Was James Earl Jones in ROTS ?

I've been wondering about this , are the few words that Vader in full armor speaks in ROTS done by James Earl Jones ? It certainly sounds like him but when asked about wether he was involved in ROTS Jones simply said to ask George Lucas about that .

Obviously it's not Hayden speaking in those scenes . I believe it is Jones and if not someone doing a great impression of him .

 

I believe it was he.

 

Yes, it was him.


And I gotta say, I absolutely adore his delivery of his few lines. They're a perfect bridge: Anakin's thoughts, Vader's voice.

 

He ,,acted" better than Hayden during the prequels.

 

It was definitely him. I remember when ROTS was being filmed and the news came out that James Earl Jones had been hired for the last five or seven minutes of the film. It was one of the earliest spoilers.

 

He acted better than just about anyone in all six films.


JEJ *is* Darth Vader; just wouldn't be the same without him. Lookit the Youtube vids of Darth with David Prowse's voice if you don't believe me.

 

No. James Earl Jones WAS NOT IN Revenge of the Sith.
But his VOICE, was...

 

I've been wondering about this for a while, so that clears it up.

 

Jones did not do the teaser trailer with Vader from the end of the film. That was Hayden's voice doctored up. The trailer was later re-looped for the DVD. Jones did all the lines in ROTS and the new material found in TESB, for the 2004 DVD. People could tell the difference between the two actors, despite the tweaking.

 

Any chance you know where one could hear the Hayden version?

I've never heard of this.

EDIT: Is it this? Listening to that, I remember thinking that it sounded weird, with the hard R in 'master'.

Also...does that mean that Lucas might actually have been playing with the notion of not using JEJ at all in RotS?

 

He was actually planning on replacing him with Donny Wahlberg.


Anyway, no, GL never did. JEJ was quoted not long after AOTC as saying he was going to have work in ROTS.


edit: I'm listening to this over my 5.1 surround sound speakers, and good lord, Vader's breathing is downright fear-inspiring over 5 channels of sound.

Edit, again: Hayden also made it pretty clear that he wasn't even sure he was going to be wearing the suit before filming started.

 

Yeah I thought it was him . I wouldn't go as far to say that JEJ acted better in ROTS than pretty much anyone else . Ian McDiarmid was brilliant as always . Samuel L. Jackson was quite good too and so was Ewan McGregor and of coarse Christopher Lee is always good even if he just had a short scene .

But yeah when it comes to the younger cast , Natalie Portman can just kind of get by and Hayden never was a good actor , at least not in any of the Star Wars films he did . I always thought that was a one of the main weak points of the prequels , Lucas should have hired a better actor as Anakin .

 

A more charismatic and older one.

 

I love that scene. That scene, along with the one of Vader and Palpatine on the Star Destroyer, look like they could have been in Return of the Jedi or something. Lucas did a great job getting the look exactly right.

 

No, what it means is that when the trailer was cut and completed, James Earl Jones had not come to the Ranch to do his work. So they took Hayden's voice and tweaked it, so that they could have the teaser ready to go. After it was finished, Jones came in to do ROTS and TESB. The fact that it was changed on the DVD, is also indictive that they planned to use Jones all along.

As to Hayden, at the time, it was believed that either Prowse would wear the suit. Or the current guy who wears the suit at official Star Wars events. Hayden thought that he could do it and that is why he asked if he could. Lucas ultimately decided to let Hayden do it beyond having the helmet lowered onto his face.

 

Possibly , but mainly just a better actor .

 

Yes. Check the credits.

 

I would agree. Aside from one glaring exception.

 

Surely Prowse wasn't seriously considered? My impression is that the only person who believed Prowse had a shot was Prowse himself, talking up some imagined "fan boycott" of the film if he didn't get the part.

 

I'm sure that Prowse wanted himself to be in the suit, because that would have given him more recognition than he has now. He just never got out of the shadow of JEJ, and probably saw this as a chance to get one last hurrah in as Darth Vader, the character that he is not really famous for but was still a part of.

 

It seems at the time Prowse really did want to be back as Vader but even at the time he was in his 60s and had hip problems .

 

Prowse burned his bridges with Lucas a long time ago....

 

Yes quite right and with Darth Vader it's the voice that matters and not who is in the costume .

 

Wasn't a good chunk of ROTJ's Vader already a different guy in the suit (the stunt double?) mainly because Prowse wasn't worth dealing with?

(And of course, there's the matter of his autograph, "David Prowse IS Darth Vader"...)

 

Let's not turn this into another Prowse thread. Stay on topic!