It's remarkable now to think that Burtt had little to work from when he first designed Chewbacca's voice. As he would later recall about visiting Long Beach's Marineland of the Pacific, which closed down in 1987, "Its pool had been drained for cleaning-the walrus was stranded at the bottom, moaning-and that was the sound!" But it took some doing: Burtt would travel to oceanariums on the off chance that their walruses would give him just the right sound. "Mostly bears, with a dash of walrus, dog, and lion thrown in," Burtt once said simply when asked how he found the sounds to create the character of Chewbacca's voice. But Mayhew didn't produce the grunts, whimpers and wails that emanate from Chewie-those were provided by Burtt or, rather, from some friends in the animal kingdom. Once asked what makes a good sound designer, Burtt responded, "It boils down to the ability to select or create the right sound for the right moment, to pick the thing that dramatically tells what needs to be said in that moment." As these six examples demonstrate below, Burtt's sonic instincts are pitch-perfect.Īs played by Peter Mayhew and designed by makeup supervisor Stuart Freeborn, Chewbacca is both alien and familiar, an oversized, lovable dog who just so happens to tower over everyone else and walk upright. For that, you can thank Burtt, who has won two competitive Oscars and two special-achievement Oscars, and has gone on to work on such projects as E.T., the Indiana Jones films and Wall-E. Putting in sounds from the real world creates the illusion that these fantasies are credible."Īlmost 40 years after its premiere, Star Wars is such a cultural colossus that even its sound effects are ingrained in our subconscious. That man was Ben Burtt, who spent about a year coming up with different ideas for, say, how a Wookie talks or the exact combination of human and electronic sounds needed to bring a droid to life.Īs Burtt later told an interviewer, "Since we were going to design a visual world that had rust and dents and dirt, we wanted a sound world that had squeaks and motors that may not be smooth-sounding or quiet.
#DEATH STAR FIRING SOUND MOVIE#
Darth Vader, however, absconded in his TIE Advanced.When George Lucas began work on Star Wars in the mid-1970s, he tapped a USC classmate to craft all the strange sounds for this risky sci-fi movie about a sheltered kid on a distant planet who ends up saving the galaxy. The space station was destroyed, and Tarkin with it. The Rebels launched a desperate attack, and a young pilot named Luke Skywalker - strong with the Force - flew an X-wing down the Death Star’s trench, making the impossible shot. It was discovered that a proton torpedo, shot precisely into a small exhaust port, could trigger a reaction that would destroy the Death Star. In a display of the Death Star’s might, Grand Moff Tarkin used the space station to destroy the Princess’ home planet of Alderaan, killing billions.Īfter the Princess’ rescue, however, the stolen plans - which Leia had hid in the droid R2-D2 - were finally delivered to the Alliance.
While he proved unsuccessful on that front, the Sith captured Princess Leia Organa, a suspected Rebel sympathizer. Darth Vader, an Imperial enforcer serving the Emperor and Grand Moff Tarkin, led an Imperial hunt to recover the plans.
Their goal: to find a weakness within the superstructure and exploit it. The Empire completed construction of the Death Star, but Rebel Alliance spies managed to steal data tapes containing its schematics. Tarkin would become the battle station’s greatest champion, seeing it as the key to vanquishing all resistance to Palpatine’s rule. Tarkin proved a capable commander, and Palpatine rewarded him by making him a Grand Moff with greater control over the project.
Rancit’s replacement, Wilhuff Tarkin, faced a host of challenges, from delayed shipments and raw-materials shortages to missed engineering deadlines and attempts at sabotage.
The Empire initially appointed Vice Admiral Rancit to supervise the network of bases protecting the Death Star, an effort overseen from the remote Sentinel Base. Access to the former Separatist world was restricted, with very few in the Imperial hierarchy allowed to know about the battle station’s construction. Palpatine, secretly the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, had his apprentice Darth Tyranus (also known as Count Dooku) deliver the plans from Geonosis to Coruscant at the start of the Clone Wars.Įven as the Clone Wars raged, the Death Star secretly took shape in space above Geonosis. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, with assistance from the Geonosians, had plotted to build the first dreaded Death Star - a weapon unlike anything the galaxy had ever seen.