Where did the Star Wars sound effects come from??

By Sara Bellum On March 14, 2016 In Sara Bellum No Comments

Star Wars Sound Effects

Find out how production created the iconic and bizarre sounds from Star Wars characters, weapons, and vehicles.

Dear Sara,

Where did all of the Star Wars sound effects come from? I know they have computer generated sounds and such nowadays, but where did all of the crazy sounds originate? What about R2D2 and Chewbacca?

Thank You,

Olivia

Dear Olivia,

Star wars sound effects are definitely distinguished and very memorable (lightsaber swings immediately come to mind.) Surprisingly, they were all dreamed up by the genius of a man called Ben Burtt. He took A YEAR to gather the bits and pieces of audio that would come to be the Star Wars sound effects. Of course some electronics were used, but the majority of the sound effects were generated by Burtt’s imagination. He would think of what the sound was meant to represent and break it down by finding real-life sounds that could be mashed up and create the Star Wars sound effects.

Chewbacca! Chewbacca didn’t have moving lips. This left Burtt having to create “words” of the Wookie with dialect that could only come from the mouth opening and closing. To create the expressive and “vocal” character, he recorded different animal voices such as a walrus, several bears, a seal, a badger, and a lion as they were experiencing different ranges of emotions.

R2D2! Little R2D2 speaks and we feel like we know what he is saying… Even though his lines aren’t from a language any audience member would recognize. Burtt says R2D2 was the most difficult to conjure because of it’s responsibility to be a loveable character who lacks any human characteristics. To make the robot seem human, Burtt had to play around with inflections of baby sounds, electrictronic sounds, recordings from his own voice, and even water pipes and whistles.


Lightsaber! The first thing that comes to mind when thinking Star Wars sound effects is the lightsaber. Even the actors caused problems for editors by vocalizing the sounds of their weapons during the filming of fight scenes. Lightsaber hums are actually made from an old 35 mm projector combined with sounds from Burtt’s tv.

Luke’s Landspeeder! This is REALLY thinking outside the box. Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder drive-by sound simply the Los Angeles freeway recorded through a vacuum cleaner attachment hose.

Darth Vader! Always alarming is the sound of Darth Vader‘s very slow, calm, yet forced breathing techniques. Of the Star Wars sound effects, this one is pretty straightforward. Acting as both an intimidating costume accessory and an additional sound that adds dimension to Darth Vader’s character…the breath machine is simply… A SCUBA REGULATOR.

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Sara Bellum

Sara Bellum

Editor at Buzzy Multimedia Publishing
The name's Sara Bellum, and I'm the editor-at-large here at BuzzyMag - the hostess with the mostess, if you will. I like to think that my first calling is fighting crime and delivering a heaping dose of sweet, sweet justice to all manner of thugs, miscreants, hoodlums, ruffians, and ne'er-do-wells, but unfortunately, violent vigilantism doesn't exactly pay big bucks these days.

Times are tough, my friends, and I've got bills to pay, so I decided to put my encyclopedic knowledge of all things sci-fi & fantasy-related to use to help me land a day job. To tell you the truth, it's kind of a nice change of pace. My manicures have been lasting a bit longer lately.

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