The Tom Tom GPS system offers Darth Vader as an option for vocalizing your directions (also C3PO, and coming in August, Han Solo).
Geoff Boucher of the LA Times “Hero Complex” blog noted last month:
If you do choose the Dark Lord of the Sith as your driver’s guide, you will get actual instructions such as “Bear left, to the dark side. Then in 200 yards you have reached your destination. The Force is with you, but you are not a Jedi yet.” You also will get the theme music, the bad-ventilator breathing, light-saber effects and the sound of a TIE fighter zooming by. I might just drive around in circles for days…
Both of the links in the first paragraph are places you can view the faux documentary of Darth Vader recording his lines in the studio, too.
It’s likely that someone who works more cheaply than James Earl Jones is behind the mike. Jones originated the performance in the first Star Wars movie, but lots of other actors have done so for games and other features.
[Thanks to David Klaus for the story.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I see that they’ll be releasing Yoda next month.
Yoda: Turn at the next street right you will. Calculating route (as you turned left before the little green toad got the direction out).
And isn’t R2D2 the nav droid, although having R2D2 read the instructions would be as useful as watching Galaxy Quest with the Thermian dialogue. Really cool until it became really annoying.