Mark Hamill as young Luke Skywalker surprised us in The Mandalorian Season 2 finale. But for all of his presence on set and in the episode, there was one thing missing—his real voice!
There was much to be said about the finale. A lot of work was put into having Hamill’s surprise appearance. But there were fans who wondered if Luke’s inclusion (as delightful as it was) had any substantial place in The Mandalorian’s story.
Worse yet, were criticisms of Hamill’s de-aged CGI effects which were far from perfect.
But what fans did not pick up on was the fact that Mark Hamill, despite being on set and taking all the effort he did, did not voice the few lines he had in the finale!
Disney Gallery/Star Wars: The Mandalorian takes behind-the-scenes through the production and making of the show.
The latest episode (Season 2 Episode 2) dives into The Mandalorian Season 2’s crackling finale, which reveals Luke’s voice was an electronically synthesized version made from dialogues from the actor’s original Star Wars run.
The program used is called Respeecher and it learned to replicate Hamill’s younger voice by being fed data (which included a cleaned ADR from the original movies, audiobook narration, and radio plays).
Now, the impeccable result is a good testimony for Respeecher and if anything, may open up a larger clientele for the company.
But for The Mandalorian itself, the initiative falls flat—since most of the audience never had problems with the audio, but rather with the visuals.
Hamill being the prolific voice actor that he is (who also goes uncredited for many Star Wars voice undertakings), could’ve just as easily voiced his younger self.
The big bucks (and time) could’ve then been used to fine-tune the CGI, which admittedly lost to a deepfake Luke Skywalker rendering of the same scene.
(Pssh, YouTuber Shamook got hired by Lucasfilm for this deepfake video).
But of course, we learn from our mistakes and so will Lucasfilm.
We’re unsure if Hamill as young Luke Skywalker will make another appearance in The Mandalorian, but for what it’s worth, the franchise is now equipped with better visual and audio aids than before!
About The Mandalorian
The Mandalorian is an American space western TV series on Disney+, created by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. The show aired its first episode on November 12, 2019, and is two seasons in with an upcoming Season 3.
The show follows the story of one of the Mandalorians from the famed Star Wars Universe, Din Djarin. After the fall of the Galactic Empire, he is hired to retrieve Grogu, known as “The Child,” from the Impreial forces, but ends up going on the run to protect him from Moff Gideon, a former Imperial Officer.
The show stars Pedro Pascal in the lead along with actors Carl Weathers, Gioncarlo Esposito, Gina Carano, Amid Abtahi and Katee Sackhoff.
Source: Disney+
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