There is no doubt that Star Wars It is one of the most successful sagas in the history of cinema. He revolutionized the cinema with its special effects and created, with the attractiveness of its vast universe, a community of fans that, almost 50 years after the premiere of the first film, continue to go mass to each event and each new installment of The Galaxies War.
But what was the secret of success? Whoever thinks that the great reception that films had was only merit of the (undoubted) visionary genius of George Lucascould fall into the error of underestimating other facets of the film that were equally revolutionary at the time. One of them is precisely its sound.
A spacecraft starting the flight, some metal gates opening, the breath of Darth Vaderthe death star jumping through the air, a shot, an alien cry or even the individual speaks of robots as R2-D2. Laser shots, for example, were recorded hitting a steel cable taking advantage of the fact that this material dispersed the waves in such a peculiar way in which serious and acute mixed almost at the same time.
“There is no doubt that the sound was 50% of the film,” says JW Rinzler, author of a book in which each of the details of the sound world of George Lucas, explains, Sounds of Star Wars. “He needed someone equally visionary in the sound section To imagine how all those fantastic things that he had in mind would sound. ”It was there that Ben Burtt appeared, the father of all the sound of the movie. Without going any further, Burtt designed the ewokésthe language of Chewbacca, inspired by a Mongolian language.
Many were the innovative sound creations of Star Wars, but perhaps the most emblematic of the saga is the noise of the laser swords. The peculiar buzzing of these weapons when activating and moving to be part of the collective imaginary of the spectators of George Lucas’s films, to the point that actors such as The Qui-Gon Jinn) is the Myden Skydenten. They have confessed that they made them repeat the combat scenes with these sabers because, unconsciously, they made this sound with their mouth.
The fact is that, to achieve this effect, Ben Burtt was inspired by the work he had had during his years at the university as a projectionist. He used, neither more nor less, the sound of a film projector, which he mixed with the one who made a tube television that he had at home. Thus the saber played at rest. For the movement, however, he used The movement of a microphone in front of a speaker to which it was connected. Depending on whether he approached or away, the sound of the waves was transformed, which is why the movement of the jedi to fight so that the sound was as realistic as possible.
It was only two years that Burtt had graduated from university, but his brilliant work served him to have all science fiction film producers want to count on him. In addition, his contribution would also be worth it to appear as an actor in the sequels of Star Warsin THE RETURN OF THE JEDI as the imperial officer Colonel Dyer and in The ghost threat like Ebenn Q3 Baobab.
