of these books. Really? So like, do they have like light saver, like the snap hiss of the light saver, and stuff like that? They'll have the snap hiss of a light saver, they'll have laser sounds during an important moment. They might play the Imperial March or play the, you know, the jedi kind of like rising again sound music and stuff like that, like they definitely bring in a lot of great things like that. Wow. The reason I mention it though, is that, and with all due respect to the fantastic creators who've been doing this, every, like I find I like the high republic books the most because for the most part, those are new characters for us. They're not using characters we already know, because when someone else is trying to do the voice of Princess Leia or Han Solo or Luke or Lando or someone like that, it can be hit or miss. And honestly, the time it has always been a miss is when it's Darth Vader. And this is all kind of a roundabout way of saying that I think it's a sign of just how iconic James and how you meet James Earl Jones's voices because I, one of my biggest journeys with Star Wars and, and, and a journey of realizing that Star Wars is a lot more than, and always has been a lot more than just good guys, bad guys, I think is the character of Darth Vader and the, and Paul Hoppe who's a frequent guest and was a co-host of this podcast in the past, you know, he really, when we were in high school and college, got me thinking more about the idea of that in many ways Darth Vader is one of the protagonists of the trilogy or not the protagonist, one of the characters who goes through the most growth and it's not that he has this sudden change at the end of Return of the Jedi, but that you can see over the course of Empire, him wrestling with his loyalty towards the Emperor, him wrestling with his feelings about this challenger in the force who actually then is his son and what does that mean and what is his loyalty to his son and what is his loyalty toward the Emperor and all of that. And I, I don't think anything of that is possible without James or Jones voice acting. And it, to me, it's really a testament how he was able to be both terrifyingly scary. I mean, you know, especially if you saw Star Wars as a kid, even as an adult, I think you recognize like his voice as Darth Vader when he's being threatening is, is terrifying and powerful, but also just the amount of emotion and like it's all such a restrained performance, but it's such a rich one as Darth Vader. Yeah, it's absolutely amazing performance throughout. And it's really interesting if you go back and watch a new hope, like that first scene on the Tentive Four, it feels a little different, his vocal performance from a lot of other Vader that he's done. So it's an interesting start, but, but definitely like once, once you settle into the franchise, I think it, it finds its place not to say that that first opening scene is bad, but it's just different. Like if you're used to like 90% of Darth Vader and you go back and watch a new hope, you're like, wow, that's, it's, it's, there's something a little different about it like the, the, I don't know, almost excitement. Like you said, Vader is like such a restrained character, like that first scene is like very animated, like vocally, in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think in many ways that scene is the last time we see him before he starts being challenged, because, you know, I think the next scene we see him in is when he's in the, the kind of imperial board meeting on the Death Star and they start talking about, you know, what this technological terror can do and, and doubting him in the force. And the first time we start seeing him as kind of an outsider compared to everything else. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think I, have you heard anyone else doing the voice of Darth Vader? Yeah, I mean, in the, in the Clone Wars, I think, well, okay, no, that's, that's just Santa can in rebels, rebels is still James old Jones, right, I'm looking at the credits. There are people Matt Sloan is credited for some Lego Star Wars thing. So I don't know if that's Vader or not. Mm hmm. Yeah, there's like Lego Star Wars, a couple of other people accredited, but from here, I can't tell if it's Darth Vader or Anakin Skywalker. Right. That makes sense. Yeah, it's just, you know, I think his performance there was amazing and, and it's gonna be interesting to talk about what does it mean that we have his voice going forward. And when I get to that in a moment, first let's talk a little bit more about some of the other things we saw him in. You talk about field of dreams. Um, I don't remember word for word that speech, but I certainly have memories of it because I love that movie. It's probably been 10 years since I saw it, but I loved his performance. I always remember him using the insect repellent thing to send, send Kevin Costner's character back to the 60s, but I did really love it. And I think especially because he's a character in that movie I'm much more identified with, not the person who's the total idealist from the beginning, but the person who asked to be convinced, the person who starts from a very cynical perspective. And I think the, like, there's a moment of just utter wonder that he gets when he starts to see what's happening on the field of dreams that 99% of our audience probably is too young to remember this movie. It's about baseball, but it's about a fantasy and it's about this idea of baseball bringing the past back to life. And I don't want to spoil it. It's a really fun movie, but there's, there's a definite magic realism in the movie. And the moment when James of Jones first starts to experience that is just heartbreaking and really tender and beautiful. I think you'd be surprised by how many people have watched it, specifically because Major League Baseball has made a point of embracing that movie as part of its history. And recently, I think in two separate seasons, they, there's a field now, a baseball field in Iowa with a, with a cornfield behind it, the field of dreams field, or I don't know what the official name is, but they've had two regular season games as like special exhibitions with that field. So I think a lot of baseball fans have become reacquainted with that movie through those games and the, the publicity from it. I, my sense is that our audience is much more on the sports ball side of things, but that's certainly possible. And I'll, I'll just say, if you haven't seen the movie, it is kind of cheesy. It is very 80s. And especially if you have any love of baseball and a love of magic realism, or have any father trauma in your life, you know, I think there's a lot of good things to be said about that movie. The performance for me, sorry, I just want to add also, like this movie was in the 80s, I think like 86 or 87. But it, there's a scene in it where the, the main character and his wife go to, they have a daughter and they go to a community, I guess, school board meeting to talk where people are wanting to ban books, specifically they go because one of the books that's proposed to be banned is written by James Earl Jones's character, Terrence Mann, who is like this 1960s hippie writer. Right. And he's a JD Salinger stand in it's very much about, I think it's supposed to be capturing the Ryan JD Salinger. And they go to this meeting about banning books in schools and the main characters are, you know, on the liberal side. And they're like, how, how could you want to ban books, you Nazi? And in the 80s, like Nazi was not what it is today. Like it was, you know, a thing of the past, Indiana Jones is punching Nazis, you know, in this 1930s movie, so it's like, Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha, and I recently we watched it field of dreams. And I was like, Oh gosh, like this is just happening again, or still years later. And we're still arguing about banning books. Yeah. So the performance of his that most comes to my mind, and it's funny because this is also very baseball themed from a very different direction is fences and fences is a play by August Wilson. For those of you who don't know, August Wilson was an incredible black playwright who wrote a lot about the black experience. And at one point, he wrote a whole series of plays, each of which is set in a different decade. And I forget which particular decade fences is set in because I saw it many years ago, but the general plot of it is about a age, James O. Jones is playing an aging man who was in the Negro baseball leagues, and was, has a lot of bitterness about the fact that his son now has a chance to play in the major leagues because the color line has been broken, Jackie Robinson and all of that. And it's a very different performance because there's a lot of bitterness, there's a lot of anger, but you still have to have some sympathy for the character, even while he's being in many ways, the antagonist for many others. I didn't get you to see him on stage, I was too young, but there's a video that was running around for a while that I saw in my high school drama class that showed us a lot of clips of it. And even in that film camera pointed at a stage in the 80s or the 70s or whatever it was, you could just see what a powerful actor he was. And it's a play about the black experience that is very much outside of my own necessarily, but I think it's a beautiful story because of how much it invites others to be able to better understand that and relate to it in ways that are, you know, that it's a specific story and a specific context that isn't my own, but I can still relate to frustrations with a father and, you know, ideas of what was the father's success and what will your son's success be and things like that. So yeah, just another amazing performance of his. Yeah, he has a lot of kind of smaller roles in movies like I'm just looking over the filmography. He was in the 1990s series of Jack Ryan movies, most notably the Hunt for Red October. So I think he plays like a CIA, he plays like Jack Ryan's boss or something like that. Yeah, he's CIA mentor. Yeah, and in that movie Hunt for Red October, like the iconic moment for James Earl Jones is it at the end of the movie where he says something like you heard that torpedo impact on the hull of the submarine and I was never here, right? Like this is like we're just going to cover this up type thing. And his delivery of that is just so epic and it's like a pretty small role. But he does that, right, like because of his voice and the way he is like, it's not just his voice. It's his acting as well. Like he knows how to use his voice in a way that projects incredible gravitas. Yeah. And what I loved about him is not only was he able to do that, he was also very self-aware and really happy to make fun of himself. Again, dating myself here, but the David Letterman show, one of the precursors to Jay Leno and some of those others today, because Jay Leno is a precursor now as well, but the point being that he would sometimes go to David Letterman show had a bit of the top 10 lists and he would sometimes go on and read these lists of ridiculous things. Often they were like silly newspaper headlines or something like that, but in the very deep like very kind of making fun of his own deep baritone, you know, kind of making fun of his own like very deep, sonorous voice. And I think there's a couple of movies where he also did that, a small way of kind of being a parody of himself and I just, I love when people can do that, when they have both the awareness of the power they have, but also they can have fun with it. And that I think brings me to the college graduation speech that I want to talk about because I graduated college in 1999, I'm sure that the concept of privilege already existed in the terms of the way it's talked about today, there was that great article that started the whole conversation about the backpack of privilege that we all carry around. And I never heard the word though, and he never said the word, but his speech gave me the best understanding of that privilege that I've ever that I've ever known because I graduated from a liberal arts school in the East Coast, the, you know, it was trying to be diverse, but it was what it was and it was probably 80 to 85% white and overwhelmingly kids from affluent backgrounds were able to pay for it and things like that. And he basically said without being mean or without being harsh, but in his very deep voice where like, you know, I feel like if he said, like, please get me a glass of milk, like you feel like you have to get that glass of milk right there in the end, I mean, actually he says that. And what he basically said was you have been given a gift, now go make the world better because of it. And you know, we're 21, I've no idea how many people heard that and paid attention. I certainly did, but I was already already kind of on a, you know, I want to be a do gooder path, but it was something I remembered a lot of the time when I thought about like, what do I want to do with my life? Was the way he reminded us of look at all of the incredible, look at all the incredible things that have happened to you. Look at the education that you have, look at the opportunities you have. And how do you think about others who don't have that? And how do you fix that? And how do you use the gifts that you have? And he didn't that way where, and I think this is often a talking point brought up against privileged ideas that is sometimes silly, that, you know, a lot of people like, oh, you're trying to make all white people feel guilty or or rich people feel guilty or something like that. I think that idea is often nonsense, but sometimes I think there is some element of that. There was none of that in what he said. It wasn't about trying to make us feel guilty. It wasn't about us trying to make us feel bad. It was about saying you should be really pleased and really honored that you have managed to accomplish what you've managed to accomplish, but also recognize who's not sitting next to you. One thing I remember him saying was asking us to think about who didn't get the chance to show they could accomplish what they might have accomplished because they're not here with you right now. And it was just mind blowing, and it was, I remember very little about the day. I don't remember a single word of the valedictorian speech or the head of the school speech. I remember I had gone planning to read a book for most of the time because I thought I'd be bored out of my mind, and I was for most of it. I couldn't read much of my book because it was raining. But his speech was something that with me and my family who they are talked about for years and years afterwards. That's a beautiful memory, and I'm glad that you have that with you because it's such talk about privilege. It's such a privilege to have been in that moment to hear him, right? Very much was, yeah. I mean, I don't, do you think there's a recording of that somewhere? You said like late 90s? I don't know if there is, but I know that this was the year that Phantom Menace was coming out. I think Phantom Menace had actually just come out, no, yeah, Phantom Menace had just come out like two weeks beforehand because a week beforehand, because that was the movie we watched to celebrate the end of our final exams as seniors, and I'm sure that he spoke at other graduations around that time and over the next couple of years. So, if my version is not recorded, I'm sure there's probably recordings of it elsewhere. Yeah. But that's the thing is like now we can go on YouTube and watch a commencement speech from just like any college these days, right? And so much is recorded now that we get to see. So like to have a memory of something that may or may not have been recorded, that there was like a unique moment in history through that. That's very special. I will say as a confession, he ended the speech by saying, and may the force be with you. And at lunch with my mother and a couple of friends of ours, you know, my mother was saying, oh, of course he had to say that. How can he not have said that? And my friends and I were like, but mom, I'm actually, push up glasses. You know, exactly. How's everyone doing? I don't even know if people can still hear me at this point. Here we are, just me and nobody. Well, I wish I had like a personal experience with James Little Jones, I could share. But no such luck looking over some of his accomplishments, a lot of stuff while going back to the 60s, performances in the 60s, 70s. So like from a movie perspective, definitely more of like, I think 90s was where he started to really pick up, feel the dreams of the 80s. But I wonder if it's because in Star Wars, it was just his voice. I'm going to see if Matthew is coming back. Well listeners, I'm back from the power just dying on me. I'm thinking that's the power telling us that it's time for us to move on a little bit from this James Little Jones conversation. So Ricky, let's move into the next part of the conversation, which is one of the things that James Little Jones did during his life was he made this deal with Disney. I think kind of recognizing how unique his voice was and also money is nice, people like money. And they paid him his understanding quite a lot of money for him to go in and record his voice saying all the things that the folks who do AI voices needed him to say. So that in theory now, for any project, they can have his voice create whatever they want him to say. And the topic of AI and AI in media has been a very contentious one for some time, especially in recent years. We're starting to see a lot of AI creations and things like that often done without the consent of the people involved. There's still news about a lawsuit apparently involving the use of Peter Cushing's image and voice in Rogue One. I don't know all the details about that. It seems like some part of his family agreed and some didn't and it seems like it's kind of an internal struggle there, I don't know the details. But in this case, we have someone who, while he was alive, fully consented and worked with them to create this plan, what do you think? I hate it. I absolutely hate it. Like I'm not going to mince words. It is to me, like this is, what's the ghoulish, right, like a ghoulish, like to take a dead person and to continue to use them, like it is like the zombification of a performer. And I understand like while he was alive, he signed off on this. He gave consent. They paid him probably handsomely to allow this. I don't care. Like good for him and at least they are not like taking advantage of him without compensating him. I feel very like disgusted by this. And I'm not looking forward to when this happens. I don't know yet if I'll skip whatever Darth Vader appears in like AI, Jamesville Jones, we'll see. But I just, I don't like it. I think if someone passes or is unable to do a performance, let's just find someone else. There are other credible performers, it wouldn't be the same, but there are credible performers who could do this, right? And if you don't like the new performer, that's fine. But to use this technology in this way, it is just, like I said, it's ghoulish to me. I do not like this at all, like in this specific case, and in all of these other cases, especially like where performer did not give consent is just legally like problematic, as you said with Peter Kushner. How did you feel about what happened with Cushing and also with Carrie Fisher in Rogue One? Like, I didn't know about them going in, and I still enjoy the movie. So yeah, I guess like maybe I will, I will watch whatever, you know, AI, Jamesville Jones appears in because it's Star Wars, like I'm not, I'm not a paragon of morality on this, but my going into it, I did not know. And then when Peter Cushing, when Tarte Tarkin appeared on the screen, my first reaction was like excitement, oh, like Grand Moff Tarkin, like of course, because it's the movie about the Death Star. And that's like, wait a minute, Peter, Peter Cushing is dead. And then like when you watch the performance, when you watch what's happening on screen, I was like, this is not real, that this is not real in any way, like the technology was still like in that phase where you could just tell, right? And I was like, oh, what is this? And then like Carrie Fisher at the end, Princess Leia, that was that was even worse, like the facial, whatever mapping. And I actually just watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny last night. And that's a real person, like Harrison Ford is still alive. He did all of the motion capture, whatever, but there's a scene where it's supposed to be him, he's younger. And it looked like a video game, I was like, this is just not, I don't, this is not believable. The technology is not there for this, for the facial stuff and the vocal stuff, like I don't know how it's going to sound like with this. And I just, I don't want it in general, I guess like let, let performers perform and all, like all of this stuff is just, I don't like the way it's going. I think this, this is my, when I was a kid, moment, I feel like, is that people are going to grow up with this and be used to it and the technology is going to improve to the point where probably won't be able to tell. And I'll just be sitting in my rocking chair, shaking my fist at these, these AI performances. And there's like the, all the legal ramifications, like during the sag after a strike, they were really trying to get ahead of this and say, hey, we don't want studios to be able to not pay us because they're using AI as, what was one of the things of contention? Yeah, I really appreciate hearing your thoughts on it, because I'll admit, I'm a lot more mixed, but I think more and more I'm leaning towards where you are. In Rogue One, I think I was just so blown away by the story. Nothing about Peter Cushing's that, that version of when I'm more talking looked weird to me. I know many others felt a very kind of uncanny valley feeling with it. And although I think like on second and third watches, it definitely starts to seem weird. The moment at the end of that movie, where you turn around and see that it is Princess Leia, and she says what she says, I mean, I got so many goosebumps and tiered up at that moment that I feel like that really worked for me, especially because it was so quick, I didn't get the sense that you're getting. And originally when I heard about James O'Jones, part of my thought was good, because it should always just be his voice and his voice is so unique and so powerful and things like that. But of course, it's not going to be that. It's never going to be just the one in a million people. I think there very much is, sort of like you let Campbell's nose under the tent, the whole thing is going to get in by butchering that metaphor, but you know what I mean. And I think for me, the ghoulish part doesn't bother me as much. What I think, though, what really sells it for me, what does this mean for the future of creative arts? First, and you talked about this, I think the fact is, once you have his voice, that means you never have to pay another person to be that voice, and I think as much as the other people I've heard try to do his voice, I think haven't been as good. I think that it takes away jobs from future actors and things like that, and I don't think that's a good thing. And I think if the more and more we allow that, if these studios build up huge amounts of AI voices, there's never, at some point there's not a need to hire another voice actor again, because they just have the AI for all these people. And as you said, most people are not going to get a sweetheart deal. He did. Like I think it's very explicit in James Earl Jones's contract with them that this is only used for Vader. But as you said with the sag, like they want to be able to have it be boilerplate language that any character you play, you're consenting to have your image and voice used for AI of other characters in the future. And I think sag has put a pause on that, but still a fight that's going to be happening. So that is definitely a big concern for me. But I think the other is also what it says about creativity in general, and what we're going to get out of media, because I love Star Wars. I want to see as much Star Wars as I can. I'll admit five years ago, I would have said the same thing about Marvel. But now I'm really kind of tired of Marvel and wishing that Marvel was taking up a lot less of the air in the room so that other things could get started. And I do wonder at times how many other interesting new takes on science fiction aren't being made, because instead the studios are saying, "Okay, but what if we did another Star Wars show, another Star Wars movie, or Star Wars video game instead?" And don't get me wrong, like I've really enjoyed all those things, but even if it's just in Star Wars, if Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill, all the Star Wars actors did that, to me what that means is we're going to get an eternity of stories set during the Skywalker saga. And I'm really kind of sick of those. We talked about the Accolade a lot, and yeah, I had a lot of problems with it, so did you. But I found it so refreshing to have a story that wasn't told during the years of the Skywalker saga. There's an old adage that I think is sometimes true, sometimes not, but that restrictions breed creativity. And I do think there's some truth to that of if you tell a story with a certain number of actors, and then those actors age or die or just go on to other things, now you have to go on to other things too. And I think that's a really good thing. And I'm scared about the idea that every IP, because we get all of their, like at least in Marvel, we've had to move on to the second generation now of heroes, because a lot of the actors were either aging or just didn't want to do this anymore. And now some of them do, and RDJ is coming back, and I think that's terrible, but at least there was some degree of like, we have to have a new Captain America, we have to have new versions of this because the actors are aging. And you take that away, I don't want, you know, eight million movies of Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jit. Like as amazing as I thought their chemistry was on screen, I think I've had enough of that. I'm ready for new actors to tell new stories, both in Marvel and also with that outside of it. Yeah, it's, so I mentioned the Indiana Jones thing and my, like when I was watching the scene of Harrison Ford, like video game, like D aged, I was like, they should've just gotten all done air and rank, who played the young Han Solo in the movie solo, right? And it's a different performance. It's not what Harrison Ford would have done. But I found it delightful. The movie itself like structurally has some issues, but I found Alden Aaron Reich's performance delightful and a great addition to like the canon and history of the character of Han Solo. It's like, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with letting a different person do their own interpretation of this character in a different place. Because in Star Wars, we already have this rich history of the cartoons and the voice actors giving different performances to these people that we love. And we can acknowledge that those are different. They're not the same, but it's part of the character's history now in canon. And so I don't understand why in live action, we have to cling to like only this person can do this performance. There are of course situations where you want to be respectful. I think like you talk about Marvel, Chadwick Boseman as a Black Panther to Chala, that's a very difficult situation because he passed during where they are still developing a character. And I think recasting that you have to be very sensitive to that situation. And I thought they handled it in a good respectful way that honors the performer and the character. But like we're talking about Darth Vader, it's a voice. It is already like a multiple composite performance where you have in live action, you have a man in a suit. And now they've been getting Hayden Christensen to come back and reprise the role of the suit. But even then, there are still multiple, I believe, stunt performers who wear the suit or a different suit, I suppose. And so like this character of Darth Vader in my opinion is already such a composite of so many things. Like is iconic and as much as I love James Charles Jones's performance, I think we can move on. We're not going to because he signed, you know, they paid a lot of money, but yeah. I think there's so many good points there. First I just want to honor because I think his name almost never gets mentioned, David Charles Prowse is the person who was in the suit and was doing the voice for all the acting because, you know, like, you know, the person who Mark Hamill was acting against was him in the suit. And I think here's another case of actors not being treated well. He didn't know his voice was being replaced. He went to see the movie himself at the premiere, which I think is like, I think having it be a voice actor like James Charles Jones makes total sense, but also talk about not respecting the actor who the voice is such a big part of him. But the physicality of that character is a big part of him as well. And I think you can't take that away and think about what made that character so powerful. I think one of the things that I keep thinking about is that, you know, like when I used to argue, I'm not going to go on that tangent, I think one of the things that happens with AI performances a lot is that people will say, okay, AI itself isn't the problem. The problem is that the actor isn't treated well, or the problem is that it doesn't look right on screen or like, and in many cases I feel like this is the perfect case because here the actor fully consented and clearly was in a position where like James Jones had made a lot of money before this happened. I don't think the studio had any kind of manipulative power of telling 80 year old James old Jones you'll never work in this town again. If you don't do this, like the studio had none of that power in this case. He got to set the terms. He got to do it on his own. And as you said, although this isn't it is a live action performance. He's still a voice actor, like what he did is no different than what Matt Lattener did to be the voice of Anakin in the Clone Wars. You know, obviously the performance is not animated but he's a voice actor in that regard. And so I think this is kind of a chance to kind of scrape away all those tangential concerns about AI and look at just the idea of it itself. And I think, yeah, what we're coming to is I just don't want it. As much as I don't love hearing other people do the voice of Darth Vader, maybe I'll get used to that or maybe we'll just decide we've had enough Darth Vader content and I think I'm very okay with that second option, like you said. And/or sometimes the first option. I mean it's such an iconic voice that if they were to recast the voice, and again, I'm pretty sure that other people have done it in media, like here and there, and have done so credibly in a way that it wouldn't be that distracting. Just do it. Imagine if they held an open audition saying like, "Hey, we want a new Darth Vader voice." They would find someone that would do an amazing job, right? Like, the people that would come out of the woodworks, like this American Idol of Darth Vader, like a lot of people would wash out, you'd have terrible Vader voices, like I'm not even going to try, but you would find someone that most of the fan base would be happy with or just not even know that it wasn't. Like not to say that like Jamesville Jones is not unique, but if the performance, like if the movie or whatever the TV show is good, you wouldn't notice is what I'm trying to say. Like it wouldn't be a distraction. Well, and I think there's a few things there, I think to people like myself and it sounds like maybe to you, or maybe not for you, I think it's always going to be a distraction for me because I heard Jamesville Jones as a kid and it was so imprinted on my brain. But I'm just one generation and most Star Wars fans are a lot younger these days. Like we're talking about his performances in movies that are 41 to 47 years old at this point. Like he had some reprisals and things like that. But in terms of movies, he had a major role in it. I think for me, I would feel like I'm ready for, well, let me put it this way. I would want like a good five or 10 years to pass before you start that casting process. Like I'll give you another example. For me, Hugh Jackman is and always will be Wolverine. And I know this is a weird case because I'm a dirty casual, so I didn't have him in the comic books and in the shows before them. But so for me, the idea that you're going to recast him now is what I hate. If you tell me in 10 years, 15 years, you're going to bring in Wolverine and it's going to someone who's not Hugh Jackman, yeah, fine, I feel like enough time has passed. But doing it right now is something I really object to because for me, he is Wolverine and I don't know why we need a new one. Well, yeah, if you saw a Deadpool movie, he's still good at that. But my point is why do we need to tell me, I don't like the idea that at every point in time, we have to have the ability to make a Batman and a Spider-Man and an X-Man and a Star Wars movie. Like I'm okay with the idea that just we're like, we're just going to take a break from that character or that media for a while. And okay, aren't Hugh Jackman, he's old, I mean, like 50 or something. But he's getting to the point where he's too old to play this action hero, right? He's also too tall, Matthew. Like this has always been one of the complaints about Hugh Jackman Wolverine is that in the comics, Wolverine is supposed to be a short king, like I don't know, like my foot to something like that. And it's like this man is like six feet tall and he's standing like shoulder to shoulder with Cyclops. Like this is not Wolverine, like people, there are legitimate parts of the fandom that have always been upset about. So I think in recasting, if they cast a short king, a lot of people would be excited. And I've seen like people who want Harry Potter guy, Daniel Radcliffe, Daniel Radcliffe, is he starting to like grow into this look, it's like, oh yeah, I could see him as Wolverine. I think he had a movie where he played like a werewolf or something like that or someone who turns into an animal and like, oh, this is like a very good Wolverine performance. So I, for me, like I always want to see like people try some, and sometimes you try something and it's not good. I can't think of like a great example of top of my head, but that's okay, right? Like that's art, that's performance. And it's okay if you say, I don't like this performance as much as the other one. I just like to me, like AI is not, I mean, some parts of it is a performance. So do you want to talk about alien Romulus? Let me get to that in a second. Let me just respond to one last thing about, because as I said, I am a dirty casual. I never experienced Wolverine as a short character. And I think, I think both of those positions are valid. I think it's very okay for someone to say my Wolverine is the one I learned about in comics or in the original animated show or something else. So for me, Wolverine has to be short. I think it's also okay for me to say Hugh Jackman is my Wolverine. That's what I expect of him. But it puts me in mind of a conversation I had a number of years ago that at the time made me very uncomfortable, but not very uncomfortable, you know, made me like annoyed as a fan. I say that in the kind of like, we see how much toxicity there is, that wasn't actually that angry. I was just like, oh my God, how could you, you know, but in a fan-ish way, don't be toxic about this stuff. Because I was talking to someone who had grown up with the prequels and then had at a much later, for whatever reason, they hadn't watched the original movies, but they'd watched the prequels over and over again. And then at a later date, watched the prequels, watched the originals. And they were like, I don't really like James O'Jones's performance. And I was like, what do you mean? And this, he doesn't sound anything like what Anakin would have grown into. And yeah, sure, you know, a part of me was just like, no, how could you? You're wrong. You foolish kid. And that's the whole point is that is, I mean, that's why we have the Star Wars Generations podcast. It's all about like, this person's Anakin Skywalker who becomes Darth Vader, was and always been Hayden Christensen with a little bit of Matt Latner thrown in. And James O'Jones didn't fit that. And, you know, it's like you have that right to that opinion, it is not my opinion. But that's legitimate for them, you know, if that's their experience. And I think that that's good because I do think that, you know, I look, for example, at a character like Batman, I love that there is no one person who was thought of as the definitive Batman. Lots of people have their own favorite, Kevin Conroy is going to be the top of the list for many people. Christian Bale is going to be top of the list for many people, Michael Keaton for others. It's going to be Adam West, you know, the guy from the Batman '66 TV show. But none of them are thought of as like, there's always going to be fights about it. Again, I don't want a hundred more years of Darth Vader stories or 50 more years, but even 50 years, because that's a, let me start that again. You know, but think about that, like from Adam West to today is 60 years, I don't want under 60 years of Darth Vader stories, but if we get 60 years of Darth Vader stories, then at the end of it, someone's like, yeah, each of these new voice actors had a new take on it and a new spin on it and a new interpretation of this character. That to me is much better than just having James O'Jones prerecorded doing it again and again and again. Yeah, so a couple of quick things, you keep saying Matt Lattner, the voice actor is Matt Lantler. Oh, you're right. He's the voice actor of Anakin, and I've always said to me, he is much more of my Anakin than Hayden Christensen. I've come to recognize Hayden Christensen as a good actor. He just had terrible direction and dialogue, but yeah, people can disagree on that. But yeah, thank you for getting that name right. I'm terrible with those. He was the voice actor in the Clone Wars TV show. Yeah, and then second thing, Daniel Radcliffe is listed publicly as five foot five, which I believe is still taller than Canonical Wolverine in the comics, but it's shorter enough, like shorter than the average, you know, height of a man, especially like presented against other actors that you might have in a rebooted X-Men. So like, I'm kind of getting on board this Daniel Radcliffe train. Maybe. Let us know. So let's talk about some other AI that's been in media recently because we're talking about that. For me, as science fiction people, as ethics people, et cetera, there's kind of two main ways we can approach the topic of AI. One is AI in terms of the creative process of the movies and TV shows and video games, and the other is AI as a story point in those things. And this is kind of a loose connection, but it's how we're going to wrap up because there's been a couple of interesting examples of it that I think we're going to touch on here. And then one of them we'll go into in more detail in the bonus content, but we'll probably do some follow up episodes on them as well. So let's talk first about Alien Romulus. Yeah, so this, I mean, this is going to be a kind of spoiler, not for like the plot of the movie, but for a character who appears in the movie. So if you're interested in seeing that movie completely free of any information, I guess, like skip ahead, but in the movie, the Alien Romulus, the newest in the Alien franchise, they have a character who, I guess is also AI, like I can't remember what they're called in universe, but it's like an android, an artificial human. They have had pretty much like one of these characters in every alien movie. And in this newest one, one of the artificial people is played by, and I'm going to use air quotes, played by Ian Holm, who played the original artificial human in the 1979 movie. And he, the actor passed away, I think like three or four years ago, and did not sign like any kind of contract like James L. Jones. What I have read is that his widow gave the studio, the director permission to use his likeness in this movie. And then what they did was they had like an actual actor, like in the scenes, and like saying the lines, you know, like with David Prowse. And then they, you know, whatever they do, they overlaid with their Ian Holm skin in post production and voice, AI voice to sound like Ian Holm. And I have not seen the movie, but when I heard about this, I said, I don't want to see this movie anymore, because that's, and I've spoken to several people who did see the movie. I asked them specifically about this, like, hey, like this, the character, right? Like, and they're like, yeah, it was, it was distracting, it was not like they found it unsettling, like in the uncanny valley. And I don't even know if they knew that the actor had passed, but they could tell like that this was not a real person in the performance. And that's where we are, right? Like the technology is not there. I don't know if the technology will ever be there, because it's technology. It's not human, like human. I do think there's something like in the soul, right? Like a human performance and I guess not happy, not happy with the situation. The, the widow gave consent. So I guess like legally they're fine. They did pay, right, like they paid the performer, the stand-in performer, who was there and all that. So it's not like they got a free performance, like from, from that legal perspective. It's still just, yeah, like I said, like it's like, why, why, and why would you do that? Like it's already an AI, an artificial person, right? And they have used other characters like Michael Fassbender and the covenant, et cetera, Prometheus and Covenant. He was an artificial person. So the franchise already has this president of like, there are multiple models, so to speak, of artificial people. So like, why would you have to have that one? It is my thing. It's like, just, just let's move on. Yeah. It seems nuts to me. I hadn't been aware of that. So, and I apologize. I was confused. I thought you were going to be bringing up how AI was in that story. But I think it was even more relevant and, yeah, like first of all, there's a part of me like, I love and adore my spouse. She can speak for me in so many occasions. I don't know how I feel about the idea that a spouse or children gets to decide what is done with the literal likeness of a person, you know, with like, obviously they're the closest people who can give consent, but I don't know if that is the full consent of the person. Unless you can say like the person's, you know, I'll trust a widow who says, oh, my spouse always told me they would love to live on in AI or whatever. But, you know, when it's just children saying or widow saying, like, I think this is what they would be okay with and certainly I'm okay with it, that to me, it's still not the full consent of the person. Or if they're making money off. Exactly. Right. And like, again, yeah, you're absolutely like a widow is the, in theory, the closest person to, you know, home, right? And I'm not going to disparage her or her decision. But it gets like, what if 200 years from now, they're still making Star Wars movies? And I guess not, let's say, let's say alien, let's say 200 years from now, they're mates. They're still making alien movies. And the new alien movie, they're like, we want to have this character again. Talk to the great grandchild of Ian home, get consent, like that person, like never even met them. They're not going to know at all. And so like, if you think about it, like, it's going to continue to get. I mean, and you don't even need the hypothetical of, of going that far because, you know, for people who are, there's been a lot of discussion with the new Lords of the Rings TV show, The Rings of Power, which I, the first season was amazing. I've heard really good things about second, I haven't seen it yet. But you know, there's a lot of questions about what topics are they, are they not allowed to touch? And I don't know the details of this, but my understanding is that part of the story is that the Tolkien estate, there's some conflict and different members, the Tolkien estate disagree on how much of the works of JR Tolkien, they want to make available to different filmmakers and TV show, TV show creators and things like that. So yeah, these are definitely things that happen. And I do think the rights to IP are fundamentally different than the rights to the actual creation, you know, the actual person and voice and things like that. But you know, it's all part of a piece. And so if it's happening just with IP, of course, it's going to happen with voice acting and stuff like that. Yeah. And I apologize to you, like, that I didn't make this clear enough to what I wanted to talk about with Alien, but I think it also plays interestingly into the themes of the movie franchise itself and AI, as you said, because it seems like they're just like by using this AI performance, like melded performance, they're kind of missing the point, like it does not seem like it was an intentional point of like AI and also like exploit exploitation. And I like that I think the alien franchise has a long history of highlighting exploitation of workers via by a multi-galactic company, Waylon, Utah, basically like using human beings as fodder to test or like get control of this, this is the xenomorph, right? Like, that's always been a theme, like the character in Aliens, the second one is basically like, yeah, these Marines are expendable, like my company has tasked me to like bring back these eggs. It doesn't matter how many people die. No, I think it's a great point. And that's counterplayed with the fact that Ian Holmes gives a very powerful and sympathetic portrayal to the point where you understand why the characters have developed feelings for this part, for their co-worker, you know, and their challenge when they realize he's an android. I think you're thinking of it. Ian Holmes, like in the original, I can't remember his name, he was the corporate character who was like ready to kill, you're right, I think you might be thinking of Lance Henrichson in the second one. Yeah, I think he was a compassionate, yeah, that's what I'm thinking of. Real quick, let's see, what was the characters and I think Bishop was the second one. Ash. Ash was the name of the -- Yeah, that's right. Okay, thank you. But yeah, it's been a recurring theme in this. And so we're almost at an hour, we're at an hour already and I don't want this to go too much longer. But let's at least touch on the other mention of AI that you brought up, Terminator. Terminator has gotten, obviously it's been about AI from the very beginning, from the first movie of the early '80s and the principle story of it has always been that if Skynet becomes sentient, Skynet will realize that humanity would be afraid of it and so it will act first and attack and start this nuclear war to wipe out humanity. And in most of the movie is the idea that Skynet is anything but just the pure antagonist it has never really been questioned. And then recently, there's been a couple of more recent things that questioned a little bit but mostly not but then much more recently has been just a couple of days ago when we're recording this but it will probably be a couple of weeks later that this comes out because the hiatus. But just more recently, only a couple of days ago when we're recording this but probably a couple weeks later when the episode comes out, we now have Terminator 0 on Netflix which is an anime story set in the Terminator universe and it's got full permission from the Terminator people and it's canonical. It's very much building on the other stuff that's established in the other movies. And it has a lot of interesting things to say about time travel which I will talk about in a different episode but it also takes a very different take on AI. Talk a little bit about that, Ricky, and sort of how you felt about it and how you felt the connective this, gosh, I don't know if I love this or hate this, like this Terminator 0 I'm talking about specifically, it is such a complicated thing that they've created and added to Terminator which has always been complicated when it gets time travel but they open multiple cans of worms in this very short series. I was like, I can't believe they're doing this to the franchise and I'm not saying that I'm doing this to the franchise as condemning it but again, they have changed the rules of time travel, I want to keep that for a whole separate episode because that's just AI. Well, they introduced a second AI in this and the Terminator franchise, Skynet becomes self-aware on, I believe August 28th or 29th, we've just passed Judgment Day but it's 1997. In 1997, Skynet becomes self-aware and nukes. And then in later movies because of time travel playing with things, there's another version of the timeline where I think true test playing for them but again, that's why people were just recently being like, oh, that was the day. But this series resets to 1997 and they send time travelers, but it takes place in a 1997 it is different from original timeline 1997 because the technology is much better. It's improved, especially the robot AI and it's interesting because it is a Japanese anime with Japanese voice acting taking place in Tokyo in 1997 and they have these robots, what are they called like, I know, I think they're called, at least, I listened to the English subs so I think that there are like robot maids, basically servants. I don't want to spoil anything but I think we can say that it really plays with the idea of does AI have to be the enemy of mankind and also is AI wrong to be the enemy of mankind and I don't want to get into a review of the show, I do think that it opens too many cans of worms for what it tries to explore and that that is a little bit of a strike against the show. I'll also say that at midnight last night, I planned to watch one episode just to have a basic idea of it so we could talk about it today and then four hours later went to bed having watched almost the entire show and then finished it this morning. So it is a very compelling, very good to watch show and what I think I like about it most is the idea of our concept of AI is incredibly different than what it was in 1983 or '84 when that movie was first made and there's actually a kind of bridge point for anyone who's seen the movie Terminator Genesis, the one with Amelia Clark in it, it was kind of pan, I think it's actually a very good movie, it's kind of a reboot on a weird way of the original playing with this idea of timelines but it interested the idea that you know, AI instead of being a control of all the military that AI was actually going to be a thing that made all the technology in your life talk to each other, which is something that we're getting, we have to some extent in our world, nowhere near the extent that it's going to be there but this movie is a lot about kind of like dangers of that and the dangers of how that can be exploited like that and I think that having it be this of, you know, in this it's kind of not really clear because the focus isn't on Skynet, the focus is much more on this Japanese AI that's being built and yeah we'll talk about it more in the bonus segment but I'm really glad that you suggested I watch it because I had not heard of it and I think it is just, for me it really put to light that I think when we use AI, there are two very different meanings we have. One is actual sentience which becomes self-aware and self-actualized and now becomes an independent actor with incredible power that we have to deal with and this is the Skynet, this is Ultron, this is things like that, there's absolutely no discussion that like James Earl Jones's avatar is going to become self-aware or sentient in the net, that's not what this is about, there's no sentience happening here, this is just about computers doing tasks of such great magnitude that they can create recreations of things that we never thought possible but there's absolutely nothing new being created, there's no sentience, there's no like independent thought happening within what we're talking about in terms of AI today and so I kind of think AI is the wrong term for all of this and I wish we had something better to use. The original Skynet was a defense, United States like defense computer program that they were kind of like turning over things too because they thought it would compute things faster or whatever and then in 1997 it becomes self-aware and it decides like it has to end humanity because humans suck, true statement, please don't end and it fire like because it only has control of the United States, it fires all of the United States nukes at I guess it was Russia at the time, not the Soviet Union but they still nukes and then because this is how our world is constructed, Russia launched all its nukes in retaliation in the United States because they're shooting at us, we're going to shoot them and it's notable, I think that's very notable in this exploration of AI in the fictional universe, Skynet could not fire Russian nukes, it only had access to the US nukes so it had to use them to provoke Russia to fire to launch their nukes and that's how Skynet destroyed everything. Now what we're talking about like the genesis model, I think what we're getting in Terminator 0 like this because of the internet and like this collectivized computer network, we are getting a different model of AI which is like just out there, like Skynet was just probably like a in some bunker under the Pentagon or wherever. If you've seen War Games, I don't think, I think Terminator was already in development but Skynet's a lot like the Whopper in War Games. Yeah but now, but now like our concept of AI, there would not be like a single hard point, there would not be one computer that you could point to and be like that Skynet, if we destroy that, we're good. Now if there's a Skynet, it's just everywhere, it's like on it's on my laptop, it's on my iPhone, it's all interconnected. I remember that that's a key point of the second Avengers movie, Ultron, is that they destroy the physical body but he uploads his mind to the internet and then just lives in the internet. So anyway, lots of interesting stuff here. We're going to talk more about Terminator Zero in the bonus content. For everyone else though, of course, please think about becoming a member, please think about all the ways you can give us feedback, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Most importantly though, we have spoken. [Music]
