India, May 20 -- In a case that feels straight out of sci-fi satire, the voice of Darth Vader has landed at the centre of a real-world legal battle involving AI, actors' rights, and one of the most iconic villains in cinematic history.

The Hollywood actors' union, Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists or the SAG-AFTRA, has filed an unfair labour practice charge against Llama Productions, a subsidiary of Epic Games, after the company allegedly used AI to replicate Darth Vader's voice in the popular online game Fortnite, without notifying the union or the original performers.

Fortnite recently added a fully voiced Darth Vader character to the game. But this version doesn't rely on the familiar tim...