Sound Effects
What are the top 5 most obscure and least obscure sounds in the SW Trilogy? — Eric
I decided to take this question for Fun Friday because I don’t have my book that talks about SW sound effects with me, so I’ll mainly be giving you my opinion. I suppose I do that anyway, but let’s talk sound effects today anyway!
In reply, I would give these two lists of the most obscure and least obscure SW sound effects. I am making an educated guess on these, pretty much using my experiences with people as a guideline. On the most fundamental level, I figure, “If my sister could identify this sound as being from Star Wars, it’s not obscure.” And then I ask myself, “If my roommate would hesitate before saying, ‘That’s a sound from Star Wars,’ then that’s pretty obscure.” So, voila! I give you my lists.
The Top 5 Most Obscure Star Wars Sounds According to the Star Wars Librarian
- The sound the lighted lap indicators make when the podracers finish a loop
- The sounds made by the mynock latching to the Falcon
- The “power-off” sound the tractor beam control center makes when Obi-Wan shuts it down
- The sound Luke’s lightsaber makes when he tries to pull it out of the snowbank using the Force
- The hum of ray shields
The Top 5 Least Obscure Star Wars Sounds According to the Star Wars Librarian
- Darth Vader breathing
- A lightsaber igniting
- A lightsaber being on
- A lightsaber shutting off
- R2-D2 squealing/chirping/beeping
If you consider that counting the three lightsaber sounds separately is cheating, I will give you two additional sounds: 4) TIE fighters, 5) Chewbacca speaking.
As a bonus, I will also give you my two favorite sounds in all of the Star Wars universe: 1) Seismic charges. *click* *silence* *SPANG* 2) The EMP fields generated by the electrostaves carried by Grevious’ MagnaGuards.
Finally, just to make Fun Friday really fun an interesting, here is a supercut from Cinexcellence featuring just about every Wilhelm scream in cinematic history. This is related because Ben Burtt (a recognized genius whom I will one day quote at great length about sound effects) is the one who brought it out of cinematic obscurity for SW. Warning . . . well, it’s 12 minutes long and your brain will probably turn to mush from hearing “ugh-ahhh!” so many times in a row. Also, because it features people screaming, it does feature violence. However, because it’s a Wilhelm scream, the violence can’t be taken too seriously. Anyway, you’ve been warned. Enjoy!
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